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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAt one end of Trump's revived Keystone XL pipeline, there's a scene you must see to believe
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to revive and expedite two multi-billion-dollar underground pipelines that would snake oil through US states to centers of the petroleum industry.
One is the contentious $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, which would shuttle petroleum more than 1,100 miles, from North Dakota's Bakkan oil fields to holding tanks in Patoka, Illinois.
The other is the Keystone XL pipeline - a new segment of the existing Keystone Pipeline system, which begins in the Alberta, Canada tar sands and ends in Patoka as well as points in Texas along the Gulf of Mexico. The XL segment, which could cost its builders as much as $10 billion, is partially built and would move larger volumes of oil in less time by shortening the route and burying larger-diameter pipes.
Click through the slides above to see the awesome scale of the oil extraction project
Proponents of the pipeline say it will lessen dependence on foreign oil while creating jobs and growing domestic industry. However, many Americans, and primarily Native Americans, are furious about Trump's latest executive order.
Barack Obama killed the Keystone XL pipeline in November 2015, stating it wouldn't have helped lower gas prices or create that many jobs. He also said the long-term contribution to climate change - possibly more than 22 billion metric tons of carbon pollution, according to Scientific American - wasn't worth the loss of America's global leadership on fighting emissions that exacerbate global warming.
"If we're going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming inhabitable, if not inhospitable [...] we have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground," Obama said.
Trump's televised revival of Keystone XL didn't mention its steep environmental costs, including the 54,000 square miles (140,000 square kilometers) of pristine Alberta wilderness that may be razed to feed it.
"We're not saying the project is good or bad. We're just saying the scale and severity of what's happening in Alberta will make your spine tingle," Robert Johnson, a former Business Insider correspondent, wrote after flying over the Canadian oil sands in May 2012.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/at-one-end-of-trumps-revived-keystone-xl-pipeline-theres-a-scene-you-must-see-to-believe/ss-AAmihk9?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout
dalton99a
(81,526 posts)Thanks for the link!
A HERETIC I AM
(24,371 posts)the international oil industry works.
Bengus81
(6,931 posts)And farmers who at least in Kansas ALWAYS vote Republican are SCREWED. Irrigation wells will be poisoned from Nebraska to Texas. THEN we the taxpayer will be hit with a clean up bill if that's even possible.
wordpix
(18,652 posts)I'm not a fracking advocate, either. But who the hell will buy this expensive oil?
heaven05
(18,124 posts)to capitalist greed...and the scar on the earth is horrendous and growing...we won't survive with the boy-potus and his minions in charge.. what a fucked up situation this is now......