Fighting against protesters and political pressure every step of the way, TransCanada PipeLines has decided to implement its newest strategy in developing the XL Keystone pipeline: a reroute.
As of last week, TransCanada announced that it is considering alternative routes for its extension of the Keystone pipeline that will cross the Canadian-U.S. border. Once in place, the XL Keystone pipeline is planned to deliver 700,000 barrels a day of crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.
The plan to adopt a new route for the pipeline has allowed some breathing room for TransCanada, who was first met by many critics concerned with environmental issues. Nebraska was one of the toughest critics, citing safety concerns regarding the prospect of contaminated drinking water from the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies millions of residents.
The newly proposed routes will allow the pipeline to avoid large sources of drinking water such as the Ogallala aquifer, but it will still undoubting result in the crossing of over 1,000 rivers to reach its final destination, no matter which route is chosen.
It would seem that the argument has now been reduced to its core. Going forward with the project would create thousands of jobs for both Canada and the U.S. and increase the energy security of the United States, but at the cost of potentially polluting the environment.
But there is a much greater issue to consider which was present upon the inception of the idea for the pipeline extension. Wasn’t it the goal of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels? The fact that the global climate is changing due solely to the burning of fossils fuels is now well known and supported by nearly all climate scientists. Even with the alternate routes, the existence of the XL pipeline can only mean one definite thing: our dependency on fossil fuels will increase for decades to come.
Yes, this pipeline will create numerous jobs and improve the economies of both countries, but an economy that is based on the price of oil is a very unstable one. On the other hand, an investment in renewable resources not only has the ability to help the environment, but it will also stimulate the economy by creating more jobs in various industries than a pipeline extension would.
At a time when we should be searching for alternative fuels and renewable energy, this pipeline takes us a step backward by increasing our ecological footprint. In a world that has been stepped on more than enough, time is running out to reverse the effects.
We now live in an age of responsibility and accountability where we must fix the mistakes of the past and seek sustainable resources. The responsibility now falls on engineers that have a global perspective and the attitude to accept sustainability. They need to see the effects their decisions will have before a pencil ever touches paper. It is the duty of today’s engineers to predict the implications of their decisions before they are made and avoid projects like the Keystone XL pipeline that lead us away from sustainability.
In a world that is becoming ever more fragile, forward-thinking engineers are needed now, more than ever, to stop the reverse progress that projects like the Keystone XL pipeline will cause.
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