from my understanding the keystone pipeline is in operation and it was the keystone xl portion that got the axe, correct me f i am wrong.....hard to say job losses for the 1,200 mile portion that was never started...to me it look like an environmental decision, but people will see it differently imo
*not my words*
*No matter how you look at it,
Keystone XL would be bad for wildlife, especially endangered species. Many imperiled species live along the proposed pipeline's path and in areas where tar-sands oil is produced. If the pipeline were built, it would decimate habitat these species rely on.
*The company behind the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline said Wednesday it's officially terminating the project. ... Environmentalists opposed the pipeline in
part because of the oil it would carry — oil sands crude from Alberta. It requires more processing than most oil, so producing it emits more greenhouse gases
*The type of oil that TC Energy wants to transport from Alberta via the XL pipeline is known as
tar sands, a thick-as-molasses oil due to a hydrocarbon substance called bitumen, which also contains a mixture of clay, sand and water. This type of oil is considered one of the dirtiest fossil fuels on the planet. Extracting it involves
clearing large swaths of
biodiverse boreal forest and using steam to liquefy the underground bitumen. All of this comes at a great cost to the environment and contributes to climate change, explaining why so many different groups are opposed to the project. Yet just as many groups have political and financial reasons to keep the Keystone XL pipeline alive.
*As previously touched upon, tar sands is not your average oil. Accessing it requires two different methods, neither of which is environmentally friendly. Both require water from the nearby Athabasca River in Alberta, taxing its finite quantities. The first method, involving surface mining, creates gallons of wastewater in the process. This wastewater is stored in "tailings ponds," where the toxic water is more likely to leak into the environment. The other method involves pumping steam underground in order to access the needed bitumen through a well. This method also requires burning fossil fuels in the process. In fact,
extracting tar sands oil produces more greenhouse gas emissions than extracting other natural resources.
Extraction methods aren't the only environmental threat. Oil pipeline leaks and spills are very real dangers too. In 2010, a faulty pipeline carrying
tar sands oil leaked 843,000 gallons into Michigan's Kalamazoo River. Owned by Canadian-based Enbridge, the company's slow response to stop the spill prompted area evacuations and permanently damaged the Talmadge Creek, the initial site of the spill. The incident is considered the
largest inland oil spill to occur in the U.S. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that the oil damaged more than
1,560 acres of streams and rivers and negatively impacted at least 4,000 area animals that needed to be saved. Not only that, but removing bitumen from the environment is a far more costly and involved process than typical crude oil, itself a costly and involved process. Whereas crude oil floats on a surface, bitumen sinks.
Then there's the matter of using tar sands oil itself as a fossil fuel. As it stands, burning the full amount that current technology is able to extract would
contribute 22 billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere. The worst-case scenario predicts burning the maximum amount of tar sands oil that exists in Alberta would increase global warming by 0.4 degrees Celsius.