My father used an expression with us kids whenever we got into trouble; he’d say, “Did you stop and think?” Well, I don’t know how much of an impact such a query made on a 10 or 11-year-old, but it could not be more appropriate for those who believe in the myth that green energy isn’t detrimental to the environment. And a very dangerous aspect of the climate debate is that far too often and for whatever reason the apocalyptists outsource their critical thinking on the subject to the talking heads in the media, that almost never considers much less admits to the following.
~ Doing the Math ~
The average freight train has 2 engines, roughly 100 cars, and weighs 27,240,000 lbs. It carries 3,000,000 gallons of oil and uses 55.5 gallons of diesel per mile, and at that rate of consumption, the train will use 119,000 gallons of diesel fuel traveling the 2150 miles from the Tar Sands in Hardisty, Alberta Canada to the oil refineries in and around Freeport, TX. By comparison, the Keystone pipeline can move 34,860,000 gallons of oil from Hardisty to Freeport in a day
Doing the math, it would take 12 trains and 1,428,000 gallons of diesel fuel to deliver that same amount of oil (34,860,000 gallons) per day – that’s slightly more than a half billion gallons of diesel fuel per year. Now considering that oil will go to market with or without the pipeline, by stopping the pipeline more than 500 million gallons of diesel fuel will not only be wasted but will contribute to the greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere.
OK, you say, let’s eliminate the Canadian Tar Sand oil altogether and replace it with OPEC oil. Fine, but that means shipping the oil by sea. A single oil tanker can haul 120,000,000 gallons of oil across the Atlantic in 15 days. And big tankers use roughly 63,000 gallons of fuel per day, which equates to using roughly 1 million gallons of the most polluting type of fuel in the world on each and every crossing.
Meanwhile, international waters ship emissions remain one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system. To begin with, these aren’t non-polluting high-tech nuclear vessels hauling this oil, rather, these tankers use ‘waste-oil’ as fuel, i.e., they basically use what’s left over after the crude oil refining process. This oil is so thick that when it’s cold enough, a person can actually walk on it. It’s also the cheapest and most polluting fuel available, and the world’s 90,000 ocean going ships chew through an astonishing 7.29 million barrels of it every day. And to give you an idea of how much oil is, that’s more than 84% of all exported oil production from Saudi Arabia.
Shipping is by far the biggest transport polluter in the world. Consider, there are 760 million cars in the world today emitting approximately 78,599 tons of sulfur oxides annually. The world’s 90,000 vessels burn approximately 370 million tons of fuel per year emitting 20 million tons of sulfur oxides, which equates to 260 times more sulfur oxides being emitted by ships than the worlds entire car fleet. A single oil tanker alone can generate approximately 5,200 tons of sulfur oxide pollution in a year, meaning that 15 of the largest of these tankers now emit as much sulfur oxides as the worlds 760 million cars.
Given the efficiency and the non-polluting qualities of the Keystone pipeline along with its benefits for both the U.S. & Canada, I wish someone would explain to me what sense it made for the Biden administration to shut down the Keystone pipeline before a proven, sustainable, and economical replacement energy source could be found. And in case you haven’t figured it out, that was a rhetorical question and reason why the administration is begging OPEC to produce more oil and allowing those giant oil tankers to continue polluting the oceans and the atmosphere.
~ Thinking Things Through? ~
The apocalyptist tell us green energy will meet and exceed our energy needs, but such comments are a cross between empty promises & pipe dreams. Doubt that? There’s an Internet meme going around asking you to imagine that you live in Florida, a state with almost eight million private vehicles, and with nearly four million of them in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties alone. It then asks you to assume a hurricane is bearing down on the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area and the governor has ordered an evacuation.
Now imagine if you will the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of vehicles heading north. And if all those vehicles are electric, they’re all not only going to need charging, but they’ll all need charging at about the same time. So, how exactly does that work? Can you imagine the traffic tie up, and have you ever heard the apocalyptists address such a situation? Didn’t think so. You can see where this is going, and it’s just one of numerous scenarios the left never considers in their march to do away with fossil fuels
~ In their own words ~
As I’ve written previously, when the co-chair of the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change states unequivocally, “We (the UN-IPCC) redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy…one has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore;” and when the Executive Secretary of that organization asseverates that statement, “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model (i.e., capitalism) that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” the world would be foolish not to take them at their words.
Quote of the day: “Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.”—Criss Jami
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