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Obama to get do-over on Keystone pipeline
By Stephen Dinan

The Canadian company seeking to build the massive Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline through the U.S. reapplied for a permit on Friday, pushing the politically sensitive issue back onto President Obama’s plate six months before the election.

TransCanada announced it has asked for permits to build the pipeline into Nebraska, and will eventually submit a new route skirting environmentally sensitive lands in Nebraska — the sticking point that caused the Obama administration to reject its previous application.

In a statement, TransCanada President Russ Girling made it clear he was appealing to Mr. Obama’s own stated goals of boosting American energy supplies. He also said the thousands of pages of environmental reviews already completed for the earlier application should convince the president to speed this new permit along.

“The multibillion-dollar Keystone XL pipeline project will reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign oil and support job growth by putting thousands of Americans to work,” Mr. Girling said.

But the Obama administration, facing intense pressure from congressional Republicans and leading business groups to approve the plan, has already signaled it would likely delay a decision until next year.

The State Department last year tried to put off a decision about TransCanada’s first application until after the election, arguing it needed more time to study the issue. That move delighted the president’s environmental allies who fear a future catastrophe, but angered many of his labor union supporters, who say the pipeline will produce jobs.

Congress then passed a bill requiring the president to expedite his decision, and faced with the tighter deadline the State Department ruled against the application.

Now, Republicans said Mr. Obama has a do-over.

“Today there is just one person standing in the way of tens of thousands of new American jobs: President Obama,” said House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. “After nearly four years of review, delay and politics, he is out of excuses for blocking this job-creating energy project any longer. Every state along the proposed route supports the pipeline, and its builder has jumped through every bureaucratic hoop.”

Nebraska officials were split on the earlier pipeline route, but have reportedly come to an understanding over a new route to the east of the sensitive Ogalallah Aquifer.

The State Department, which has a role in the approval process because the pipeline would cross the U.S.-Canada border, said in a statement that it had received the application and would put it through “a rigorous, transparent and thorough review.”

The planned pipeline would carry oil from Canada’s tar sands into the U.S. for refining and shipment.

Mr. Obama earlier this year said he would try to speed some parts of a pipeline that runs from Oklahoma to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. That move could help reduce a glut of oil awaiting refining in the center of the country, but would not bring new supplies onto the market, energy analysts said. Those analysts also said Mr. Obama’s move wouldn’t actually speed up that process, since that portion of the pipeline was scheduled to begin construction this summer already.

Since the article is highly political in it's topic, I'm not sure I should post this one or not. Other than a few side references, the comments I have are not political in nature.

There's a lot of stink over this pipeline and if it should be built. Again, as in many controversial topics, much isn't being said here.

Let me start out with the tar sands oil. Tar sand oil isn't like what you would get out of a normal well. Tar and asphalt are the final products you get out of the cracking tower that does the split up of various grades of oil, from lighter fluid, through gasoline and kerosene, right on down to the end products that are less valuable per volume than the lighter components that come off at the start.

It's thick, it's heavy, and it doesn't flow easily. It needs either heat or chemical to make it move. That in itself isn't that big a thing as many other products face the same sort of issues, such as sulfur mining where if the sulfur becomes cool, it solidifies into something resembling yellow concrete. The point is that industry deals with it.

Because it has the possibility of stopping up the pipeline on it's journey, it also has the possibility of creating an environmental problem if the pipeline ever has to be broken to fix this internal issue.

Then there is the sand part of tar sands. Sand comes out fairly easily in regular oil. You heat it, give it some temperature to thin the oil, water and sand drop right out. In viscous liquids it doesn't work that way. It's rather hard to separate them both and do it on and industrial scale. What you wind up with is a substance that still has a lot of sand in it. When you put sand in a pipeline, it's like putting sandpaper in it. It starts thinning out the sides of the pipe, the internal seals on valves, anything inside gets slow blasted. At some point several years down the line, the pipeline springs a leak with much of the rest of it in the same condition for miles if not longer. But pipeline joints, where the direction of flow changes will receive the worst wear first. Many such pipelines require a sort of blast barrier in a special joint to extend the life of the joint.

But we haven't addressed this jobs issue either. Only where the politicians get paid to try and pass some law does jobs ever seem to come into the picture unless it is on the political gamemanship playacting. But when it comes down to earning the money by getting some law passed suddenly it's jobs.

The first point in this I would make is that we no longer do pipelines like the Panama Canal was dug. It's no longer people on shovels getting the job done. Once the job is over, the people move on to the next mile, everyone leaves but the clean up crew and the project marches on. Some old fine day they reach the end of the line, no more pipeline to be laid. Those jobs vanish, they evaporate, they weren't really long term. With the end of the line, goes the truckers bring in the steel piping, the welders, the survey crews to lay out direction, the fitters, the crane crew, the cooking crew, the construction office; you get the picture.

Much has been mentioned about how this will benefit the US in refining jobs but it won't really. Lots of refining today is automated. What used to take 20 people is now handled by one. Nor do I believe that we will actually set up the refining process to do much beyond making it shippable to haul some where else for final processing. One of our big hold backs, is environmental laws. They will go else where, where it isn't as costly, when the inevitable pollution occurs.

Much isn't as it is being painted in this deal. Then that shouldn't be a surprise given the way Washington works.

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