Climate Impacts from the Keystone XL Pipeline

[wtmusic]

How a pipeline can make or break a market.

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"The pipeline’s effect on prices and market expectations would prompt a significant expansion of tar sands production. This can be seen, in part, by the current effect the absence of the pipeline is having. The lack of capacity to move tar sands oil from Alberta to other markets has significantly reduced tar sands prices relative to similar international crudes, at times bringing them to below $50 a barrel. These low prices are diminishing investment in new tar sands expansion projects.

What is even more compelling are the words of the tar sands industry and financial community who acknowledge that Keystone XL in particular – more than any other pipeline – critical to enabling rapid expansion of tar sands production. Other proposed tar sands pipelines have not reduced the central role Keystone XL plays in unlocking future tar sands production. In fact, there is clear evidence from the past year that Keystone XL has already affected production.

Expanding the exploitation of tar sands would significantly undermine efforts to reduce carbon pollution. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook includes scenarios with different levels of Canadian tar sands production in 2035. In the scenario that keeps atmospheric carbon at 450 parts per million (which results in a 50 percent chance of keeping the average global temperature below the 2 degree C threshold), tar sands production is 3.3 million barrels a day. The scenario with production at 4.6 million barrels a day -- still below industry’s 2030 goal -- estimates that global temperature will rise by 6 degrees Celsius with catastrophic results."

http://theenergycollective.com/danielle-droitsch/186966/just-facts-climate-impacts-keystone-xl-tar-sands-pipeline?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=The+Energy+Collective+%28all+posts%29

[newfie11]

1. OMG this pipe line is the equivalent to opening pandora box

It is only the beginning. I thought fracking was horrible but tar sand oil is a whole new disaster. Fracking is a walk in the park compared to tar sand sights being opened!!