Markets Technology

Keystone XL Pipeline Permit Denied

President Barack Obama denied a permit today for TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline and will let the company file a revised route that avoids an environmentally sensitive area in Nebraska. This decision is so troubling to me that although it is not directly linked to LiDAR or laser scanning, although I am certain it would have generated business for our industry, I feel compelled to blog about it.

In general I try to avoid taking sides in highly controversial issues like this, but it would certainly seem to me that there should be enough technology and expertise out there, including the use of DIAL – differential absorption LiDAR to monitor for leaks and other geospatial technologies to insure that this project could be built and operated without damaging the environment. I think we have thousands of miles of operating pipelines in the US that prove this point.

There are very few black or white decisions when it comes to energy policy. Compromise is needed in nearly all cases as well as total systems approach. I for one believe that in this case the benefits outweigh the liabilities and I hope that in the end the permit will be approved.

3 Comments

  • Well, I live on the Gulf Coast and have experienced modern technologies at their worst. This project was only going to create a couple of hundred permenant jobs. Temporary jobs were at 10,000 a year for two years. The oil industry is exploding in the upper midwest, so why don’t we just build a refinery there? Jobs would be created, right? Vancouver was the other pipeline destination. Two possible locations with one thing in common, ports. Why would we need to send this oil to ports if it is for domestic consumption?
    I aslo don’t like to mix politics with my work, but sometimes they collide.

    • Steven I could not agree with you more. I am a GIS professional in the Marcellus Shale play working for local government and I would love for the energy plays that are within the US to stay here. The natural gas is being cooled to a liquid form so it can be shipped overseas and sold there.

  • Re: “… there should be enough technology … to operate without damaging the environment.”
    The technology might be available but it costs and there is no way a company is going to use it without it being forced upon them by lawmakers (the few that will actually stand up for the people). Don’t just think about the massive mess in the gulf coast, think about the continuous spill in Michigan that they “can’t find” and wont clean up properly. Even here, in Vancouver, there is a BP leak in Burrard Inlet(right in the middle of town) that all they do for is replace the absorbent booms and claim they cant find the leak. I worked in Nigeria for a year on a dam site and the delta pipelines had continuous leaks. The government there did not require any sort or environmental standards so the various companies just blamed all the leaks on the locals and wouldn’t clean them up.
    Those are just three mainstream examples of how that statement has not been applied by oil companies willingly and why government needs to keep them in check by denying permits and/or requiring changes.

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