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       #Post#: 17703--------------------------------------------------
        Keystone Pipeline: No longer economically viable
   DIR By: rapids_60
       Date: November 15, 2014, 8:32 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Killed by "Drill Baby, Drill".
       --- Quote ---
       > Economics no longer make Keystone pipeline viable
       >
       > What if they voted for a pipeline but nobody came?
       >
       > As Congress rushes to approve the long-delayed Keystone XL
       pipeline, it is questionable whether or not the project will
       make as much of a difference as proponents expect. Since June,
       crude oil has declined by 28 percent, pushing the price that oil
       from new wells in Canada may command below what the expected
       cost will be to produce it.
       >
       > The so-called "heavy oil" extracted from sand in Alberta,
       which the proposed pipeline would carry to Nebraska, en route to
       refineries on the Gulf Coast, will cost between $85 and $110 to
       produce, depending on which drilling technology is used,
       according to a report in July by the Canadian Energy Research
       Institute, a nonprofit whose work is often cited by Keystone
       proponents. West Texas Intermediate crude oil traded today at
       $76.67.
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML http://www.cnbc.com/id/102181913#.
       #Post#: 17709--------------------------------------------------
       Re:  Keystone Pipeline: No longer economically viable
   DIR By: trollslayer
       Date: November 16, 2014, 7:16 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: rapids_60 link ---
       >
       > Killed by "Drill Baby, Drill".
       >
       >
  HTML http://www.cnbc.com/id/102181913#.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       The article seems to assume that oil prices are going to stay
       this low forever. Oil has dropped yet we still continue to bring
       in this oil via rail and truck.  Apparently somebody is still
       making money from it.
       #Post#: 17714--------------------------------------------------
       Re:  Keystone Pipeline: No longer economically viable
   DIR By: Notso
       Date: November 16, 2014, 9:15 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       If approved it will get built, might be a little slower with
       lower prices but it will get built.  10 years from now all the
       new projects will not have the strip mining look with the oceans
       of polluted water.  It will all be done underground using
       microwaves or alternating currency in the well pipe itself.
       Much less energy intensive and environmentally clean considering
       it's a dirty business by definition.  Much like fracking will
       transition to using lasers stead of that dirty high pressure
       chemical.
       I'm gussin they will also figger out how to make this stuff
       float iffin it escapes the pipeline, makin it like the stuff the
       Beverly Hillbilly Jed Clampett shot at where it wants to stay on
       the surface.
       Half the country often seems to forget scientists also work for
       Corporations, they just do not have tenure and get fired if they
       do not produce.
       Also gotta remember, this pipeline is designed to haul tens of
       millions of barrels of "traditional" crude out of States like
       Montana.
       An 8 year President really means little to a 70 year
       infrastructure project.
       #Post#: 17721--------------------------------------------------
       Re:  Keystone Pipeline: No longer economically viable
   DIR By: rapids_60
       Date: November 16, 2014, 5:16 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       The're not going to build a project that delivers oil at
       above-market cost in an environment where their profit margins
       are shrinking.
       Perhaps when oil rises again....but that doesn't appear likely
       in the near future.  The Saudis are pushing prices down even
       further in the hopes the US will scale back production.
       
       #Post#: 17733--------------------------------------------------
       Re:  Keystone Pipeline: No longer economically viable
   DIR By: rapids_60
       Date: November 16, 2014, 11:31 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: Notso link ---
       >
       > Half the country often seems to forget scientists also work
       for Corporations, they just do not have tenure and get fired if
       they do not produce.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       Interesting comments, although if history serves, Corporate
       scientists and engineers will do what the corporation directs,
       which will be guided by two things:  Profit and regulation.
       Corporate scientists still insist Leaded fuels are safe,  there
       is no link between smoking and cancer and the "radium girls" had
       preexisting illnesses.   That's their job, to defend their
       employer's preferred position.
       Don't fool yourself.  They'd be injecting used Prestone
       antifreeze into the water table if it were the cheapest fracking
       fluid available and those corporate scientists will dutifully
       "prove" that it's both healthy and delicious. Oh, and green too
       since it's really just recycling.
       You are right, if they don't they get fired.  They aren't paid
       to prove their employer is poisoning people.
       Corporations have just one fiduciary duty: to their shareholders
       via profits.
       Every inch forward in safety and environmentalism has been
       forced by government, from mandatory seatbelts and safety glass
       in automobiles to the clean air and water acts.  That's the
       government's proper job,  to set guidelines keeping
       profit-generating activity safe for everyone else.
       #Post#: 17736--------------------------------------------------
       Re:  Keystone Pipeline: No longer economically viable
   DIR By: Notso
       Date: November 17, 2014, 7:59 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: rapids_60 link ---
       >
       > The're not going to build a project that delivers oil at
       above-market cost in an environment where their profit margins
       are shrinking.
       > Perhaps when oil rises again....but that doesn't appear likely
       in the near future.  The Saudis are pushing prices down even
       further in the hopes the US will scale back production.
       >
       >
       >
       >
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       Absolutely not, but break even on some of these sites is in the
       $60 range, before transportation.  Many more in the $85 range,
       the current intermediate and long term guesstimates.
       If this microwave process it real, it will eliminate the extreme
       natural gas cost of using steam, which produces that
       contaminated water everybody is concerned about.  Imagine using
       microwaves, at 5 or 10 percent of the current energy cost
       (currently the largest expense), with no or almost no waste
       water.  It could lower cost per barrel by a huge amount.
       After that, we just have to transport the heavy oil (kinda like
       what some of we buy from the Venezuelans) safely, that can also
       be figgered out.  With the western worlds aversion to building
       new refineries, might be the U.S. Government could do the easy
       fix and offer tax credits to our Northern refineries to take on
       this crude, refine and send the easier to safely transport
       refined product on down the line.
       #Post#: 17737--------------------------------------------------
       Re:  Keystone Pipeline: No longer economically viable
   DIR By: Notso
       Date: November 17, 2014, 8:59 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: rapids_60 link ---
       >
       > Interesting comments, although if history serves, Corporate
       scientists and engineers will do what the corporation directs,
       which will be guided by two things:  Profit and regulation.
       >
       > Corporate scientists still insist Leaded fuels are safe,
       there is no link between smoking and cancer and the "radium
       girls" had preexisting illnesses.   That's their job, to defend
       their employer's preferred position.
       >
       > Don't fool yourself.  They'd be injecting used Prestone
       antifreeze into the water table if it were the cheapest fracking
       fluid available and those corporate scientists will dutifully
       "prove" that it's both healthy and delicious. Oh, and green too
       since it's really just recycling.
       > You are right, if they don't they get fired.  They aren't paid
       to prove their employer is poisoning people.
       >
       > Corporations have just one fiduciary duty: to their
       shareholders via profits.
       > Every inch forward in safety and environmentalism has been
       forced by government, from mandatory seatbelts and safety glass
       in automobiles to the clean air and water acts.  That's the
       government's proper job,  to set guidelines keeping
       profit-generating activity safe for everyone else.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       "Every inch forward in safety and environmentalism has been
       forced by government, from mandatory seatbelts and safety glass
       in automobiles to the clean air and water acts."
       Every inch?  Your leaded fuel example, how did that work out
       making the government look good.  True, the corporate scientists
       supported leaded fuel, what did the government scientists do?
       The government scientists in California forced MTBE on the oil
       companies against their will as a replacement for lead, the only
       cheap other choice is ethanol, which the "feed the world" folk
       object to.
       As California goes so does the rest of the country, the oil
       companies put MTBE in everywhere, now the oil companies are
       getting sued for billions while those California government
       scientists are enjoying their pensions.
       Seat belts and safety glass may have been mandated by government
       but they were both invented by private folk, hmmm.
       #Post#: 17738--------------------------------------------------
       Re:  Keystone Pipeline: No longer economically viable
   DIR By: Snickers
       Date: November 17, 2014, 11:05 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       "Every inch forward in safety and environmentalism has been
       forced by government, from mandatory seatbelts and safety glass
       in automobiles to the clean air and water acts."
       Really??
       There once was man name Preston Tucker.  He developed and built
       50 cars in 1947.
       They had a built in protection frame and roll bar, safety
       glass, seat belts padded dash.
       He also had developed a collapsible steering column, disk
       brakes, fuel injection, that were going to be in the next model
       car.
       Who stood in the way of all these safety features? The US
       Government. They shut him down.
       #Post#: 17740--------------------------------------------------
       Re:  Keystone Pipeline: No longer economically viable
   DIR By: rapids_60
       Date: November 17, 2014, 4:29 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: Snickers link ---
       >
       > There once was man name Preston Tucker.
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       The Feds shut Tucker (also DeLorean and several others)  down
       because then, as now they were beholden to big money- in those
       days GM, Ford and Chrysler.   Safety or lack of had nothing to
       do with it.  He could have been producing rolling death traps
       and it would not have changed the outcome.
       This sort of proves the original point.  These devices were
       available in 1947, yet not  incorporated by the automakers until
       the Government mandated them some 20 years later.  GM actively
       fought standard seatbelts with their own engineers showing how
       they cause severe head injuries. (instead of being safely
       ejected from the car).
       So back to the original idea, that oil company scientists are
       busy working on clean fracking technology.    Perhaps they are.
       But you'll never see it implemented unless it is either less
       costly than current methods or mandated.
       And if the corporate orders come to defend current practices,
       those corporate scientists will remember who signs their
       paycheck.
       #Post#: 17741--------------------------------------------------
       Re:  Keystone Pipeline: No longer economically viable
   DIR By: rapids_60
       Date: November 17, 2014, 4:40 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: Notso link ---
       >
       > Your leaded fuel example, how did that work out making the
       government look good
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       Government did not create or mandate MTBE, it created a clean
       air standard that was easiest to meet with oxygenated fuel.
       Private industry scientists (specifically ARCO)  decided
       exactly how that would be done and MTBE was the least expensive
       route.
       Fact is we'd still be burning leaded gasoline with Corporate
       scientists defending it's virtues had the feds not banned it.
       Their job isn't to prove their employer is killing people.
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