One week after the Senate held a symbolic vote in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline, the U.S. saw two different oil spills involving Canadian tar sands crude oil.

An ExxonMobil pipeline ruptured Friday, leaking approximately 10,000 barrels of tar sands crude in an Arkansas town. As a result, 22 homes have been evacuated as officials clean up of the world’s dirtiest oil:

Exxon shut the Pegasus pipeline, which can carry more than 90,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from Pakota, Illinois, to Nederland, Texas, after the leak was discovered on Friday afternoon, the company said in a statement.

The Keystone XL pipeline would carry almost nine times the barrels of oil as the Pegasus pipeline.

The first oil spill came Wednesday, when a train reportedly carrying tar sands oil spilled 15,000 gallons in Minnesota. Also this week, Exxon was hit by a $1.7 million fine for a pipeline that dumped 42,000 gallons of oil in the Yellowstone River in 2011 (the fine itself is a small hinderance for a company that earned $45 billion profit last year).

As one of the companies to profit from Canadian tar sands, Exxon often takes to its blog to defend its so-called safety. Big Oil lawmakers then repeat those myths despite evidence to the contrary. On Friday, the same day as Exxon’s oil spill, Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) claimed the pipeline is a “no-brainer” and passes environmental “muster.” The State Department recently issued a draft report claiming the pipeline will have no environmental impact, authored by a contractor with extensive ties to oil companies.

(Photo credit: AP)

By Bill Becker

Would the Keystone XL pipeline make America more secure or less? What contribution would it make, if any, to stabilizing our energy supplies or keeping us out of messes elsewhere in the world? Would it have an adverse impact on global climate disruption, or no impact at all? Informed people want to know.

Unfortunately, some of the pipeline’s supporters are fogging up the issue with deceptive numbers and claims, including vastly inflated job estimates and assurances that the pipeline would make America more secure.

The State Department and Cornell University, among others, have deflated the job claims. But will Canada’s carbon-intensive tar sands oil increase America’s security?

Not according to the people who know security best, including high-ranking retired American military leaders who are no longer gagged by their uniforms.

Among those invoking national security are 14 Republicans from the House of Representatives who wrote to President Obama to argue that his rejection of the project would raise “dire national security concerns” by prolonging our dependence on oil from countries like Venezuela.

A study commissioned by the company that wants to build the pipeline — TransCanada Corp. — makes a similar statement, concluding that the pipeline would give America greater energy independence with more oil from a neighbor who’s friendlier than Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute, argues that building the pipeline will show the world that the United States is “serious about securing its energy future.”

They are wrong. There is only one certain way for the United States to achieve sustained national and domestic security related to energy. Rather than increasing our supplies of fossil fuels, we have to begin leaving them in the ground. It makes no difference what country they come from.

Listen to Army Brig. Gen. Steven M. Anderson, who oversaw logistics for allied troops in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. In an interview last December, he said, “all Americans should be outraged” about the national security liabilities of the Keystone project because it “keeps us hopelessly addicted to oil.” He continued:

I want to stop paying big oil and I want to start seeing a green economy in this nation. And big oil is pushing Keystone, and Keystone is essentially going to maintain the status quo for another 25 years. And during that time I can only imagine the impact it’s going to have on our environment and, indeed, our national security.

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By Michael Northrup, via Huffington Post (emphasis added)

Another thing about the Keystone XL pipeline: It will result in only 35 permanent jobs. – Ed.

So, why do we want President Barack Obama and Secretary John Kerry to approve construction of the Keystone pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico?

• Because it will allow Canada to double and then triple production of tar sands and send it to thirsty Asian consumers.

• Because it will encourage Wall Street to increase investment in tar sands mining; they’re worried now that increased amounts of tar sands can’t get out of Canada without more pipeline capacity. All the other new pipeline routes are currently being blocked by citizen campaigns in Canada and the U.S.

• Because, if we wait too much longer, Americans will realize this has nothing to do with U.S. energy security. In reality, only a small portion will be used in the United States. Oil companies can get a higher price for these fuels in Asia.

• Because it will allow Canada to say once and for all that it is no longer possible for their country to commit to a national greenhouse gas reduction target.

• Because it will create a strong incentive for Canada to continue obstructing international climate negotiations. Canada definitely doesn’t want to look like a laggard if others are moving forward. Far better to continue slowing the international process as it has been doing the last eight years.

• Because it will embolden Canadian oil industry and government representatives to continue interfering with American clean energy policymaking that offers incentives for cleaner fuels and vehicles.

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Cross-posted from Huffington Post

Given the relentless “all of the above” energy strategy pursued by the Obama Administration, the release this past Friday of a positive environmental impact report for the proposed Keystone oil pipeline was no big surprise. The U.S. State Department essentially declared that since the extra-dirty tar sands oil designated for the pipeline was going to be shipped and burned one way or another, building the pipeline down from Canada to Gulf coast refineries would not have that much impact on the environment — despite warnings from climate scientists that burning all the tar sands oil would be “game over” in the fight to stop climate change.

This conclusion by the State Department was a laughable bit of self-fulfilling logic. But perhaps the biggest surprise in the report was the tacit admission that the tar sands oil isn’t going to be burned in the U.S. at all. Instead, it is destined for refining and export overseas.

The State Department report details how Gulf Coast oil refineries will use the tar sands crude oil delivered by Keystone to replace supplies from Venezuela and Mexico, refine the crude into high-end products like gasoline, and then export the refined fuel overseas. Meanwhile, as if to add insult to injury, fuel prices paid by U.S. consumers in the Midwest are expected to jump as the pipeline will siphon off crude oil supplies that are currently landlocked in America. The U.S. State Department did not, of course, highlight these findings at the top of its report but instead buried them down in the “market analysis” section, where it left a clear trail of breadcrumbs.

Interestingly, the State Department went way out of its way to argue that the pipeline won’t be used to export unprocessed crude oil. (Though the industry clearly expects otherwise: see here.) Yet at the same time, the State Department admits, using painstakingly disconnected phrasing, that the crude oil delivered by the pipeline will be processed by Gulf coast refineries and then exported, in a shell game whereby export refineries replace declining crude oil supplies from Venezuela and Mexico with Keystone Canadian tar sands oil.

Regarding the pipeline’s impact on the export of refined crude, the State Department report says: “…future refined product export trends are also unlikely to be significantly impacted by the proposed Project.”

And what exactly are those trends? The State Department reports that: “In 2005, exports began increasing… Export volumes have increased to over [3 million barrels of oil per day] in the first half of 2012. This increased volume of refined products is being exported by refiners as they respond to lower domestic gasoline demand and continued higher demand and prices in overseas markets.”

And why use the extra dirty crude oil to be delivered by the Keystone Pipeline? The State Department says: “Gulf Coast refiners’ traditional sources of heavy crudes, particularly Mexico and Venezuela, are declining and are expected to continue to decline. This results in an outlook where the refiners have significant incentive to obtain heavy crude from the oil sands.”

And there you have it, a shell game, with Keystone as the lynchpin for the whole effort. Gas prices go up for Midwesterners, big oil refineries profit from the overseas export of fuel processed from dirty tar sands oil, and the rest of us are that much further in the hole in our fight to stop climate change. The environmental impact statement appears to be a clear signal that the Obama Administration is headed down the road to approval. However, the growing backlash against the pipeline creates a headache for the president who just made a very public commitment to protect the climate. A fight is clearly in the works.

– Hunter Cutting is a consultant and writer.

By Jim Meyer via Grist

Ever wonder about the future of energy? Will it be wind? Solar? Geothermal? No wait, I got it, tar sands! (Let’s try that again — tar sands!) They’ve got everything oil does, but they’re harder to get, crappier when you get them, and leave a much bigger mark on the climate. Sounds like a winner. Let’s look a little closer, shall we?

First off, what are tar sands? Tar sands are deposits of about 90 percent sand or sandstone, water, and clay mixed with only about 10 percent high-sulfur bitumen, a viscous black petroleum sludge rich in hydrocarbons, also known as “natural asphalt.”

The Athabasca reserves, in Alberta, Canada, estimated to hold about 170 billion barrels, are the site of the only commercial tar-sands operation in the world. (Though, spoiler alert, that’s about to change.) It’s one of the largest industrial programs on the planet and could eventually cover an area larger than the state of Florida — and it’s sprouting an enormous oily ganglion known as the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if completed, would pump 1.1 million barrels ofbitumen sludge a day, crisscrossing much of the continent’s freshwater supply, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Sound like a complicated way to create oil, gasoline, and diesel? Naw. Ain’t no thing. Just follow these simple instructions:

1. Change the name from tar sands to oil sands. Even though there’s no actual oil in them, you’re already that much closer to that sweet Texas Tea. I mean, tar is the reason we don’t have mastodons. Nobody wants tar. But everybody wants oil — we put it in our cars and on our salads!

2. Clear-cut all that unsightly boreal forest. This, admittedly, can be a bit of a bear — or, more likely, lots of bears, and lynxes, and trees, and anything else that creeps, crawls, grows, or flies, and, in the name of tar sands, will also need to die.

3. Get yourself some massive excavators, the biggest moveable objects on the planet, each capable of gouging out 16,000 cubic meters of earth an hour, and set about ripping pits into the planet 15 stories deep. Use the excavators to fill enormous dump trucks, 22 feet high and nearly 50 feet long, and capable of hauling 400 tons a load — which is good, because we’re far from done, and it takes a lot of sand to make a little oil.

4. To extract the bitumen from the sands, you’ll need to crush the sands with enormous machines creatively known as crushers. Mix the crushed sands with hot water to form a slurry, then agitate the slurry (interestingly, also a major step in most British cooking) so the bitumen sludge can be scooped out. The stuff is still too thick to transport, though, so you’ll need to cut it with solvents so it can be shipped via pipeline for processing.

5. Now you’re ready to get started! Of course you’ve got a problem. Somebody added solvents to our tar, so here comes the hydro-treating that removes the solvents, along with as much nitrogen, sulfur, and other metals as we can get out. The process uses a lot of water and energy in the form of natural gas and oil. (Hey, what are we trying to make again?) Next, heat it again to remove carbon and add hydrogen as part of the upgrading process to make this sludge useful.

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The general scientific consensus is that the average global temperature cannot be allowed to warm more than two degrees Celsius [3.6°F] in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. In fact, a two degree rise alone would threaten the water supplies of hundreds of millions of people, lead to global crop declines, bleach coral reefs around the world, and drive up ocean acidification.

Limiting global emissions between 2010 and 2050 to 1,050 gigatons of CO2-equivalent pollution should give us a 75 percent chance of staying under a two degree rise, according to a new report from Ecofys and Greenpeace, which rounded up 14 “carbon bombs” — the biggest coal, oil and natural gas projects currently being planned around the world.

According to the analysis, the combined effect of these projects alone would dump 300 new gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere by 2050. That would blow through roughly a third of the allowance that gives us a 75 percent chance of staying under two degrees. Needless to say, if these projects were carried out, it would make it vastly more difficult for the planet to stay on a path that keeps it under the two degree threshold.

Two of the projects can be found in the United States, and a third is deeply bound up with rapidly approaching U.S. policy choices:

• A plan to export new coal from the Pacific Northwest. This would add 420 million tons of carbon a year by 2020. Activists and even some American politicians have already been battling the project for some time.
• Expanded shale gas production. This will add 280 million tons a year by 2020 according to the report. But as David Roberts points out, this estimate relies on the assumption that natural gas fields leak methane at a rate of 3.9 percent. There’s evidence that assumption significantly low-balls the problem.
• Tar sands in Canada. This project would be greatly helped along by construction of the Keystone XL pipeline through the lower-48 states. The Obama Administration will decide whether to approve the pipeline sometime after March.

Here’s a map of the offenders, put together by The Washington Post‘s Brad Plumer from the report. (Click the image for a larger version.)

The two biggest offenders in the report were China’s plan to ramp up new coal production, creating an additional 1,400 megatons of CO2 emissions a year, and Australia’s plan to export 760 new megatons of coal per year. Ironically, both countries were hit by the effects of coal pollution over the course of 2012. Particulate pollution in Beijing literally broke the relevant measuring scales, and Australia was wracked by a record-breaking heat wave and a rash of wildfires, all linked to global warming.

There is some good news in the caveats, as Plumer notes. The energy produced by these projects won’t necessarily add on linearly to each other, or to the energy already being produced by fossil fuels. Natural gas from one project could undercut the need for coal from another project, for instance. Or it could displace coal consumption already occurring — a net reduction in carbon output, in the latter instance. (Of course, these projects could also displace energy being produced from renewables. A problem, to put it mildly.)

Even after causing more than a dozen spills in 2011 from its newest tar sands pipeline — including a six story “geyser” of crude — Canadian energy developer TransCanada claimed its planned Keystone XL pipeline would “exceed” safety standards.

But according to a new investigation of TransCanada’s development plans, the company does not plan to use advanced spill prevention technologies on a section of pipeline that would cross an underground reservoir providing nearly 30 percent of America’s irrigation water.

InsideClimate News reported this week that TransCanada would only use standard leak detection technologies across a 19-mile stretch of the pristine Ogallala Aquifer, making bigger leaks more likely:

The leak detection technology that will be used on the Keystone XL, for instance, is standard for the nation’s crude oil pipelines and rarely detects leaks smaller than 1 percent of the pipeline’s flow. The Keystone will have a capacity of 29 million gallons per day—so a spill would have to reach 294,000 gallons per day to trigger its leak detection technology.

The Keystone XL also won’t get two other safeguards found on the 19-mile stretch of the pipeline over Austin’s aquifer: a concrete cap that protects the Longhorn from construction-related punctures, and daily aerial or foot patrols to check for tiny spills that might seep to the surface.

Experts interviewed by InsideClimate News estimate it would cost less than $10 million—roughly 0.2 percent of the Keystone’s $5.3 billion budget—to add external sensor cables, a concrete cap and extra patrols to the 20 miles of the pipeline in Nebraska where a spill would be most disastrous. The water table in that area lies less than 20 feet below the surface and provides ranchers with a steady supply of fresh water.

Keystone XL is a proposed 1,200 mile pipeline that would carry tar sands crude from Alberta, Canada to refineries in the Gulf Coast for sale into the global market. The pipeline has been a central target of environmental groups because of concerns about its impact on local water quality and contribution to global warming.

Tar sands crude requires an enormous amount of energy and water to mine and process — making it up to 80 percent more carbon-intensive than conventional crude. NASA climatologist James Hansen calls development of tar sands “game over” for the climate.

Local worries about the impact of a tar sands oil spill have also sparked a movement in Nebraska banding environmentalists, farmers, and other landowners together in an effort to stop the project:

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by Carol Linnitt, via DeSmogBlog

A pipeline safety review conducted by the Alberta government last summer was done with the oil and gas industry’s interests in mind, according to recent documents released to Greenpeace through Freedom of Information legislation. The documents (PDF) show the review, commissioned after a series of back-to-back pipeline incidents across Alberta raised public concern, was coordinated internally between government and industry, and appears to have required industry consent.

Greenpeace campaigner Keith Stewart told the Canadian Press “there’s a difference between talking to industry and asking for their approval.”

Private communications suggest government officials worked behind the scenes to develop a review plan that would please industry.

“It looks like industry got to write the terms for this review,” said Stewart.

The review was commissioned by the Alberta government after a collective of more than 50 prominent environmental, land rights, First Nations and union representatives called upon Premier Alison Redford to initiate an independent review of the province’s pipeline safety. The groups, including the Alberta Surface Rights Group, The Council of Canadians, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace Canada also launched an anonymous oil spill tipline, urging individuals to make rupture and spill information public. The Alberta government does not make such information available on a public database.

Between May and June the pipeline industry suffered three major incidents in Alberta. The first saw 3.5 million liters of oil leaked into muskeg near Rainbow Lake. In June, a tributary of Red Deer River, which provides drinking water to many Albertan communities, was flooded with 475,000 liters of oil from an unused pipeline. Not two weeks later, more than 230,000 liters were spilled from a leaking line near Elk Lake.

In July, Energy Minister Ken Hughes announced a review of the province’s pipeline infrastructure safety would be conducted by a third party contracted by the provincial regulator, the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB).

However, documents show high-profile meetings took place with major industry players before the minister’s announcement.

Emails show Minister Hughes invited 14 pipeline CEOs, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Canada’s most powerful oil and gas industry lobby group, and the Small Producers and Explorers Association of Canada.

His invitation read: “As you know, the industry operates under world-leading regulatory regime, and has a strong and improving safety record. Some recent incidents and ongoing media attention about energy and environmental issues have given us all the opportunity to reflect not just on how we ensure safety, but also on how we communicate our safety commitment. With this in mind, I would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you.”

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A bizarre headline, I know. But even stranger is that someone actually made that comparison.

Speaking about China’s demand for Canadian tar sands at a conference in Beijing earlier this month, a Chinese energy researcher compared unused tar sands to “unmarried single women.”

“It’s the same situation as the leftover single women. … It will be the same for the oil sands, they will be outdated just like unmarried single women,” said Chen Weidong, a chief energy researcher at the CNOOC Energy Economics Institute.

That sparked a new piece of satire from the folks at Deep Rogue Ram, the creative group behind the rogue weathergirl series. One of the people who produced the video, Heather Libby, also wrote another great skit comparing the Keystone XL pipeline to an annoying ex-boyfriend who won’t take “no” for an answer.

Watch the Tar Sands Love Line:

by Tom Kenworthy

The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has completed its final environmental review of the amount of federal land designated for research and development of oil shale and tar sands in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.

The final programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) published late last week would make almost 700,000 acres in the three states available for research and development of oil shale, and another 130,000 acres in Utah available for potential leasing and development of tar sands.

That is a significant reduction from actions taken in the final days of the Bush administration that would have expedited commercial development for oil shale on nearly 2 million acres in the three states. But it is more expansive than the Obama administration’s draft environmental review completed last February, which allocated about 462,000 acres for oil shale and 91,000 acres for tar sands.

Sometimes confused with shale oil – actual crude oil trapped in sedimentary rock – oil shale is a rock that contains kerogen, an organic material produces hydrocarbons when heated at high temperatures. Tar sands are sedimentary deposits that contain bitumen, a hydrocarbon that can be refined into oil. They are one of the dirtiest and most environmentally destructive fossil fuels.

The BLM’s plan, which Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) said was a more “measured” approach to providing land for these resources, excludes environmentally sensitive areas, including those with wilderness characteristics and habitat for sage grouse.

The BLM directive would first open lands for what are known as research, demonstration and development leases and set certain requirements before they could become full commercial development leases.

David Abelson, who works on oil shale issues for Western Resource Advocates, told E&E the decision is “mixed” – requiring research before commercial development, but still opening vast tracts of federal lands for potential development.

And if one takes the International Energy Agency’s new World Energy Outlook seriously, developing these extremely dirty resources at all is a poor use of land. According to the IEA, we need to keep two thirds of fossil fuel resources in the ground in order to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees C.

The local environmental impact is also substantial. Oil shale is a longstanding pipe dream of western energy developers, who despite considerable effort, have yet to prove it is commercially viable. According to a Government Accounting Office study and other reports, production could severely stress western water supplies already strained by population growth and climate change. In addition, a recent report by Western Resource Advocates predicts that development of oil shale would exacerbate air pollution problems in the West.

Tom Kenworthy is a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress Action Fund