The Pros & Cons of the Keystone XL oil pipeline

A controversial and politically-charged project, the Keystone XL oil pipeline was proposed in 2008 by North American energy company, TransCanada, and has yet to be approved by the US Senate.

Extending a current oil pipeline running from the Alberta Sand Tars in Canada to Nebraska, America by 1,179 miles by a more direct route, the project came close to being approved this November, but fell one vote short from legislation. For more information on this proposal, read: What Is the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline?

Despite the promise of creating jobs, reducing dependence on oil from the Middle East and Venezuela, and supporting production growth on the US Gulf Coast, the project has sparked fierce opposition from the environmental movement across the US.

With the Republicans determined to approve the project under the GOP-controlled Senate come the new year, what are the pros and cons of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline?

The benefits of the Keystone XL Pipeline

Energy security has been hot on the lips of those in favour of the project since its proposition. With the pipeline capable of transporting up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil from Canada to the US in a single day, it is believed that oil dependence on the Middle East and Venezuela will be cut by 40%. Terminating the project could also potentially damage relations between the US and their friendly neighbour and ally, Canada, who is already one of the US’ biggest crude oil suppliers.

The creation of construction jobs is also high on the project’s list of benefits. TransCanada and other energy companies originally claimed that the project could generate as many as 50,000 construction jobs. More recently, however, the White House estimated in July that the project would, in reality, produce between 50-100 jobs per year.

The disadvantages of the Keystone XL Pipeline

A continued reliance on high-pollutant energy sources has been a major concern for environmentalists, who have used the project to call upon the president to put his climate change commitments into action and block the XL pipeline. According to Friends of the Earth (FOE), oil production from tar sands, carbon dioxide emissions are 'three to four times higher’ than those of conventional productions, due to more energy-intensive extraction and refining processes.

Deforestation and environmental damage is usually a prominent side-effect of tar sand mining: oil producers either pump large quantities of water or natural gases into the sands to extract the oil which creates a toxic mixture with the natural bitumen, heat the sands after strip-mining them to release the oil, which in turn, causes deforestation.