Coyote Blog

It gets worse. There is now a coalition of 6 Democrats who want to tax "excessive" oil company profits at 100%. (They don't define excessive.) What's funny is, all that profit is being made by oil companies and the price of gasoline and other types of transportation fuels is not changed much if you allow for inflation over the last 30-40 years. (If you throw natural gas into the mix, it's way down.) On the other hand, a very large part of higher education gets substantial public funds (and most are non-profit entities) and the price has risen more than 3x the rate of inflation. Health care is not that different and I suspect I spend at least 5x as much just for insurance than I spend at the pump each year. How do you get these clowns in congress to address the real problems in the economy rather than just emotional knee jerk nonsense against their favorite villains?

This is one of the worst decisions Obama has made.

But the pipeline will eventually be built, no doubt, and Obama certainly knows that. This is just election year meat for the left. A rather cynical move by him, but I know why he's doing it.

What I struggle to understand is, where do people who oppose Keystone think we should get our energy? They'll be against wind farms, solar and nuclear, too, for various environmental reasons. But I'm sure they continue to drive their cars, heat their homes, etc. Do they think the energy used for that just appears magically, with no environmental or geopolitical impact? Are they OK buying energy from the Middle East, Africa and Venezuela, when we could be getting more from a friendly neighbor that observes environmental laws?

From what I can tell, their solution is for everyone to use less fuel. Actually, on a per-capita basis, the U.S. is a lot more energy efficient now than it was 40 years ago, which is a good development, and the environmental movement gets some credit for that. But as a country, we use far more energy than 40 years ago, and that's because of economic and population growth.

Yes, we can continue to try to use less fuel on a personal level (I drive a hybrid, by the way), but the amount of energy used as a whole will continue to rise as the economy grows. If energy sources don't grow, then the economy won't. It's as simple as that.

All domestic energy sources, including wind, solar, fossil fuel, nuclear and geothermal, need to be developed if we want economic growth to continue. And when I say domestic, I mean Canada and Mexico as well as the United States. Mexico's oil production has fallen precipitously, but that's mainly because of poor management of its oil fields by the government. Eventually, when its economy weakens enough, I imagine Mexico will allow more foreign (U.S.) oil companies to come in, and I'd bet their energy reserves are immense.

The U.S. also has vast resources of natural gas and oil. We have empty lands in deserts that can be used for solar and wind power. We have uranium deposits that can be used in new nuclear power plants. Research should be done on other energy sources as well, such as shale oil and nuclear fusion. All of these should be developed.

Obama must know there would be huge job growth accompanying this development, just as we've seen in North Dakota, where shale gas and oil production has skyrocketed. History shows that energy can be developed in an environmentally friendly manner.

A rejection of Canadian oil through the Keystone pipeline won't slow the process of developing oilsands in Alberta, as the environmental movement wishes. The oil will still be developed, but it won't come here. The carbon will still be released into the atmosphere, but we won't benefit from the oil (although any oil production growth will contribute to lower oil prices on the market, so we may get a slight benefit).

As for the environmental impact, does the anti-Keystone movement realize that our country is criss-crossed by hundreds of pipelines? How often do you hear of a spill from one? Seldom. There was a spill a few years ago in Michigan that contaminated one river, but it was quickly contained. The Alaska pipeline has had a few spills, but none that have caused major damage.

I've been to the Nebraska Sandhills and it's a beautiful region. If the pipeline developers can re-route the pipeline to not cut across this land, that would be great. But I wouldn't be overly worried about a pipeline going through the area.

Trans Canada Pipeline is saying they'll now go ahead and build the US side of the XL pipeline from the Bakken oil lands to the refineries in Texas. They have the permits and rights of way to do so.

Yesterday's decision was all about oil crossing the border and that will have to wait for common sense to prevail. They'll link the Oils Sands up later.

But then again, maybe Obama enjoys bowing in subservience to Arab potentates who currently control US imported oil sources.

Traderpaul beat me to it - Eminent Domain is a major concern. My understanding is that they could do the project without it if they really wanted to - but why spend more money when you can use government guns?

>>>> Mark:
>>>> My link from yesterday is gone

Yeah, my post disappeared, too.

Politicians love to shift capital from private, boring, productive things like pipelines to sexy taxpayer-funded things that they can put their names on.

I call this The Great Pyramid Syndrome. Politicians love to build monumental projects, that will have their name associated with them. It doesn't matter if they have no practical value, and divert countless resources from things that do have value, as long as their names are remembered. The pyramids are amazing to look at, but what could Egypt have accomplished if they hadn't expended so much of their resources building them?

@Ted Rado, it is still expensive, but fuel cells could be used to avert some of the problem, they start up relatively quick and can use natural gas (which is evil now that we can get it.)

In fact it might be practical in 10 years to have a fuel cell in every home.

@Dan, they always have two fees, the resource cost, and the transmission cost. They probably raised their cost to transport the stuff.

@Benjamin Cole: Please let us libertarians know when the Obama Administration, or James "game over for the planet" Hansen, or Henry Waxman, oppose Keystone XL on the grounds of eminent domain.

Obama is a dangerous fascist thug beholden to scumbag “environmentalists” who are documented liars:

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2011/12/environmentalist-stick-up.html

Keystone will cost him the election. Watch.

I´m the person that would be directly affected by this pipeline. So I´m against it. I´m scared that it would produce environmental challenges (and I don´t believe environmental studies of multinational oil corporations). Do I want to risk my health and the environment I live in for the sake of national interests? No. The idea of an ethic oil, which are strengthened by our politicians, is a scam. I think it is clear for any reasonable person, that our only national interest is to block this pipeline. Energy Resources in Canada says that minister of natural resources of Canada Joe Oliver wanted to invest 78 million to create new jobs in energy sector, which leads to the pipeline again. And the construction had not even started. This project would be insanely expensive. As I can see many people support the idea of this pipeline, but I have to be against it! For my own sake...

Has anyone considered that this is a sort of deal with the Chinese to gain their support for isolating Iran, and perhaps the middle east in general? Might not be a bad idea, if so, since we then get them hooked up to a supply that is much easier for the US to control, links them even more to the west economically, and frees them up from having to stick up for Iran or other middle eastern radicals. Chinese officials have mentioned the latter publicly.

>>> I am a libertarian–except a real one.

HOLY CRAP!!!

Benny actually managed to get two posts off without mentioning Iraq and Afghanistan!!

The world IS coming to an end!

P.S., Benny is like Bill Mahar, someone who claims to be a libertarian, but actually isn't in the least.

====
Floyd, I beg to disagree. I am a small-l libertarian, but even the Founders recognized the need of the State to be able to take land for public use, and instilled it into the Constitution. This does not include, however, a support of Kelo-style ED. Part of the difficulty, though, lies in the obvious problem of gaining miles and miles of right-of-way, as opposed to a single patch of land in an easily bounded area.

The difficulty of invoking ED should be sufficiently high that purchase at a vaguely reasonable price is always preferable (define reasonable? I dunno, have a dozen randomly selected property value analysts evaluate the land, then set the price at 2x their median, or even max, for ED purposes. This guarantees that there's a clear benefit to buy another nearby property rather than force a taking)

The above is not a lock-on answer, either, it's a quick stab at the idea. The chief point is that taking land should be painful and troublesome -- both for the governmental entities doing it and/or any private entities involved in the process (but NOT for the land-owner who does not wish to sell). Both the government and private individuals involved should have very strong encouragements to finding an alternative. I believe any such encouragements have melted away notably in the last 40-50 years.

Marco73:

Great comment and so true. If we don't use the oil and it goes to China, we'll eventually get it as plastics in the cheap junk sold at Wal-Mart and Target.

Val:

That is a very interesting hypothesis. Do you have anything that would back this up? It actually sounds feasible, and I'd be in favor of anything that would stop the Chinese from cozying up with Iran.

While Eminent Domain may not be "Libertarian", it is entirely Constitutional, as specified in the Bill of Rights, and interpreted in subsequent cases to establish "just compensation" as "market value", and "public use" as "public purpose".

Please see the Fifth Amendment, "United States v. 50 Acres of Land" (1984), "Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff" (1984) and "Kelo v. City of New London" (2005).

While I may have personally disagreed with the Kelo decision (for reasons similar to those set out in Clarence Thomas' dissent), unfortunately, it reaffirmed the Midkiff decision and is now settled case law, whether we like it or not.

Benjamin:

LOL!

Mark:

Fuel cells run on hydrogen, which is usually made from natural gas. If one runs the calcs, it turns out that the overall efficiency from CH4 to H2 to fuel cell output is about the same (or less) than if you used the CH4 in an engine in the first place.

I don't understand how you would use fuel calls as backup for wind power. Please explain.

Ted: One way to backup wind and solar power, at least in theory, is to electrolyze water when there is excess power, producing hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can be stored until needed, then used in fuel cells. There are plenty of problems with this concept:

-The overall efficiency is probably well under 50%.
-The storage tanks will have to be *huge*. You could reduce the volume with high pressures or liquefaction, but that takes more energy, not much of which is recoverable.
-The details of the safe storage and handling of large quantities of hydrogen (on a commercial budget rather than a NASA one) need to be worked out.
-So do the details of large-scale electrolysis to produce hydrogen, rather than other substances. E.g., you might add salt to the water to make it conductive enough for electrolysis - but then you also (and maybe mostly) produce chlorine and sodium hydroxide. Chemical engineers have used that process for chlorine and lye production for a long time, and understand well how to minimize the oxygen/hydrogen production. Tuning the process the other way is going to be a whole new learning curve, made more interesting by the requirement to scrub out every trace of poisonous chlorine before venting the oxygen...

On the other hand, electrolysis and hydrogen storage isn't so much worse than the other large-scale energy concepts I've seen. Hydro storage (pumping the water back to the high side of the dam) is practical with well-known technology, but I can't think of a single hydro power project that got started since environmental impact statement were required. Battery storage is too expensive. Flywheels??? Gigantic compressed air tanks???