I doubt the Keystone project is even a real long term goal by TransCanada,. Certainly in the big picture Keystone is only a single chapter in a much larger book. If you read this diary you will risk information overload, you will be offered numerous disparate data points that at first glance may seem unconnected. You will need to digest all the information offered, and then analyze.
Crude is is classified by the American Petroleum Institute (API) into light, medium, heavy and extra heavy crudes, by API gravity. If its API gravity is greater than 10, it is lighter and floats on water; if less than 10, it is heavier and sinks. The Albert Tar Sands contain crudes of API 10 or less that is called Extra heavy or Bitumen. Heavy oil is defined as having an API gravity below 22.3, Medium oil is defined as having an API gravity between 22.3 °API and 31.1 °API, Light crude oil is defined as having an API gravity higher than 31.1.
API info from API wiki
At a production rate of 3 million barells a day the tar sands can last for 170 years. This would also mean a hole in the ground visible from orbit.
The Keystone pipeline is only one of a couple of handfuls of pipeline proposals over the last decade in the Western US, Canada and Alaska.
Alaskan nat gas is largely unexploited, and is used locally on the North Slope. Its estimated that 70 trillion cubic feet of nat gas can be found in Alaska, a lot of it in the North Slope area. There are at least 3 major proposals for nat gas pipelines from the North Slope area and the adjacent Mackenzie River Delta in Canada. 2 of these projects point right at Alberta.
TransCanada and Exxon Mobil are partnered in the Alaska gas pipeline proposal that will directly link nat gas production in the North Slope of ALaska thru Alberta to the US mid west. This project may be the same as the Denali proposal, and was reintroduced to the Senate in Feb, of 2011. There also at least 2 variations. Additionally there is the Dempster Lateral.
The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline has had many lives since first proposed in the 1970's and would move nat gas from offshore production in the Beaufort Sea to Alberta.
Alaskan Hiway route and the Mackenzie River route.
This shows the Dempster Lateral route.
2 more variations from the basic "Hiway Route.
Third is a project that follows the TAP, Trans Alaskan Pipeline,putting a nat gas pipeline next to the Alaskan oil pipeline, from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. This project would allow Alaskan nat gas to be moved to international markets, by passing the tar sands.
A nat gas pipeline that follows the TAP.
Aerial view of the Mackenzie River Delta, showing off the natural pristine beauty of the area.
All of the above pipeline proposals are for nat gas, and indicate the importance of the untapped reserves known in Alaska and the Beaufort Sea area in general. Now Lets take a look at the Keystone proposal:
Keystone, showing the tar sands in brown.
The stated purpose of the Keystone pipeline is to move 900 million barrels a day of bitumen from Alberta to Texas, specifically Houston and Port Arthur. In order to move bitumen thru a pipeline it must be heated or diluted with light grad crudes.
Heavy crudes require processing before being run thru a refinery, the long chain hydrocarbon molecules of heavier crudes must be "cracked", broken down to shorter chains before processing in a refinery.
Most Texas refineries dont need catalytic crackers because Texas produces some of the best domestic oil and is of sufficient quality as to preclude the use of catalytic crackers. Most other refineries in the US have significant cracker capacity, and If memory serves me correct the Texas region (PADIII) has the lowest cracker capacity in the US. Texas itself has about 1,8mbd (million barrels a day) of cracker capacity.
So lets review, TransCanada wants to deliver 900mbd of bitumen to Texas, but Texas really can't handle bitumen, and its existing refineries are geared to handling the light crudes produced in the area. If Texas is to take on the 900mbd, its going to have to examine building 900mbd of cracker and refinery capacity. Or... what if TransCanda simply builds the crackers on site in the tar sands area?
If TransCanada wished to market their oil internationally, cracking it, processing it into a synthetic crude product would offer customers a very desirable product. And would it be more expensive operate a Keystone bitumen pipeline for ... oh 50 to 100 years, than operating a regular oil pipeline?
What if TransCanada built a pipeline due west thru British Columbia to the Pacific Ocean? This would provide a direct route for TransCanada to sell either bitumen or syncrude on the international market. ANd if the Keystone pipeline didn't get built for some reason, this western route would make a great plan B.
Well its not a what if, its called the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Proposal, and it is 2 pipelines, one moves nat gas to Alberta, and the other moves crude to the proposed terminal at Kitimat, British Columbia.
TransCanada wants to move bitumen to Texas and to British Columbia, and frankly when you have the largest oil deposit, even larger than the 100+ mile long Gahwar oil field in Saudi Arabia, in the world, its in your interest to explore the possibilities in an effort to get your product to market. And the upgrading of the bitumen into synthetic crude, or syncrude is also becoming a popular option. Syncrude Canada is the largest producer in the Alberta tar sands.
Its a lovely picture, pipelines all over Western Canada and Alaska, to Chicago, Houston and Port Arthur in Texas. Natural gas going in, and bitumen and syn crude coming out. From an environmental standpoint the syncrude is far less caustic than bitumen if spilled into the environment. And for every pipeline that gets stopped, another will pop up to replace it.
How to power it all
But heres the key issue for the tar sands project. It requires something on the order of 10,000 Mw of electricity to power this huge project. Wether its nat gas or electricity generated from nuclear power plants, the tar sands is going to require huge amounts of power. Its very likely that Canada will limit or stop nat gas exports to the US as the project ramps up. In fact syncrude could be used to power the project as nat gas supplies reach peak production. Proposals to build Pebble Bed Nuclear power plants (PBNR), 18 of them at 500Mw each, to power the tar sands project. Advocates of PBNR cite the needed steam for bitumen extraction, and the electrical generation is just a bonus.
So there have it, at a minimum, 7 pipelines we know of, up to 18 Pebble Bed Reactors, or some combination of nuclear reactors and nat gas is needed to power up the desire for gasoline.
Our existing oil, coal and nat gas needs to be used to build the next generation of energy supply, wind, solar, renewables, and the High Voltage DC systems to move power on a continental scale to where its needed. Using 3 gallons of gas to make 4 or 5 gallons of gas is just silly, and will leave Canada with a hole in the ground that can be seen from orbit.
UPDATE: Monday 2:16pm.
Its been pointed out to me that one might infer from this diary that TransCanada owns the oil, and refines the oil, as well as generates electricity. I apologize for the poor wording, and I spent more than a couple of minutes considering making an edit to clear that up. I decided not to make any edits, to allow readers to sort thru the accusation of being misinformed on their own.
Additional reading:
http://www.thealaskapipelineproject.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://www.emr.gov.yk.ca/...
http://www.millennialliving.com/...
http://www.conocophillips.com/...
http://www.denalipipeline.com/
http://www.engineering.com/...