Case Study: The Keystone XL Pipeline

The Keystone XL Pipeline was a proposed pipeline that would have transported crude oil from Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska. The pipeline would have stretched 1,179 miles in a direct path to Steele City, Nebraska. The proposed pipeline was hoping to bring thousands of jobs to the market, strengthen the economy of the US and the communities surrounding the pipeline, and of course to transport oil in a safe way to fuel the needs of the American people. After seven years of review, the pipeline was not approved by the Obama administration. The parent company, TransCanada, however, challenged the disapproval under the North American Free Trade Agreement, with the hopes that the approval would be overturned and the pipeline would
be able to be built (“About the Keystone XL Pipeline,” 2016).
Two of the biggest benefits of allowing the pipeline to be built is the amount of jobs it would bring and the boost it would give to the economy.
The pipeline would help generate around 42,000 jobs. These jobs, however, would be mostly temporary for the time of the pipeline. The pipeline was also estimated to bring around 3.4 billion dollars to the American economy. A con of the pipeline is that it would be damaging to the environment. Annually, the oil from the pipeline would contribute 18.7 more metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere than would conventional oil drilling. A problem with the environmental impact, though, is that although the pipeline would pose an environmental threat if it was built, even it wasn’t built there would still be a large environmental impact, maybe even larger than if the pipeline wasn’t built. The oil will be transported somehow, whether the pipeline is approved or not, and one current mean of transportation, railways, carries a much larger risk than the pipeline would bring (Davenport, 2014). Another con of the pipeline is the path that it takes through the US. Currently, the Keystone XL pipeline moves through various lands that are environmentally vulnerable like that Sandhills of Nebraska and the Ogallala Aquifer. Environmentalists are concerned about the impact the pipeline would have on these precious sites, especially concerning a pipe eruption. The pipeline, however, was slated to change its path to miss these protected areas
(McNutt, 2014). After researching the pipeline, I have concluded that pipeline would overall be beneficial to the US, but the overarching theme of oil, in general, is terrible for the US and the world. The pipeline would bring jobs and a boost to the economy, and overall, the environment would be better off than if the oil was to be transported other ways. The problem does not lie in the pipeline, but that oil is still so heavily relied on in a world that is suffering from rising temperatures and environmental disasters. Stopping the pipeline from being built would not help the environment as much as people want, but allowing it to be built could potentially curb some minor environmental impacts.