— from Dow Jones Business News —
Canada’s main energy regulator said Wednesday [April 3, 2014], it will hold public hearings into Kinder Morgan Energy Partners L.P.’s planned expansion of a pipeline that carries crude from the Alberta oil sands to Canada’s Pacific Coast.
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The National Energy Board said it would first hear evidence from aboriginal groups, beginning this August. Public oral hearings will start in January next year.
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The regulator identified 12 issues its review would focus on, among them the impact on the environment; effects on marine shipping; aboriginal interests; and contingency planning for spills and accidents.
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Kinder Morgan has said up to 34 oil tankers a month will be needed to ship oil from the expanded pipeline, up from just six a month currently. Much of that additional supply will be shipped to markets in Asia.
(To read the full article, go to nasdaq.com/article/canada-to-hold-public-hearings-on-kinder-morgan-pipeline)
Thanks to Paula Treneer
I wish we could focus on the issue of the AB oil sands using more energy to produce oil than the oil is worth.
Paige, Kinder Morgan pipeline IS a huge part of that. There are export terminals to be built in Burnaby and other nearby places. Keystone will connect with the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Kinder Morgan is based in Texas. It “owns” the pipeline material, but will not be held accountable for any spills or accidents with its pipeline – that will fall on Canadian companies and most likely, Canadian taxpayers. There was a period (now closed) for people to apply to be intervenors or commentors. Some San Juan County people have done so and have been accepted to participate. If you are an Intervenor, you can ask questions and challenge things. If you are a commenter, you have one shot at writing a letter, and will get trainings on how to write an effective letter. Unfortunately, many fossil fuel industry corporations were accepted as intervenors. Only one person in the San Juans was accepted as an intervenor, as far as I know. The deck is heavily stacked in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Energy Canada has always passed these permits. If we don’t stop these pipelines, the crude oil sands will keep on being drilled, the land will keep on being assaulted, and shipped DANGEROUSLY across rough waters and inland waters to feed the Asia glut. So, slim as our chances are, we have to try, and keep on trying.
Paige, if you have links about this, I would love to have them, as I have a chance to write a letter and would be sure to include your point, with some backing links, in the letter. Phone me – I’m in the phone book.
Sadie
Paula – well done. You’re on it, as usual. :)
If anyone is interested, here is an article I wrote for Op-Ed news back in early February about the Kinder Morgan and the Trans Mountain pipeline.
https://tinyurl.com/oc8uwjv
Sadie, I do not have a collection of accepted references. With simple web searching, I read “as few as 2 units of energy produced to 1 unit of energy to extract,” but this is controversial. The ratio might not include self-derived energy even though that energy is enlisted to extract. It certainly does not include the “energy” of fresh water during processing, nor transportation and environmental factors, to name a few examples. Surely, Energy Canada and Suncor have already established the metrics. Now it only remains to prove that carbon is too big to fail (until it does). Trying counts.
Paige and Sadie,
Given how the conservative Canadian government has made the oil sands industry a national priority, and diversifying their end markets away from the US, I think challenging the pipeline on this basis will not succeed. I think the issue of tanker congestion and likely environmental damage from heavy oil spills is the issue which Kinder Morgan has to defend. The risk analyses conducted by these pipeline companies are often statistically flawed. Many environmentalists agree the oil from the tar sands does more environmental damage than other sources, but the Canadian government is wedded to maximizing the value of their oil before the price drops further.