Native American anti-pipeline protesters were endlessly demonized and criminalized, violently opposed by both police and privately-funded thugs, yet their concerns were clearly absolutely valid.
Edit: Down to #23 since I wrote the comment. It's gotten 200 votes in an hour, should be at least top 5. The #1 and #2 posts have only gotten 49 and 23 votes respectively in the past hour.
Edit 2: Now it's up to #21 & 209 points...
Edit 3: Down to #24 & 228 points...
Edit 4: Up to #20 & 239 points...
Edit 5: Up to #14 & 278 points...
Edit 6: Dropped way down to #40 with 312 points, only 2 hours old...
Edit: as others mentioned it could factor in people flagging the post, comment to upvotes ratio, etc
I'm wondering if there's some sort of artificial manipulation going on, as it's a story that's heavily embarrassing to one of the world's most powerful and influential industries.
"Why would we invest in more clean/green energy sources when we have this brand new pipeline?" It essentially hardens the argument (and subsequent lobbying) for these industries.
I get that it is a huge source of income for folks who travel to and live in these areas. However, it's not a forward looking path--particularly when the environmental impact and costs are so high up front.
In that respect, using trucks--while theoretically having a larger short term impact on emissions--allows for future flexibility and doesn't break into the earth in such a permanent and invasive way.
On that measure, trucks are clearly lower-risk. On other measures, they fare worse. There was also the option of running the pipeline through a different area, but the government claimed that wasn't worth the extra expense, and that there would definitely be no spills like the one there obviously was.
[0] https://www.reference.com/business-finance/many-gallons-tank...
Is that not true? What's the best option for transporting oil and gas?
If you absolutely are going to burn it (sigh), burn it on site for electrical generation. Transmission lines don’t leak methane, and HVDC cables can be buried in a similar fashion to a pipeline. Methane extraction aligns well with geographies that have strong renewable growth and need combined cycle gas turbine backing until battery replacement can occur.
Now, if you’re trying to export it and need it in original form, this doesn’t work and you’re going to try to avoid externalities of transport, which is what regulation is for.
There's a reason why coal is hauled to power station, instead of being burned near mines.
“HVDC transmission has typically 30-50% less transmission loss than comparable alternating current overhead lines. (For comparison: given 2500 MW transmitted power on 800 km of overhead line, the loss with a conventional 400-kv AC line is 9.4%; with HVDC transmission at 500 kV, it is only 6%, and at 800 kV it is just 2.6%.)” [1]
Also, there are many coal plants sited right at coal mines.
[1] https://www.siemens.com/press/pool/de/events/2012/energy/201...
Not really.
Power stations need a ready and ample supply of water for power generation and cooling. This is why they can often be a long way from mines and oil/gas fields.
It's also typically not composed of methane but propane+, and while there may be a correlation with renewable energy in the same areas, those regions tend to be quite a distance from the ultimate consumers. high capacity electric transportation is not environmentally neutral and underground networks in these areas would be as costly as pipelines, which is why they are almost always above ground.
Robert Moses had shifted the parkway south of Otto Kahn's estate, south of Winthrop's and Mills's estates, south of Stimson's and De Forest's. For men of wealth and influence, he had moved it more than three miles south of its original location. But James Roth possessed neither money nor influence. And for James Roth, Robert Moses would not move the parkway south even one tenth of a mile farther. For James Roth, Robert Moses would not move the parkway one foot.
Even if you know nothing about oil pipelines (and I don't), there's simply no chance this story was going to end with "The First Nations got a raw deal in every interaction with the United States for the past 200 years, but this time it turned out perfectly fine."
The U.S. was a signatory of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. Go check out the area of land which the U.S. agreed to lay no claim to.
First, the many native bands in Canada have had a variety of motivations for slowing/blocking the Trans Canada Pipeline project - some have been about environmental protection and preservation of heritage, sure, but a lot of it is political.
Band leaders are, rationally, trying to maximize funds flowing from federal coffers to their bands in the form of grants, subsidies, etc. Some use this funding to help their people, and some don't - it varies widely, just like municipalities do - but holding up infrastructure projects is a tried-and-true method of getting more funding.
While bands are rationally acting in their own self-interest, the government has to strongly consider the interests of the nation, state, region, etc. as a whole.
All of these native concerns, plus the potential environmental impact, have to be weighed against the benefits: fewer petroleum shipments via rail, which is much more dangerous than pipelines, tax revenue, jobs in the oil & gas sector, strategically vital energy security, etc.
Also there's this "pretend that macroeconomics doesn't exist" notion among pro-pipeline hard-liners. By allowing crude oil to be transported in greater quantities without accounting for the permanent environmental costs, we're actively fighting against market forces that make green energy more feasible. If the supply of oil increases, then its prices drop, and the demand for alternatives to fossil fuels lessens.
[1]: Congressional Research Service - https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43390.pdf
America is built on the automobile and most working families can't afford a Tesla at this point - intentionally pushing up oil prices by cutting supply would essentially be a regressive tax.
Tesla is approaching this the right way, however - make electric products that are superior to what's on the market, then aim for economies of scale to dramatically reduce prices and make them affordable. No supply-side manipulation of oil prices necessary, it just takes time.
There is a real cost to the environment, communities, and people’s health that is completely externalized and unaccounted for by the fossil fuel lobby. It’s a real cost that will eventually be paid by taxes and lives, not a manipulation. Ignoring that cost in the price of oil is the opposite of market-driven.
To address negative externalities there are other proposed solutions - such as a carbon tax - which would not require the intentional scuttling of pipeline projects, although I'm not a huge fan of those either.
My solution would be to walk down the list of emitting sources and tackle each individually. Electricity production is #1, and utility-scale anything is much easier to influence at the policy level. Subsidize the shit out of nuclear and remove the regulatory barriers to getting projects done. Ditto with grid-scale solar and wind.
Transportation is next... get the cost of electric vehicles down by encouraging economies of scale. You can use specific positive incentives here rather than broad-based negative ones.
Anyway, you get the point. Given the complexity of energy policy I find the idea that a soundbite-worthy policy would be the panacea to be laughable. Not building pipelines would just hurt the petroleum industry and have nearly zero measurable impact on carbon emissions.
The people who will be most impacted by climate change and rising seas will also be those least able to afford it.
You can tax carbon and offset it with a tax credit, so it doesn't hurt poor households as much. British Columbia does it.
There are better ways to tackle global warming... I proposed a few ideas above.
example: Alberta sits with land-locked oil while eastern Canada imports massive quantities from the middle east because "oil is dirty" when you can see how the sausage is made.