Should Obama approve the Keystone XL pipeline?

Most plastics are still oil based right? As long as that continues oil is way to valuable to completely go obsolete. Probably would be much better off stopping using it a fuel so it can be saved for more practical applications in the long run.

Using it as a fuel is a practical application. Everyone who drives to work is turning oil into economic productivity. A portion of that economic activity is reinvested into societal progress; moreso if the job has positive externalities. A larger portion of that economic activity is re-invested in either human comfort (which is actually a good thing) or wasted. And, honestly, we waste a lot of plastic.
 
I'm really not optimistic on battery technology, efficiency, and environmental impact improving enough for battery-powered cars to be a better long-term goal than storing energy in hydrogen or synthetic fuel with nuclear/renewable energy sources.

Sure, Hydrogen is the ultimate goal. But we have to implement partial solutions along the way. Electric, hybrid, LNG - these are all incremental steps, and should be implemented in the meantime.
 
I don't think any sane republican opposes alternative energy, they just want the free market to drive research rather than government subsidies.

I don't understand why we aren't doing more with natural gas. We have craploads of it in the us and it's cheap. You can't make a car run on the stuff? You can't make power plants that use it? It was definitely a sim city option, coal, oil, nuclear or gas!
 
The specific problem with alternative energy and "letting the market decide" is that every indicator shows that 'the market' intends to under-invest in alternatives until it's too late. There's a concerted effort to create both a basal knowledge 'base' to build off of, as well as the creation of micro-experiments to see if the problem can be pre-empted.
 


http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/MT_electric.cfm

Gas is the fastest growing source of electric generation. But there are some bottlenecks in distribution. New pipelines take government interference in the marketplace.

As to vehicle use of gas, the problem is again distribution, both on the wholesale and retail end. It is not efficient to use a gas vehicle unless that vehicle can be refueled at the same place every night. So while we could use a lot more of it, there's a big infrastructure investment needed before we do, and it would not entirely displace oil.
 
I don't understand why we aren't doing more with natural gas. We have craploads of it in the us and it's cheap. You can't make a car run on the stuff? You can't make power plants that use it? It was definitely a sim city option, coal, oil, nuclear or gas!
We are in the process of switching a lot of baseload power to natural gas, actually. And the are lots of fleet vehicles that run on it. The current bottleneck is distribution infrastructure. Within a few years I expect to see LNG pumps colocated with rest areas on the interstates.

But natural gas is still a co2 emitter. Not anywhere as bad as coal, but it's not 'clean' in that sense. However it's far preferable to coal. Just about anything, actually.
 
They have proposed a bike path along the pipeline. That ought to cause the Teahadists to line up against it.
 
The White House has finally spoken:

Kerry rejects Keystone XL pipeline, spelling certain death for project

PM Harper previously approved the Northern Gateway pipeline so that will be built (unless new PM Trudeau kills it).

Will western Canadian tar sands oil continue to be produced, and if not transported via a pipeline, then via road or railway? Probably so.

I think that killing this pipeline is a mistake.
The tar sands will still be drilled.
Transport via means other than a pipeline is "dirtier" and more dangerous.
The pipeline helps promote a long term supply of oil for the US (not just for gasoline but also for all the other things that petroleum is used for).
 
'“For years, the Keystone pipeline has occupied what I frankly consider an over-inflated role in our political discourse,” President Obama said. “It became a symbol too often used as a campaign cudgel by both parties rather than a serious policy matter. And all of this obscured the fact that this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others.”'
 
We wait 15 months and the next President approves the pipeline.

J

What makes you think Clinton would approve it?

Sorry, I know you just refuse to acknowledge that Clinton is the odds on favorite to be the next president, but when you toss these "I ignore reality" softballs someone is going to hammer them. May as well be me.
 
As to vehicle use of gas, the problem is again distribution, both on the wholesale and retail end. It is not efficient to use a gas vehicle unless that vehicle can be refueled at the same place every night. So while we could use a lot more of it, there's a big infrastructure investment needed before we do, and it would not entirely displace oil.

I do not know what the US is doing wrong, but it was no problem finding refueling options for gas vehicles in Germany more than a decade ago. And since then the situation has improved even further.
 
I don't think any sane republican opposes alternative energy, they just want the free market to drive research rather than government subsidies.

I don't understand why we aren't doing more with natural gas. We have craploads of it in the us and it's cheap. You can't make a car run on the stuff? You can't make power plants that use it? It was definitely a sim city option, coal, oil, nuclear or gas!

It is more than that. Converting shale and coal to gas is also blocked.

J
 
Who are these people who keep thinking the only way towards energy independence is increasing reliance on dirtier fossil fuels that are from a foreign country?
 
Who are these people who keep thinking the only way towards energy independence is increasing reliance on dirtier fossil fuels that are from a foreign country?

At least it would be a short drive this time, if that foreign country decided to need freedom and democracy.
 
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