feathermoon said:
No offense, but how complex is this? There is an oversupply in the Midwest coupled with low demand, buffering it from world oil prices. The XL will alleviate this oversupply, pumping oil south. This will raise prices in the Midwest. In this regard, the Xl will have a direct negative impact on the economy. Does this make sense? Do you know what we're talking about now?
It's actually quite complex. The WTI/Brent differential can/will have huge impacts on US futures if it keeps spreading the way it is. The glut in the Midwest may pose a short-term gain in depressed gasoline prices, but overall it's going to hurt the economy more than it will benefit it.
As you'll see from other stuff the Doc has posted, reversing flow from Cushing out to the coast is the other solution to this problem. Keystone isn't even required (well, it is, but the Seaway reversal offsets things to a degree.
So, sure.. the blue collar argument is having to pay more to fuel their daily commutes. In the long run, however, it is a far more complex issue that prices at the pump.
By the way, your condescension isn't appreciated. My questions were legitimate questions because you seem to be looking at a rather small and short-term benefit from low WTI prices.
Indeed. It can be difficult some times to find information sources not tainted by a bad image or money. I commiserate with you (especially if you support the industry! I daresay not many independent researchers would have a confirmation bias towards it). I would personally LOVE to hear some good news research from a Oil & Gas funded source, provided its believable.
The confirmation bias goes both ways. My support goes so far as to present facts rather than the rhetoric or sensationalism that accompanies this sort of discussion. I would assume that if you are willing to believe Pembina reports, then you would categorically dismiss any information to the contrary.
In this case, however, the numbers I mentioned would seem safe. In fact, as the area of drilling and mining increases, the area of reclamation will proportionally decrease. Not just because mining is ongoing, but because reclamation takes time. Tailings ponds can take decades to settle alone for beginning reclamation, from what I've read, besides whether they are fully reclaimable anyway!
How would the numbers seem safe? If you are mining an area of ~40000 hectares why would it be reclaimed if it is still active? To report that it has not been reclaimed is misleading and pointless. Drying processes significantly speed up the process of recovering tailings, so decade long time frames are an exaggeration (3-5 years for earlier traditional settling methods). The idea of whether something can be
fully reclaimed exists for every land disturbance, not just oil sands operations. Open pits, tailings, etc... associated with other activities have just as much impact and just as much reclamation potential as the oil sands.
Mining in the Athabasca region began in 1967. Given that mining seems to be the more extreme of the extraction methods, I feel this was hardly a point worth making.
What point exactly? The point that you cannot reclaim active mining operations?
Yep, still seems like it'd be in the U.S.'s best interest to not move this project forward to me.
Like I've mentioned above, it certainly is within the best interests of the US to do something about the Midwest glut. With Keystone XL delayed, the industry has obviously found other ways around this problem.