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squeezing jobs through a pipe

"TransCanada numbers count each job on a yearly basis. If the pipeline employs 10,000 people working for two years, that's 20,000 jobs by the company's count. The estimates also include jobs in Canada, where about a third of the $7 billion pipeline would be constructed... Even according to TransCanada, the amount of permanent jobs created would be only in the hundreds."

The pipeline plan would have very little impact on the unemployment rate in the states it passes through. The pipeline plan would have no measurable effect on the supply or cost of petroleum in the U.S. Finally, the petroleum will not belong to any of us. It will belong to TransCanada, who will obviously sell it to the highest bidder (for many barrels, experts say that will be China).


The greatest problem is the process of gathering and processing oil from oilsands. This is not like the stereotype of a gusher, with oil bursting from the ground. They have to dig down with gigantic machinery, hauling out ton after ton of goop - dirty, tarry sand. It is very expensive and wasteful to separate the sand from the oil, polluting thousands of gallons of water, which is then simply dumped onto the ground by TransCanada. All this arguably makes oilsand one of the most wasteful forms of energy. The process creates 25% more pollution and greenhouse gas than regular oil, such as is generally found in Arabia, Mexico, and Russia.

In short, everything that is bad about regular petroleum is even worse with the stuff that would come through the proposed pipeline. Even if it does satisfy some of our appetite for fossil fuels, it will only delay the inevitable, while accelerating the destruction of our climate.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/13/news/economy/keystone_pipeline_jobs/index.htm?hpt=hp_t1

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