Pirate's Cove

So far, every environmental and global warming study has found Keystone XL to be not an issue. Here’s another one

(The Hill) The Keystone XL oil sands pipeline “will not have any impact” on greenhouse gas emissions, a report released by prominent energy industry consulting group IHS CERA said Thursday.

The report said that’s because Canada’s oil sands, which are more carbon-rich than conventional oil, will come out of the ground with or without Keystone.

“In the absence of Keystone XL, we would expect similar volumes of heavy Canadian oil sands to be produced. Industry would turn to alternative pipeline projects and rail for oil sands transportation,” the report said.

IHS CERA said it prepared the report in response to President Obama’s June statement that he’d oppose the controversial Canada-to-Texas pipeline if it “significantly exacerbates” carbon pollution.

Part of the reason is that, as noted, the tar-sands oil is coming out one way or another. The question is “who gets it?” Oil Sands Fact Check notes

As IHS CERA points out, there are two key reasons that Keystone XL will not significantly impact the climate: 1) heavy crude oil will be refined in the U.S. Gulf Coast (USGC) refineries regardless – but without Keystone XL, much of that crude will be imported from Venezuela instead of Canada and 2) Canadian oil sands will be transported via rail or other pipelines with or without Keystone XL.

The report also notes that the #1 recipient of a negative Keystone XL decision will be Venezuela.

With the release of this important study, it’s worth pointing out that the Keystone XL debate has never really been about whether the pipeline would significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions – it won’t.  It has always been about off-oil proponents using Keystone XL as a “symbol” to pursue their agendas.

And don’t take our word for it.  Just this week, a Nature article featured several climate experts conceding that point.

• David Keith, a Canadian climate scientist at Harvard said, “The extreme statements — that this is ‘game over’ for the planet — are clearly not intellectually true…”
• David Victor, a climate-policy expert at the University of California explained, “As a serious strategy for dealing with climate, blocking Keystone is a waste of time. But as a strategy for arousing passion, it is dynamite.”
• Ken Caldeira, climate researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California put it this way: “I don’t believe that whether the pipeline is built or not will have any detectable climate effect.”

The opposition to Keystone XL has always been about typical unhinged hatred of fossil fuels by the Warmists, who were looking to gin up yet another fake issue to keep the Warmist masses engaged as the climate refuses to cooperate with computer models, going up a statistically insignificant 0.14F since 1997 and just 0.28F since 1990. Yet, these same Warmists are going off to the anti-Keystone rallies in their own fossil fueled vehicles and/or taking fossil fueled flights.