Keystone XL Pipeline - my prediction is:
The Obama administration will let it go forward, but to save face will probably throw some conditions on it as a sop to the environmentalists. What do you think?
I like to think of myself as a "reasonable" person when it comes to balancing environmental issues with industry and jobs. But I honestly don't understand the intense opposition that KXL has engendered. The arguments against it are pretty much along the lines of "oil from tar sands is really dirty, compared to oil pumped from a well," and "we should be encouraging development of alternate sources of energy rather than enabling access to more fossil fuel." I can accept that both of these statements are true, but they are also both irrelevant to the question of whether a pipeline should be built. It's not up to the US to dictate to Canada whether they should or should not get their oil from tar sands, Canada has already made that decision. The only question is whether the US should enable sending it via pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico for export, or say no and have Canada continue to ship oil via train (which as we've seen can lead to horrific accidents, such as teh deralment and fire in Quebec) or perhaps build their own pipeline. I have yet to hear from those oppsoed to K-XL why either of these two options is better environmentally than K-XL would be. What am I missing?