Why is keystone pipeline needed

The second segment was the hotly contested 1,mile northern leg—a shortcut of sorts—that would have run from Hardisty, Alberta, through Montana and South Dakota to Steele City, Nebraska. In , the U. State Department, under President Barack Obama, declined to grant the northern leg of the Keystone XL project the permit required to construct, maintain, and operate the pipeline across the U. Tar sands oil is thicker, more acidic, and more corrosive than lighter conventional crude, and this ups the likelihood that a pipeline carrying it will leak.

Indeed, one study found that between and , pipelines moving tar sands oil in Midwestern states spilled three times more per mile than the U.

Less than two years before the project was finally pulled, the Keystone tar sands pipeline was temporarily shut down after a spill in North Dakota of reportedly more than , gallons in late October And the risk that Keystone XL would have spilled was heightened because of the extended time the pipe segments were left sitting outside in stockpiles.

Complicating matters, leaks can be difficult to detect. People and wildlife coming into contact with tar sands oil are exposed to toxic chemicals, and rivers and wetland environments are at particular risk from a spill.

For evidence, note the tar sands oil spill in Kalamazoo River, Michigan , a disaster that cost Enbridge more than a billion dollars in cleanup fees and took six years to settle in court. Keystone XL would have crossed agriculturally important and environmentally sensitive areas, including hundreds of rivers, streams, aquifers, and water bodies. A spill would have been devastating to the farms, ranches, and communities that depend on these crucial ecosystems.

All facets of the tar sands industry pose a threat to the environment. The mining depletes and pollutes freshwater resources, creates massive ponds of toxic waste, and threatens the health and livelihood of the First Nations people who live near them.

Refining the sticky black gunk produces piles of petroleum coke , a hazardous, coal-like by-product. The U. Finally, massive fossil fuel infrastructure investments like KXL undermine efforts to minimize global warming and prioritize clean energy like wind and solar.

Opposition to Keystone XL centered on the devastating environmental consequences of the project. The pipeline faced more than a decade of sustained protests from environmental activists and organizations; Indigenous communities ; religious leaders; and the farmers, ranchers, and business owners along its proposed route.

One such protest, a historic act of civil disobedience outside the White House in August , resulted in the arrest of more than 1, demonstrators. In , more than two million comments urging a rejection of the pipeline were submitted to the U. Department of State during a day public comment period.

But the groundswell of public protest was up against a formidable opponent—hundreds of millions spent on lobbying by the fossil fuel industry. When industry-friendly politicians took charge of both congressional houses in January , their first order of business was to pass a bill to speed up approval of Keystone XL.

That effort failed. This means that refineries that primarily process heavy oil are configured differently than light oil-processing facilities. Over the past 40 years, refiners in the US have invested billions expanding their ability to process heavy oil, analysts with IHS Markit wrote in a December report. Thanks to smaller-scale pipeline connections and crude-by-rail, Canadian oil has increasingly been filling the gap left by lower production in Venezuela and Mexico, which have traditionally supplied the US Gulf Coast.

US Gulf Coast imports of Canadian oil increased from approximately 82, barrels per day in to , barrels per day in , according to the CER. The highest level to-date was achieved in January , at approximately , barrels per day, the CER reports. One of the founding members of OPEC, Venezuela is currently experiencing an unprecedented decline in oil production, dropping to as low as , barrels per day this summer, according to IHS Markit.

IHS analysts attribute the fall to decades of decline and decay, exacerbated by the U. In the here and now, more energy is required to extract oil from the Alberta oil sands than in traditional drilling, and Environment Canada says it has found industry chemicals seeping into ground water and the Athabasca River.

This risk to local communities is one of the reasons many have opposed the project. First Nations groups in Northern Alberta have even gone so far as to sue the provincial and federal government for damages from 15 years of oil sands development they were not consulted on, including treaty-guaranteed rights to hunt, trap and fish on traditional lands. Rejoining Paris sets ambitious climate goal for Biden.

Image source, Getty Images. The Keystone XL pipeline has been disputed for more than a decade. What is Keystone XL? How was XL initially approved? Image source, Reuters. Mr Obama said the project would not:. Why so much opposition? The Keystone pipeline has long drawn the ire of environmentalists.