My understanding of the opposition to Keystone XL is that it facilitates increased carbon emissions, in a world which is not close to reaching carbon balance, and not even moving in the right direction. Other objections, about land use, water use, spills, and environmental impact at the tar sands sites, etc seem to be largely separable from the GHG issue, and mitigable secondary impacts on the scale of the pipeline.
I'm curious, however, what mitigation or progress on carbon balance would be considered reasonable to offset a pipeline with a capacity of about 4% of U.S. oil consumption.
My opposition to KXL is political, not pragmatic. It seems emblematic of a larger problem rather than truly significant in and of itself. The studies released suggest only a few percent of the carbon which traverses the pipeline would actually add to emissions, the theory is that most of the carbon would simply displace consumption of alternative carbon sources. I find this suggestive but not totally convincing. Some opposition rhetoric suggests an impact greater than 100% of the direct emissions from all of the carbon conveyed. I find this similarly unconvincing, however, it may be politically useful in addressing the unmitigated impacts of lower profile projects.
Let me explain, below the fold.
In order to maintain a fixed level of fossil energy supply, there is a continual and significant level of construction required. New wells must be drilled, new pipelines laid, new mines started, new powerplants built, new compressor stations, new oil terminals, new transloading facilities, new rail cars, new locomotives, etc, etc
The simple logic of depletion, physical depreciation, shifting population, etc make this unavoidable.
If some fraction of the cost of all of these projects is applied to energy efficiency, renewable energy production, carbon removal, etc. it would be possible to significantly reduce carbon emissions, to the eventual point of stopping the increase in atmospheric carbon, and reversing it. A sufficient development fee based on the cost of the project, placed in a fund used to reduce carbon, would provide a 'backdoor' carbon tax. There are numerous other subsidies of the fossil fuel industry, of course, which might also be separately addressed. Many states exempt motor fuels from all or a portion of sales taxes, for instance. Motor fuel excise taxes pay only about 1/3rd of the direct costs of road construction and maintenance in the U.S. Some federal and state royalty rates and taxes on production are artificially low. Transport of bulky and heavy solid and liquid fuels relies on rail, barge, trucking, and ports which are also subsidized sectors. Foreign fuels and goods are imported on which no offset of externalities including carbon is imposed, making it politically difficult to impose such offsets domestically. The list is long. Or, we might simply pass a comprehensive cap-and-trade, or carbon tax bill, as we did once upon a time in the House.
What if, as a condition of approval, the President simply said: "We are not on path to reach carbon balance, in that context this project is not in the national interest, however, should Congress pass legislation which places us on that path, this pipeline, and other projects like it, would then be in the national interest. Therefore, I will reconsider this decision when such legislation is passed."
Would you trade Keystone XL for a carbon tax or other major progress toward carbon balance? Please note your poll participation by commenting or tipping.