Keystone XL pipeline shutdown

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How do our Canadian friends feel about shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

 

No, just curious how you guys across the northern border felt since from what I gather your government is not happy.

 

I've moved this discussion to AoDA, but it's clearly a political subject as well, so feel free to discuss it in view of that as well.

 

Canadian government isn't happy because they've poured billions into lobbying for KXL in an effort to appeal to Alberta's electorate. The pipeline had a business case when it was conceived (2010, $100/bbl oil price), but at some point (oil collapse of 2014 and on) it became all but apparent that even if it were to be built, it would not be used in any productive fashion.

Trudeau is upset because blowing big chunks of federal budget on "pipelines" is the core of his fruitless attempt to make Alberta vote Liberal. Alberta did not, and will not vote for a party led by a man named Trudeau. It was clearly demonstrated in the last election, when the province has overwhelmingly voted for a stale soggy rag over Trudeau, despite the latter spending big (in terms of money and diplomatic capital) on pipeline lobbying.

Environmental and ethical considerations always take a backseat when it comes to a Canadian federal government attempting to plug Alberta's collective moaning yap with an oil pacifier.

 

I don't think it will make much of a difference other than shipping the oil via less efficient and somewhat more dangerous rail instead of a pipeline... and of course the loss of the temporary construction jobs.

 

The bigger issue (domestically anyway) is the actual process of tar sands extraction, with accidents during transportation being a significantly lesser concern. Not sure if you're familiar how they extract the stuff, but the site is a colossal environmental catastrophe in itself, and the gigantic strip mine whence they dig it up is visible from space. In its heyday it was the sole leading source of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, then there's the water contamination and a host of other adverse effects that are not going to be mitigated for generations.

Then there's "simple economics". The toxic sludge lifeblood of Alberta's economy is just a bad product. It's difficult to extract, so it's costly to produce. Because it's utter gunk, it's also very cheap to sell. There was a time only recently when each barrel they produced had a negative yield - it sold for $6 and cost $20 to extract. Even in the best of modern times, it's uncompetitive and should not even be dug up, not to mention shipped to US refineries. So KXL is a halo project in support of an industry which effectively died while governments played hot potato with the pipeline.

 

So you think Alberta will stop extracting the oil sands just because KXL was cancelled? Call me skeptical. But I see that I can firmly put you in the "Good" category

 

It's not really up to Alberta as a political entity, largely because a lot of mining rights at the sands belong to multinationals. Canada as an entity, despite its reputation for forward-thinking environmental policy, has a gigantic blind spot when it comes to digging up the dirtiest oil on the planet in its own backyard. During the "steady stewardship" of the previous Harper Government, a lot of long-term development rights were sold liberally to artificially balance the budget, and now those entities call the shots. Will they stop extracting considering the likely availability of other fields in their portfolio which do not require them to risk losing money on each barrel they product? It's anyone's guess, but the production has been steady (with significant dips whenever the profit will go into the red) as opposed to the explosive growth prior to the crisis.

On a personal note, forgive me for my lack of concern for the financial health of CNOOC and the like, but any measure that hinders the profitability of that site is a net positive for humankind. Shutting down KXL is one of those measures. Alberta will survive just fine.

And hey, the budget was almost balanced that one year a decade ago. Yay, what a monumental achievement.

 

Oh, I'm not implying that thinking the cancellation of the KXL pipeline is good is a bad thing. Like I said I was just curious.