Canadian companies backing the Keystone XL – touted as enhancing US energy security with a big new surge of imported Canadian oil – actually expect it to supply more lucrative Gulf Coast export markets as well as raise Midwest oil prices by reducing “oversupply” in that region.Gasoline prices will rise about twenty cents a gallon in the Midwest, and this is not according to the treehuggers, no, this the from the analysis of TransCanada, the company that wants to build the pipeline.
Even worse, the pipeline will do squat as far as increasing Canadian exports. They'd export the shit anyway. It just makes it cheaper for them if the pipeline runs across the U.S., so Americans take some of the risk of the pipeline leaking.
The Canadians, of course, are waving the bloody shirt of "evil Middle Eastern oil exports", which shows both how desperate they are and how stupid they think American politicians are. As I've said before oil is a commodity that is sold on a world market. If there is any trouble in the Middle East, then the price of oil will go up and everybody who buys oil will pay that price, regardless of whether all or none of the oil that they purchased came from the Persian Gulf.
Of course, the Canadians are making a safe bet when they figure that our politicians, particularly the Republican ones, are either too stupid to understand that or too venal to care.
Same thing about the "Drill Baby, Drill" crowd - nothing says what is pulled out of the ground here will be used here - they just state it will "create jobs" and "lessen our dependence on foreign oil". I'll give 'em a pass on the jobs part, but unless they pass a law stating that what is drilled is sold and used here, it's gonna go on the open market, and sold to the highest bidder (or futures buyer).
ReplyDelete"... too stupid or venal ..."
ReplyDelete?? How about too stupid to understand and too venal to care when it is explained to them?
This nation is trying to swim to paradise on an ocean of vitriol and stupidity. :(
U.S. politicians (especially the Republican ones) are exactly as stupid as the Canadians think they are, maybe even stupider. Eventually, I think the Canadians will get their damned pipeline, but it will be a global environmental disaster if they do.
ReplyDeleteAnd to add insult to injury, Trans-Canada has the worst spill record of any pipeline company.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there is the point that the pipeline was supposed to go to Vancouver, but the Canadians objected to the environmental issues from the pipeline. But it's OK for them to turn Alberta into a fucking barren wasteland.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read that the pipeline went all the way to the Gulf Of Mexico, I figured it simply had to be for export purposes. It's amazing how little of our punditry seems to be able to figure that out.
ReplyDelete