FW: XL Pipeline - Quick Action Needed

[Anne Tolch]

Climate Advocates,

 

If the Keystone XL Pipeline goes forward, it will create massive emissions and may contaminate our water supply.

 

So far they haven’t heard from enough people, so it looks as though they are going to approve it.

 

Your voice could make the difference -- sign the petition: http://www.credoaction.com/campaign/keystone_comments/?r=231389&id=28376-2729446-Ng9sudx or write your own letter and send it before midnight Oct 9 to: keyston...@cardno.com

This is an especially important one, so please share with your networks and Facebook friends.

Thanks and best as always,

 

Anne

 

From: cxma...@collectivex.com [mailto:cxma...@collectivex.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 2:25 PM
To: Anne Tolch
Subject: XL Pipeline

 

Citizens Climate Lobby New Email Blast
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Louise Stonington wants you to know about the following (View Louise Stonington's profile) Big oil has a stranglehold on our economy. The ticket to freedom is citizens demanding that governments make clean energy a priority. Please, Send a letter today, asking the State Department to deny a permit for a $13 billion pipeline carrying 900,000 barrels of Canadian oil sands oil a day across the heart of the U.S. Fastest way: copy and paste this address and sign the Credo petition at: http://www.credoaction.com/campaign/keystone_comments/?r=231389&id=28376-2729446-Ng9sudx    Or write your own letter and send it before midnight Oct 9 to: keyston...@cardno.com   Background informantion/suggested talking points TransCanada Keystone’s plan to build an oil pipeline from Canada to the US Gulf Coast would have negative effects on our economy and our national security. It is time for America to manufacture its own energy, energy that preserves our security and our vital resources, energy that will become cheaper and more plentiful. The US State Department cannot issue a permit for the pipeline unless it finds that it is in our national interest, a benefit to the whole country. Rising fuel costs are a drag on our economy in countless ways. Some members of Congress, including Senator Cantwell, have called for rules limiting speculation by large investors, which appears to be driving up oil prices.   What is clear is that the most of the world’s light sweet crude oil is gone. It was so easy and inexpensive to pump and refine that it provided about 100 barrels of oil, for the equivalent of barrel’s worth of energy oil. In contrast, tar sands oil only gives about 3 barrels of oil for one barrel’s worth of energy, according to David Fridley of the Berkeley National Laboratory. To get oil out of the Alberta tar sands, they bulldoze the boreal forest, scrape off 30 to 50 feet of soil, dig out the sandy tar, pump three to five barrels of water for each barrel of oil, boil it and remove impurities using natural gas, and pile up the tailings using 400-ton trucks. In order for tar sands oil to be profitable, the price of oil must be high. Oil analysts expect the pipeline to increase fuel costs, as it would transport of oil out the Midwest area where there is currently a glut. Demand for oil from China and India have been cited as reason for higher prices. Although this claim is controversial, they are clearly on their way to using more energy. When we pay high prices for Canadian oil, all suppliers get more of our dollars. OPEC owns 70% of the world’s oil. 80% of the world’s oil is state-owned.  We pay $150 billion a year for oil from regimes that are unfriendly to the US and suffer from instability. Pipeline oil might replace 10% percent of foreign imports. Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn told the US Senate that the hundreds of billions of dollars sent overseas to pay for oil every year “put us in the untenable position of funding both sides of the conflict and directly undermines our fight against terror.” TransCanada warns that as the US takes steps to reduce carbon pollution, the oil suppliers are likely to ‘shuffle’ oil, increasing shipments of Middle East light sweet crude into the US and selling the carbon intensive Canadian oil to China. James Woolsey, former director of the CIA said, “We need not just to buy less foreign oil, but undermine oil’s monopoly on transportation.” US business is getting on board with the manufacture of green, sustainable energy. Green energy includes solar, wind, geothermal, wave, algae and other low carbon power, as well as efficiency technology reducing energy use, such as hybrid engines, batteries, Energy Star appliances, insulation, compact fluorescent and LED lighting, and cogeneration (waste heat recovery). Nearly every automobile manufacturer is now selling or developing electric or hybrid cars, trucks or buses. Demand for lithium-ion batteries increased sevenfold in two years.  Electric motors are more efficient than internal combustion engines, so they will use less energy even if they are being charged with electricity from current sources, including gas or coal fired electricity. The cost of electricity from green energy is decreasing with increased production and new inventions. Solar power has dropped in price to 18 to 20 cents per kWh in sunny regions, the same cost as some conventional daytime electricity, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that electricity from wind turbines is also competitive in price. In a recent auction in Brazil, lower construction bids for wind energy won contracts over natural gas proposals.  Worldwide installation of wind power grew 25% last year. Once clean power facilities are built, they need no fuel and little maintenance. There are wind turbines 25 years old, and solar panels are still functioning after 40 years. Government loans and tax preferences make sense. The State Department estimates that with the construction of the pipeline there would be 6,000 mostly temporary jobs. However, on a previous pipeline project, Keystone hired locally for only 15% of the jobs.  The clean energy economy employs more workers per unit of energy delivered than the fossil fuel industry, In addition, more of those jobs are in manufacturing and they pay better, according to a Brookings study. International interest in alternatives to oil is growing; clean energy attracted $243 billion in investment worldwide last year. The US exported $1.9 billion of solar energy products in 2010, more than it imported, according to the 2011 Solar Energy Trade Assessment. The power facilities that we build this year will still be making electricity in twenty years when the carbon from oil we burn today has its full warming effect on the planet. The sooner we stop burning oil, the better for our economy and our security. The State Department should declare that the pipeline is not in the national interest. Questions?  Louise Stonington   lsto...@msn.com You have received this email because you joined Citizens Climate Lobby, a Groupsite powered by Groupsite.com. Update your notification preferences to change the frequency or type of emails you receive from this group.