Up Your Pipeline

So I'm sitting here thinking about the new TransCanada pipeline plan, Keystone XL, that is designed to go from the "oil rich" sand fields in Canada to oil refineries in the US Gulf of Mexico.  What a great idea!  They estimate about 20,000 jobs will be created in the US by doing this.  It will bring needed oil to the US (although still imported) to help contain (we'll never see lower) gas prices.  It all sounds just like something we need right now.  That may be the problem with the plan though, its narrow focus on jobs today, gas prices today with no tomorrow in mind.  Immediate actions with no long range equal but opposite reactions being considered.

The first thought that comes to my mind is that this pipeline will be an even bigger target for terrorist threats than the World Trade Center ever was.  It runs through 5 states on its way down to the gulf.  My guess is that 19,000 of the 20,000 jobs being created are in the security business.  The other 1,000 will be in the pipeline maintenance business.  Yes, this pipeline will not only be vulnerable to all kinds of manmade catastrophes (read attacks) but natural disasters, mechanical failures and time.

Anytime the flow of oil is disrupted in the pipeline, for what ever reason, gas prices will increase disproportionately.  Think about it, they shutdown the flow of oil for maintenance, prices go up a little (and don't pretend they won't).  There is a brake in part of the pipe or a pump, prices go up again.  Canada, like Russia, may decide to slow the flow of oil or shut it down completely for a period of time.  Gas prices would skyrocket.  I'm curious as to what the actual deal is that is being made with Canada to allow this to happen.  Do they get petroleum products imported back to them at some hugely discounted rate?  I'm assuming it isn't just one company doing business with another, it's more of a government doing business with another government thing.

Let's bring up that idea of the pipe breaking on its own or by the hand of some idiot trying to make an idiots point.  Not only will it create an increase of prices at the pump but it will also cause environmental issues around the area of the break.  What if that idiot decides to create a huge torch out of the pipeline like they did in the Kuwaiti oil fields.  All it would take is one successful attack on the pipeline and it will be deemed impossible to secure (just like our borders are today) and eventually shut down.

Canada may end up being the most detrimentally impacted out of this venture then anyone.  Again, in the short term view, this may look like a big boon for the Canadian economy but at what cost to them environmentally.  The earth has a tremendous capacity to heal itself over time.  Sometimes they are over very long periods of time.  Like the time it takes to decompose and compress vegetation, flesh and bone into something burnable.

Put effort into renewable energy resources.  There is a potential for way more than 20,000 jobs, I think the Administration quoted 100,000, if there is a national effort put into it.  Nobody can fly a plane into the sun or blow up the wind or stop the earth from generating its own thermal energy.

Now I'm not smart by any stretch of the imagination but even I can see disaster coming from a million miles away on this one.  This is just not a good idea.