Explaining Keystone
CPT Scott
Speak 0:21
Welcome back. I hope you’re practicing using some of the dumpty TRUMP The information we’re putting out there, the easiest way to do that is to tell others about the podcast or send them a link to Dumpty. Trump Georgie And the six episode, we’re going to look at the Keystone pipeline. Interestingly, I discussed this topic with one of my reviewers, Joni, and we both agreed that the Keystone was a hot topic three years ago but is no longer. So we were going to leave it alone. Hours after that conversation, I flipped my 55 inch China, made television to Fox News only to hear former Congressman Chaffetz from Utah talking.
Interview 1:03
Joe Biden. We got rid of the Keystone pipeline, laid off thousands of people. They know that Joe Biden has been bad for business and bad for you.
Speak 1:11
So Keystone is back. Well, what the heck is Keystone? There’s confusion even there, but the story starts in Canada or Canada for the French speakers there. It would be helpful to you if you had listened to Episode five. Biden nomics Gas. But if you have not, you’ll be fine with this one. You just know less than someone who listened. Episode five. What you may not know is that Canada is actually larger than America, the second largest nation in the world behind Russia. Canada even has a longer coastline than the USA.
If you look at a map of Canada and go east from the Pacific Ocean, the first province you’ll run into is British Columbia. Abbreviated B.C., right atop Washington state. Continue eastward. And the next one is Alberta, with its capital, Edmonton.
About 270 miles north of Edmonton is the economic hub of the tar sands. Two words to air essay and does not tarsands
Fort McMurray, Canada. 800 miles north of Missoula, Montana. The tar sands are also called oil sands and covers about 55,000 square miles, about the size of Iowa. The tar sands are one of the world’s largest oil reserves. Reserves means in the ground. Only Venezuela and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia have more reserves. Well, just what is this tar sands oil? In episode five, I described it as sludge, but when it’s called Cough Cough Canada, it can be as hard as well a hockey puck. The hydrocarbon. The oil is also called bitumen. Be it UMD and
tar sands has the bitumen clumps mixed in with sand, clay and water. Instead of panning for gold. They paint for the hydrocarbon. But on an industrial scale we might refer to it as tar. Asphalt. Bitumen is used in waterproofing like when you code a recently poured foundation or in asphalt. When mixed with lighter oil, it becomes what’s called synthetic crude and then refined further. Tar sands is very thick, very corrosive. And of all the oil types, it’s the most likely to cause a pipeline leak. It’s so thick. Think melted asphalt or cold molasses. Then it has to be heated to start flowing. Tar sands is nasty oil, and I’m glad none has been discovered here. Canada has a problem, though, and by Canada I mean those residents not involved in the oil industry who live there. It’s incredibly damaging to the environment when the oil is not miles deep. They flatten the earth, scalp it, if you will, and scoop up the tar sands. Of course, most of the land along the tar sands are tribal lands and North American history. So shows when it comes to chasing profits, companies have shrugged off concern of native tribes. Okay, that’s Canada’s problem, not America’s. What is American’s problem? America’s problem lies south of the Canadian border. The pipeline networks, as reported by the AP just this year, 2024, North Dakota has experienced more than six spills already, and that’s not tar sands spills, but from a lighter crude than tar oil leaks. Nonetheless, period. Keystone is a pipeline network already in place. Neither Obama nor Biden tried to shut down Keystone. What they did prevent, not shut down was the construction of the Keystone Excel. Call it extra large if you want, which was just an extension of Keystone to get dirty, corrosive tar sands oil to Steel City, Nebraska, where it could join other existing pipeline ins.
Why pipe it? Alberta is landlocked and America has multiple refineries along the way to the Texas Louisiana Gulf Coast. The XL pipeline would have been a shortcut to Nebraska across the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides 30% of U.S. irrigation and water to 2 million people. Canada was already sending 550
550 million barrels a day through the existing Keystone network. Herd error. They were sending 550,000 barrels a day through the existing Keystone network. Estimates of the XL pipeline were to go to 800,000 barrels a day.
Remember from episode five on who owns the oil? Well, again, not America. It’s Chevron, Exxon, BP, Shell, whomever. And they have no obligation to provide tar sands oil for American gasoline. And guess what? Asian countries have been the largest buyers of Canadian tar sands oil, and they just want a pipeline to get the oil to the Gulf Coast for other countries to buy. No, not all of it, mind you, but certainly most of it cutting across America. So Canadian oil could be sold overseas while we locally risk oil spills and local communities bear the risk of tainted water supplies without participate in the profits. It’s just another violation of community for a privileged few. So in that regard, President Obama cancelled the construction, denied the permit to construct of the 1200 mile Keystone XL extra large pipeline XL might actually mean something else, but I like say an extra large. So it’s inaccurate to say Obama cancelled it. He just never approved the application to get started. I mean, it was not like it had already started. And then he shut it off. Trump came to office and approved the permit to build as long as the pipes were built in America. He didn’t care what the EPA recommended and even went further in what could be called a war on environment By removing the United States from the Paris climate plans.
During Trump’s reign, the Keystone Pipeline leak,
383,000 gallons of crude. near Edinburg, North Dakota in 2019. Of course, that’s not the only one. North Dakota has 1172 miles of oil pipeline cutting across their state. There was one in 2012 that leaked for two weeks before anyone suspected anything. That same year, in 2012, there were 168 pipeline leaks. A barrel is 42 gallons of crude Leaking. More than 1000 barrels meant much of the head of that oil company stations 42,000 gallons of sludge. Only one of those bills became public knowledge. And in 2013, about 2200 barrels leaked. 492 of those were never cleaned up, according to Weather.com, who was following the story. Trump approved the permit to build. Then, when he lost fair and square to Joe Biden, revoked the permit before he went to sleep. After being inaugurated the same day. than we get the nonsense that Biden hates union workers to believe that requires someone to ignore two things. He was the first president ever to join a picket line, and the unemployment has never been this low in many of Americans lives. Unlike Trump, who has not been charged for crimes without evidence, Biden detractors have little regard for truth and merely remain eager to accuse. What a terrible way to govern And easy Internet search shows that Keystone Excel might have added 1% more crude to the supply chain. But with American refineries already at 100% production. There would have been no change, not even the four cent price drop. Keystone XL could have made. It’s just nonsense. And to blame preventing pipeline construction on high gas prices with a barrel hitting above $70 and freighters unable to load unload. That’s nuts when it comes to predicting how many jobs would have been created. Think of the cigarette companies telling us their smokes were actually healthy. TransCanada, the owner of Keystone, predicted 118,000 new jobs. Other studies predicted half a million jobs would, and 18,000 jobs predicted by Trans Canada is greater than the population of Peoria, Illinois. Of course, they never discussed the high unemployment that would have come after the completion of the pipeline. So the vast majority of those jobs are temporary. Cornell University predicted 4500 jobs on the high end. No. Sorry, Charlie. The benefactors of Keystone XL would have been perhaps 4000 workers compared to the 200,000 jobs being added each month since Biden became president.
4000 jobs at that rate is not statistically significant. Meanwhile, the oil companies, the Canadian government, U.S. refineries and nations overseas would get the benefits while American citizens would endure The daily risk of that profit seeking venture. It reminds me of cities or states paying for new stadiums to benefit NFL owners.
Thankfully, the Keystone XL was prevented as an unnecessary risk across 1200 miles of America. We didn’t suffer at the pumps and our unemployment numbers recovered strongly without Keystone XL. Since then, the oil parents have figured out a way to get tar sands oil to the Gulf Coast anyway, and that’s by reversing the usual flow from Louisiana, Texas to Patoka, Illinois, which is a huge pipeline terminal and storage center.
They reverse the flow from Patoka to move tar sands south to the refineries. See, we didn’t hit the XL pipeline after all, did we? And that’s this podcast on the Keystone XL. You can follow us at Dump de Trump D Dawg, and you can email me there. Captain Scott C Scott at Dump the Trump T dot org. Please share our podcast with your friends and your family and thanks for your time this time. Until next time. Have another great week.