Okay. Several hours into this new president, so let’s see how it goes. Unfortunately, today part of Portland was rocked by an Antifa protest/riot (it didn’t look huge – possibly under 100 people?) that ended at the Democrat HQ in town, where they sprayed graffiti and then broke out windows on the building, etc., carrying a sign that says “we don’t want Biden, we want revenge”. Hopefully an isolated occurrence.
And the executive orders – I’ll look further into those over the coming days. Some were frankly not super important (and actually redundant), but a few also really stood out. Tonight, I’ll just mention the Keystone XL cancelation. This is critically short-sighted, as predicted, but let’s see what actually happens as a result. But to review, the pipeline is one of the cleanest builds in pipeline history – and it is, of course, being called a catastrophe for wildlife. How many of us remember the exact same words that were used when the Alaskan pipeline was built across that huge state 30+ years ago? Same words. That pipeline has sensors all over it and has caused no major impacts over the long term. In fact, wildlife has adapted and flourished around it.
But here’s the other thing to consider: TC Energy (XL’s owner) committed to making the energy captured by XL to be net-zero in carbon emissions by 2023. They agreed to provide an equivalent amount of totally green energy production to offset XL – using revenues that XL will generate and an overall $1.7B investment in green energy. You didn’t hear about that, did you? Nope. You also didn’t hear that XL was to be a critical link to providing energy to the northern states – saving trucking a lot of that energy overland like what happens today. 60,000 jobs and $3.4B in taxable wages. Gone. And guess what? We still need that energy from somewhere in the meantime until we find another way to fund (without incurring huge debt) the green side.
And here’s the other kicker you most certainly did not hear about, because it’s not popular to speak of motivations of the one who is not longer in office that we dare not speak his name: China was upgrading a rather mid-sized pipeline to a much larger pipe across the Canadian Rockies (Alberta to Vancouver ports) to get at those same oil sands. I mentioned this 5+ years ago… That was stopped by the US getting the Keystone XL going. Obama wouldn’t do it – so China took off on their construction. The one we dare not mention was briefed on this, knew the value to the US, and immediately authorized the XL permits. Now let’s see what happens again.
Every time we build a pipe, or a dam, or a wind farm, or a community, we first must deal with the environmental implications and mitigation. If you want to stop the need for those projects to give us water, energy, or a place to live, then stop the population growth. Immediately. But that’s another exec order I’ll look into that was signed today: Immigration. Deportations are now halted for at least a short period of time, among other items in that order. Some are good, others are things the last admin wanted to do and were walked away from by the other side (because that way it was a political issue).
I understand the tone here may sound snippy – but the path to clean energy is paved through transition from fossil fuels, not a rapid, unthoughtful elimination. That doesn’t happen overnight, and is best funded when we aren’t dependent on foreign energy, which not only costs more, but also has trillions in indirect costs (e.g., military build-up to keep the Middle East stable). That’s the reality. We all want clean energy, but we have to be realistic about what path is the less harmful to the US. I’d take a clean pipeline with an equivalent (and funded) investment in green offsetting energy over another possibility of another military action or war in the Gulf any day. I really do hope Biden’s plans work in ways that advance us all. But metrics matter – and I’m a numbers/metrics guy. Let’s watch those and see if it all works.
