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With Energy South and Energy West mired in delay, or even dead, Energy East has appeared as something of a last resort
While not wishing to rain on anybody’s “nation building” parade, last week’s announcement by TransCanada Corp. of its $12-billion Energy East project is hardly cause for wild celebration. While the proposal — to pipe 1.1 million barrels per day of Alberta oil to Eastern refineries and to the East Coast for export — may represent a marvel of technology, in a rational world it would be a non-starter (as opposed to a “no-brainer”).
What Energy East really reflects is the extraordinary success of radical environmentalists in blocking more economic export routes. It also appears to embed dodgy Suzukinomics, such as the notion that domestic upgrading is always a “good thing.” Apparently support from the NDP and labour unions is conditional on this autarchic canard.
It is astonishing that so many Canadians remain enamoured of Barack Obama, although he is perhaps more inimical to Canadian interests than any president in history. He holds the ultimate veto on TransCanada’s Keystone XL project, to take more than 800,000 barrels of diluted bitumen from the Alberta oil sands to the refineries of the Gulf Coast.
Recently, Mr. Obama, who has already refused permission for the line once, has been using Greenpeace talking points. He chose to reduce State Department estimates of Keystone’s construction jobs by a factor of 20, and suggested that the refined oil might just wind up being exported, thus indicating ignorance of his own country’s laws. He has also suggested that, by easing supply congestion in the Midwest, Keystone might hurt Americans.
That’s just what a strong economy needs: more transportation blockages! Finally, he said that Canada needs to up its game on climate policy. Is he delivering that message to Venezuela too, whose oil has similar emissions and which Canadian oil would replace in Gulf refineries?
The other export door that eco radicals are trying to close is to the West Coast, via Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway, and Kinder Morgan’s twinning of its TransMountain line. Recently, the National Energy Board wound up its hearings on Northern Gateway, but opponents are uninterested in NEB decisions. They are committed to closing down “dirty oil” by any means possible.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/08/06/peter-foster-energy-east-pipeline-the-oil-sands-last-exit/