Repower America Messages Delivered: Thanks to you, 42,000 Strong Against the Keystone XL Pipeline (1003 hits)
By Meghan Groob, Press Assistant
June 8, 2011
There’s a big new landmark that might wind across America: TransCanada Corporation, an oil company, wants to build a 1,700-mile steel pipeline to pump dirty oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to the refineries of Port Arthur, Texas. Supporters of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline claim it will reduce our country’s reliance on imports from the Middle East. But a new pipeline will merely reroute our oil dependence — it will not remove it.
Here are the facts: A large part of Canada’s forest — an area the size of Pennsylvania [1] — could soon be razed to reach the tar sands buried deeply below. In northern Alberta, tar sands extraction has converted pristine evergreen woods into a wasteland of trucking roads and toxic waste lakes visible from space. Alberta’s tar sand deposits do not contain conventional oil that can be pumped from the ground. Instead, sand-laden bitumen — a heavy, tar-like petroleum substance — has to be mined from the ground. One technique is open mining, which is so inefficient that companies must mine two tons of tar sand in order to extract a single barrel of oil. Deeper deposits are heated on-site and pumped to the surface, in a process that destroys less forestland but emits greater amounts of greenhouse gas pollution.
Image by species_snob Tar sand oil puts a heavy footprint on our climate. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates (PDF) that on a well-to-tank basis, the greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian tar sands are 82% greater than the emissions from conventional oil refined in the United States. ... For the last month, we’ve been asking our members to submit comments to the State Department about the proposed extension of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. This pipeline would transport dirty tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada across the width of the United States to the Gulf of Mexico.
We received a staggering 42,000 comments asking Secretary Hillary Clinton and the State Department to oppose the expansion of this pipeline. And we aren’t working alone: In total, at least 265,000 citizens submitted comments or signed petitions which were delivered to the Department of State. If you ask me, that sends a clear signal that we value our country’s heartland and our environment more than short-term profits for oil companies.
Tar sands oil is already the dirtiest oil made on a commercial scale, and a recent report found carbon pollution from tar sands is rising. In fact, emissions per barrel of this oil rose a whopping 14.5% in 2009. When you consider that this pipeline would contribute to dangerous changes in our climate and lock us in to decades of further dependence on oil, it becomes obvious that the proposed extension is a terrible idea. We delivered your comments to the State Department on Tuesday. Thanks to your efforts, we can be sure that our voices will be heard.
