I find it ironic that the same liberals who cheered the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision are now upset that the pipeline company is using eminent domain to acquire easements.

It’s nice that so many people are willing to simply label their opposition in order to bypass (or try to subvert) their arguments.  It’s also nice that everybody here is waving the Global Warming flag to push an agenda of Americans giving up liberties and wealth to “save humanity.”

Look, it’s not hard to be against this project.  It’s a slapdash, steaming pile of poo engineering project railroaded through the United States by a clearly corrupt State Department, to benefit Canadian and Chinese companies.  If they were mining copper or giving away kittens, it’d still be an awful thing.

It doesn’t matter that the results are inevitable.  My death is inevitable, too, but I still try pretty damned hard to postpone it.  How many of you consider suicide, instead?

This isn’t capitalists against environmentalists, even though I’m sure it’s easy to predict where those groups will fall in the argument.  It’s about whether the idea is benefiting anybody who’s required to make a sacrifice, and the answer to that seems to be no.  It benefits the people like Hillary Clinton.

@John   Oh, witty one, you have done the trick.You have labeled without a word, just a phrase: “...the people like…”, who shall remain nameless.  Clever.

@DB:  Mind cluing us in as to which “liberals” cheered a decision that empowered “big business” to use a government influenced by their money to strip away the rights of individual American homeowners?

Even Ron Paul recognized that the fault for that decision - for much of what ails America - lies in the “justices” put onto the Supreme Court by the right - by the Republicans.  “Justices” who inevitably side with “big business” and Corporate America against the American people, the Constitution, and the United States of America.

lolll…read his words:  http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul259.html

To quote Dr. Paul:  “It is folly to believe we will regain lost freedoms if only the right individuals are appointed to the Supreme Court. Republican presidents, including conservative icon Ronald Reagan, have appointed some of our very worst Supreme Court Justices.”

I have much more respect for the supreme court, regardless of who appointed them.  John Paul Stevens comes to mind.  Although I may not agree with all of his positions, he was truly and independent jurist.

So to collect some of the opinons…
It is important to keep North American Air clean.  But Chinese air can be poisoned, (because I guess, nobody has experienced their problems).

We want to stop American hydrocarbon energy programs immediately.  But nobody has bothered to get past sound bytes to understand the cost and timetable for such a transition.  Nor has anybody calculated the cost to the economy for becoming disconnected to oil and gas.
Fuel for trucking, and grocery stores
Fuel for fishing fleets
Fuel for airlines
Fuel for farmers
All of these examples are not ready for prime time electric vehicle conversion.

Then there are lubricants for all of the machinery whether it is electric, or anything else.

Solar power is good, regardless of the size of the manufacturing carbon footprint, and the destruction of the American solar market by anti-competitive marketing of foreign products.

Then there are the poor.  Do you suggest all poor people will have to move to the largest cities in the country because they will need public transit or be forced to buy electric cars, which are presently too expensive and primarily suitable for urban environments.  I guess the logic goes that at least the poor can then take the bus.  Stupid arguement wouldn’t you agree.  Well so is the arguement and myopic contention that all you have to do is say no to oil and gas and everything will be rosy.

Given a preference on social responsibility, I would rather buy oil from our Canadian neighbors, than to buy a similar feedstock from self-righteous dictators.

If installation of a 2MW wind turbine is $3.5 million, and you wanted to flatten electricity dependence on gas, oil, coal, and nuclear, you will need to build 450,000 wind turbines by 2030 to meet the current projected demand in that time frame.  The approximate cost would be $1.575 trillion.  About the same amount Congress is trying to trim from the budget.  Further, if you want to reduce traditional eletrical generation to 1990 levels, you would have to build an additional 1.15 million tubines for a cost of $4.05 trillion.

Time frame—for the first phase to flatten the curve, you would have to build 22,000 (GIANT) turbines per year.  Our 2009 construction capacity was about 5000 turbines (equivalent).  So the green machine is already behind the power curve.

Time frame—for the second phase to reduce traditional power production to 1990 levels, you now have to add an additional 57,500 turbines per year.  The result is 80,000 turbines a year starting last year.

Cost—$280 billion dollars per year, assuming you have the manufacturing capital and production capacity to build them.  The number easily out strips all simplistic notions that you can tax the rich or tax big oil to fix the problem.

And remember you had to have had instantaneous start-up last year.

Then there are the financial ramifications (cost of capital).  If wind takes 6 to 15 years for payout (and solar is 8-20), who pays the cost?

Foot print—roughly 21 million acres of public and private land will be needed/taken for emplacement of the turbines, not counting substations and infrastructure.  And before you start, you cannot say you will put them in the desert in Nevada.  You have to maintain power line efficiency which limits the distance to market for the power.

With that you then have to factor in the cost of realestate.  Pick a number, say $15,000 per acre.  The cost of realestate would be about
                            $315 TRILLION DOLLARS…

Unless you are going to steal land by decree of the “domain” word.

If you lease the land you still have to pay royalties to the land oweners, just like big oil.  Next time maybe we can talk about operation costs.

@michael hiner:  Your argument is essentially that transitioning away from the status quo - even it the status quo is wreaking destruction upon the environment, American politics and democracy, and our economy - is too expensive so we should just accept slow death from a known evil rather than battle our way out of it.

Applying that same logic to World War II, we would have pointed to the expense of winning that war and instead of spending the money to arm ourselves and fight back - and win - we would have accepted the loss of land and American lives as our enemies attacked us again and again.

Anything that inflicts harm upon the present and future of the American people is an enemy of the American people.  I don’t personally believe that America should surrender to any enemy, foreign or domestic (in fact, I swore an oath to that effect).

Oh, and anybody interested in true costs of building or replacing electrical generation capacity should review

205.254.135.24/oiaf/beck_plantcosts/pdf/updatedplantcosts.pdf

Pay particular attention to the fixed and variable O&M (operation and maintenance) cost columns - that is, how much would it cost to run those different types of electricity generation facilities once they are built.

Of course when reviewing the O&M costs, you should include the great likelihood that the carbonaceous boyz will be doing their darndest to buy the regulation-killing legislation required to ramp up their particulate greenhouse gas emissions level and thereby attain the ability to dump stuff all over solar arrays (increasing their cleaning requirements) and block sunlight (reducing their efficiency).

In fact, they’ve already started on that effort:

http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/04/05/3939/greenhouse-cash

Good evening ib—
Honestly I believe in the utilization of alternative energy is great and I would like to see it increased for the sake and desire to be free of nefarious oil dictators in far away lands.  But we cannot no do it at the expense of bankrupting the country.  The shock value of the numbers I captured from other sources is that they exceed our national GDP.

One can thow all kinds of arrows at large oil and gas companies, but no matter what is said the country needs the petroleum products.  Nobody (in government) or the private sector has come up with a rational and affordable transition plan.  But I do imagine what would have happened if the the stimulus money was used to build factories and put out of work people on the assembly line.  The down side of course are cases like Solyndra.  Crooks.

As for the WWII analogy, I recall the country was in a double dip depression and was very isolationist until the Japanese attacked us.  Only after that disasterous tragedy did the American public react and rally.  Quite frankly if you want to use the turning the blind eye arguement, one could reflect on the injustice of Jewish refugees being turned away from our shores, and we did nothing.  Or maybe the anology of the facists that everything would be better if the Jews were subjugated to their fist, remembering they needed a scapgoat and basically said the rich and elitist jews were the problem for all of Germany’s problems.  Remember reading how the facists called for hate, confiscation of property, and the physical and emotion de-huminization that followed.  It was all the Jews fault.  A single element of society was singled out for persecution and hate in order to advance a hidden ajenda.  Hmmm…

It seems to me that unless you include the poisoning of the air in China, all of our green arguements are elitist.  You want batteries, call China; toys, peoples republic of Walmart; clothes, nearly slave labor form the textile mills and sweat factories.  Yet we as a nation said no pollution, drove out rust belt jobs, mining industry, and a host of heavy industries becasue labor and environmental laws were easier in China.  Thus we turn our nose up pretending to be green in spirit at the cost of air quality in a far away land.  Not very noble. 

If we as a republic believe in a green transition, then it requires “shared” sacrifice, just as it did in WWII, not just singling out a few as scapegoats for all of our societal ills.

@Michael Hiner:  I find your comment “The shock value of the numbers I captured from other sources is that they exceed our national GDP.” to be the most enlightening statement in your response.

One might indeed conclude that shock was what you valued when you were deciding what anonymous source - and numbers - to use.

Shock values:

US Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 2006, Annual Energy Outlook 2008

This reference was used for the expected electricity demand going out to 2030.  If you go to the “eia” website they have just about every breakdown and graph on energy and consumption.

If you go to the windindustry website http://www.windustry.org

Quote:
“The costs for a commercial scale wind turbine in 2007 ranged from $1.2 million to $2.6 million , per MW of nameplate capacity installed.”

If you go to http://www.treehugger.com
“Increase of 74% for Land-Based, and 48% for offshore Wind Turbines”
2.23 million euros per MW offshore ($3.45 million)
1.38 million euros per MW onshore, ($2.13 million)

The February Bloomberg report says the cost of wind turbines in 2011 has dropped in cost to .98 million Euros ($1.5 million) per MW.

So looking out 20 years I used a fixed and therefore conservative cost of $3.5 million for 2 MW turbines.

BTW: these are all easily discoverd by with a google entry of
“wind turbine cost”

Cheers,

@michael hiner:  I was aware that you used old numbers generated during a Republican administration that was famous for both its saturation with oil and its demand that all Federal departments stay “on-message” - specifically, the message designed to cater to the special interests the Republicans represent.

The figures I used were generated - updated, I should say - in 2010.  Now the URLs I gave are no longer available; apparently somebody went all MMS and started looking out for their sponsors in the private sector.

But they can still be reviewed at

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/11/23/eia-releases-new-generating-plant-capital-cost-data/

The bottom line is the cost of building coal/oil/gas/nuclear generation is soaring, and further that group’s ongoing operation and maintenance costs are significant and will undoubtedly further increase…

While solar generation capacity construction costs are dropping and ongoing operation and maintenance are as close to zero as you can get…seeing as how Big Energy hasn’t figured out a way to attain a monopoly on sunshine as of yet.

cleanenergy.harvard.edu

I don’t consider Bloomberg to be old, dated February 2011.  The EIA numbers are dated from 2010, which like all projection reports uses the past years to project forward, becasue the present year statistics cannot be totally compiled yet.  So again, not old.

So I guess we could twist your arguement by noting that the current administration has at every step strangled the oil business to intentionally drive up costs for the oil and gas companies and subsequently the consumers, as evidenced by the offshore moratorium and intentional slow down of permits. 

BTW—the slow down did not accomplish anything except the need to hire analysts and lawyers to interpret the regulations because they are so convoluted…

The EPA ruling to delay the Shell oil permits in the arctic were no science based, highly prejudicial and without merit.  They were generating less pollution than any city street in New York City…

The delay in the bid rounds in the Gulf of Mexico did nothing but delay a well honed business cycle that attempts to supply steady feedstock for American industry.  It was in credibly naive for the administration to say that a one year delay would not hurt the oil business.  Clearly a complete lack of understanding of business by theoretical economists who have never had to run a company and generate a revenue.

lolll…you make an excellent advocate for Big Oil, Michael Hiner.  You might consider “K” Street as a post-retirement hobby; they pay extremely well.

All things considered, environment, geo-political mucking about, and energy security.  Is it better to buy oil feestock from Venezuela, or from Canada?  The question is posed with the reality that for the next 30 years in spite of yearnings by many to “liberate” us from the evils of the oil industry, that it is a critical and stategic commodity.  This commodity is environmentally challenged.  More power is utilized to transport and refine it into a useable product.  But back to the question of energy security do we continue buy from overseas and suffer at the whims of egos, or continue to find ways to integrate domestic (North American) sources?

The environmental arguement is irrelevant.  The feedstock can come domestically or from overseas governments.  The alternative energy track is parallel and is not yet ready to replace oil and gas.

wikipedia has a pretty good discussion on Canadian heavy oil, and the Venezeulan Orinoco oil…

Investers with $20 TRILLION+ are urging all governments to sign a binding treaty on carbon emissions. “Governments that act aggressively to enact strong, long-term climate and energy policy will reap the biggest rewards. They will drive the innovation, attract investment and create jobs.”

“This is the only way to guarantee the long-term sustainability and security of the world economic system, and the stability of returns from global investment, a major part of which is directly linked to the pensions and life insurance of ordinary people around the world.”

“The arguments run counter to some of those being made in the United States, where there has been a raging and highly partisan debate over whether countries’ economies would clearly benefit from more climate investment and “green jobs.”
http://wapo.st/mQK8Sd

Me, I just hope that those who wish to keep their rate of wealth accumulation climbing by enforcing America’s addiction to oil aren’t successful.

You see, above and beyond the endless wars and corruption and suppression of democracy that result from all of that money that those who monopolize and manipulate carbonaceous forms of energy feed the right, the rest of the world isn’t going to wait for us to put common sense before greed…we’ll lose out on the market for the generation and utilization of green energy and so increase our risk of becoming yet more debris in the pile of history’s failed states.

http://www.i.mitsubishicars.com

We’re already well down the road to becoming a footnote in history…I don’t see surrendering America’s future in order to protect the energy status quo as being the optimal course of action for the American people or the United States of America.  Hydrocarbon addiction is a competitive handicap; that energy source is vulnerable to and suffers from the effects of monopolization in harvesting and distribution as well as market manipulation and speculation.

Those are problems common to all forms of carbonaceous energy - and given the fact that energy is vital to producing or providing anything and everything, handicapping our nation solely to indulge the greed of a few is an unacceptable - an unworkable - solution.

Better to seek as close to point-of-use energy generation as possible, for the existing energy monopolies see the levying and escalation of the private tax they call profit as their right and they have further repeatedly demonstrated that they are willing to sacrifice the strategic interests - the security and longevity - of the United States of America in their effort to achieve the impossible:  The satiation of their greed.

Nobody says how long it will take to transition away from oil and gas because it can’t be done economically in a short time frame.  Plastics and every step of the domestic manufacturing, transport, and retail sale of products in this country are impacted by our use of hydrocarbons.  Fiberfill, nalgene bottles, running shoes, synthetic fabrics, lubricants, light fixtures, toys, furntiure, plumbing… everything excpet the communities of the Amish (with great respect to them), is impacted by oil and gas.  So even if you could pass your magical green wand and turn off hydrocarbon use, you would first bankrupt the economy, and second take it back 130 years, because you don’t want to talk about a transition plan and deal with reality. 

Wind and solar are not economically competitive with oil and gas.  If you provide them with the same tax deductions as the oil and gas industry they would still be costly.  Frankly why doesn’t Congress give them the same tax deductions?  It certainly had the chance during the first two years of the the President’s term.  There is a big difference in terminology seperating entitlement mis-statements and loan subsidies from tax deductions or tax credits.  You all need to study your tax code a little better.

Also laughing still, if you could run down the oil industry, who will the government tax next to pay for roads and infrastructure?  Are you going to tax the wind in your hair?  Or will citizens have to pay a clean air tax for what they breath?  You don’t get it.  There is big money in taxation, and carbon taxes.  Only a selected few of a very elite club are allowed in to play the carbon-tax/credit game.  Silly humans.

clost point of use energy—
You all should visit the port in Freeport, Texas, to view all of the turbine blades that are “imported” into the country.  Of the top 10 manufacturers of wind turbines, only one is American and in the number 3 spot.  It is GE, and if I recall correctly it was reported this year that they paid no corporate income taxes.  GE is every bit a large corporation as any oil company, but I don’t here anyone wanting to destroy their profits as a monopoly player in the Green industry.  Here is the list of competition form Wikipedia:
Vestas, Sinovel, GE Wind Energy, Goldwind, Enercon, Suzlon Group, Dongfang Electric, Gamesa, Siemens Wind Power…

So much for a boost to the American Job market.
Yet high quality crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico is delayed because of administrative slow downs.

Monopolization—
If you take out small and mid-size oil and gas producers, there are more large foreign companies than American companies.  Remember that when the lynch mob wanted to ruin BP last year, it was quickly pointed out that retailiation by the US government would severly with adverse consequences, impact the pension funds of British citizens.  Remember how quickly the administration backed off.  Reality check.

Corruption and suppression of democracy—
Better to buy heavy oil from Canada than foreign dictatorships
Or, I guess if you are Green, then you don’t have an obligation to global social responsibility, because it must be better to bring in foreign oil where regulations are problematic, and people suffer.  This—rather than doing everything possible to produce at home and take care of our own.  Remember no one in the Green community knows how or can build a realistic rapid transition plan.  All of the plans run out to 50 and 75 years.

Michael Hiner - Your cynicism suffocates any productive dialogue or planning.

janjamm—I am sorry it appears that I am cynical.  I have noticed that there are so many well intentioned and well meaning responses, but not a lot of content on economics, or cost benefit comparisons.  Many many of the kind souls in the 69 postings on this article are singing only to the choir.

Now, everyone has pretty much deduced that I have worked in the oil patch for over 30 years.  I would hope that there would be some admission that I don’t take the alternative energy industry apart.  I believe it is a great addition to our economic future and survival.  I do hope that we can analyze projects like the pipeline for their short term and long term benefits to the country.  But with that comes the environmental impact and a rational comparison of pros and cons, with maybe a more appropriate discussion on topics or line items such as greenhouse gas offsets.  Then you see we can start to really tackle the big picture problem.  For example:

Most evaluations say that wheel to wheel CO2 impacts from the production and refining of the tar sand oils are 5 to 15 per cent higher than traditional oil and gas production (commodity value chains).  What would happen if we would look for alternatives for power generation at refineries, pipeline pumping stations, and in-field production facilities to offset the increased CO2 impact?  I am not saying carbon tax.  Let me be clear on that because in my most humble of beliefs I believe the system is on a level playing field yet. 
I think— an integration of environmental and industry goals would help speed us toward a better and more realistic solution.  This would not be done by imposition of regulatory fines and mandates, but rather a national marketing of the concept to the citizens of the country for support.  Ok now cynicism, what oil and gas company would turn down an opportunity to turn a costly commodity with higher CO2 impact, into a green offset solution?  None, if there is a tax incentive that can help offset the cost.  I believe that is the same argument the wind industry lobbies for in Congress.  “Give us the same tax breaks as the oil industry.”  Win-win.

This kind of dialogue can be used for every process regarding the pipeline.  Another example is the concern for impact on aquifers if there is a spill.  Step 1, identify if it is a real threat, or a manufactured scare tactic, knowing that there are thousands of miles of pipelines across America.  If the threat is benign, we should look at ways to build the pipeline in manner that makes it a little safer.  If there is a real threat that a pipeline leak could cause damage, then build in the control systems (run by alternative energy), clean-up and remediation processes, and inspections that take care of it.  Step 2, install alternative power systems along the pipeline right of way as part of our strategic transition goal to energy independence.  But beware of the dark side of imminent domain and its cost to the community.  Or maybe, that too is a cost benefit that offsets the huge negative cost to alternative energy power systems.

I am hoping that folks can think out of the box on topics like this.  I admit I have written a lot of things that challenge the status-quo of opinions.  But a voice of dissent must be heard if we are to really examine or analyze the problem and make good economic decisions.

me thinks…

@michael Me thinks that trust between oil and environment has broken. The voice for the environment is so underfunded and the voice for the oil/gas so rich with profits, that the country is unable to have a sane dialogue as you propose. There are short, mid and long-term solutions that could, should, be determined by good planning. Like the good planning that other western economies managed. But the money that can be made in the short term drowns out the reasonable proposals. Statistics are good. Knowing the oil fields is good. And I can hear that you are trying to understand and propose solutions. But, the industry takes no prisoners, so the people who feel they are on the side of the earth must shout longer and harder to protect her, because there is NO sense that the oil/gas industries will protect her unless forced to again and again and again. I challenge you to visit the spills on the one beautiful Kalamazoo and Yellowstone rivers. Remember the Deepwater Horizon devastation. I challenge you to visit the Alberta tars sands. It is the apocalypse. You may think that these are small, aberrations. When I see them, I sense that I am up against a brutal force that won’t be stopped by reasonable offers. Money without ethics drives a harsh, total demand for supremacy. Nothing gets in its way. It is like a super-tanker coming into port. It will not be denied. If your living is made in the oil fields, AND you are trying to urge a sane dialogue, my heart goes out to you. But oil is going to be here for decades, so I know you will be all right. The earth, however, may not make it for that long. That is all we consider or care about.

I personally think this pipeline is a very very bad idea. why? I feel this because of the predictions of Edgar Cayce ( a amn who nearly all his predictions have come true….the government has all of his predictions in text…in the thousands stored in its archives) Cayce predicted that a major oil spill in this region would trigger the new madrid fault to tear causing the great lakes which sit 600 feet above sea level to spill out and rush down the mississippi river and empty into the gulf and would rip the country in two (just what the government wants) 50 miles in each direction east and west of the river…. leaving the country separated by over 100 miles of new ocean. Look up Edagar Cayce and his great lakes prediction! Also look up Cayce’s other predictions and see just how accurate nearly all of them have been.

janjamm—
Good afternoon   :)
Nice perspective.
I have actually studied the onshore oil spills in Russia, and worked with my parent company presented (gold plated) environmental standards for our exploration programs in neighboring countries.  What is surprising to many is how much environmental effort goes into projects, not with defect, but a world better than anything we had in the last century.  As for Macondo, I cannot talk too much about it but to say there our two very distinct issues; 1) mechanical which is where we excel in engineering design and control; 2) mangerial where the book can be re-written again. 

A few months ago, some would not believe that a staunch conservative oil patch guy could have meaningful converstations about such things with enviro guys who bleed green.  But the truth is we/both sides are closer than we know on these issues.  Where I pound the hammer is on the issue of economic solutions to the challenge.  Even the oil industry believes in the use of alternative energy.  We just collectively take pause when people don’t understand the dollars needed to make it all work.    gotta run.  But I will be back on some ideas later.

It is simple:  The people that are American and in politics are getting rich off this be it NOW or in the future like the big drug fiasco a few years back.  They are not concerned at all about the rest of the country.  Big Business does not care about the environment unless it is convenient. The “Eminent Domain” thing is sickening.  Especially when a foreign country (yeah Canada is still foreign) can enact such a thing for their benefit. SICKENING!
As American refineries sell more and more of their product over seas we are paying higher and higher prices for it. Diesel heating oil and gas are refined here and then shipped out to over seas markets.  Why?  profit.  This pipeline is just a way for Canada to send it’s product overseas on OUR dime because you know WE will be paying for a lot of their construction and maintenance through higher prices while it is being shipped elsewhere.

i think all of debate about pipeline running thru their land is outrageous, people will protest any kind of change that goes on in this country, it will provide jobs for many and oil we can depend on, countries like turkey, russia are running pipe lines all over the place, read it on powermag.com