Warren Buffet exposed: the Oracle of Omaha and the Tar Sands

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/warren-buffett-exposed-oracle-omaha-and-tar-sands-1328539987

On Jan­u­ary 23, Bloomberg News re­ported War­ren Buf­fett's Burling­ton North­ern Santa Fe Rail­way (BNSF), owned by his lu­cra­tive hold­ing com­pany Berk­shire Hath­away, stands to ben­e­fit greatly from Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s re­cent can­cel­la­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline.

If built, Tran­sCanada's Key­stoneXL (KXL) pipeline would carry tar sands crude, or bi­tu­men (“dil­bit”) from Al­berta, B.C. down to Port Arthur, Texas, where it would be sold on the global ex­port mar­ket.

If not built, as re­vealed re­cently by DeSmog­Blog, the grass is not nec­es­sar­ily greener on the other side, and could in­clude in­creased lev­els of eco­log­i­cally haz­ardous gas flar­ing in the Bakken Shale, or else many other pipeline routes mov­ing the prized dil­bit to cru­cial global mar­kets.

Rail is among the most im­por­tant in­fra­struc­ture op­tions for en­sur­ing tar sands crude still moves to key global mar­kets, and the in­dus­try is pur­su­ing rail ac­tively. But trans­port­ing tar sands crude via rail is in many ways a dirt­ier al­ter­na­tive to the KXL pipeline. “Rail­roads too pre­sent en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues. Mov­ing crude on trains pro­duces more global warm­ing gases than a pipeline,” ex­plained Bloomberg.

[Schema Thing]

1. I'd like to know how many years it takes for the UNBUILT pipeline to become more efficient...

...than the already-in-place, very-efficient-compared-to-other-forms-of-transportation railroad?



My guess is that it would be many many years.


It's not as if you just pour a fluid into a pipe in Canada and it flows downhill to Texas.

[TheWraith]

2. First off, fuck this bullshit about Warren Buffett.

And fuck NationOfChange for repeating asinine right-wing smears, that because a guy who owns virtually everything in the plains states owns a railroad that might benefit from something, clearly it's a big conspiracy to enrich Warren Buffett. Compare that to Boehner, who in the last year or so bought stock in SEVEN COMPANIES that are directly involved in either the tar sands or the pipeline.

Now, that said--yes, there ARE downsides to not building the pipeline too, most notably that one way or another the tar sands WILL still be developed. Whether the oil from them goes to the US, to China, somewhere else, etcetera, doesn't really matter in this case. As I said before this happened, killing the pipeline is a minor victory at best, because as long as there remains both a demand for oil, and the tar sands remain economically viable to use, they WILL be used. It's simply the reality of economics.

[sharp_stick]

3. Do you ever post anything of your own

or is it all just cut and paste drive-by BS?

[xchrom]

4. I love it when you whisper sweet nothings in my ear. Nt

[Firebrand Gary]

5. Lmbo

Credit where credit is due. Classy way of handling that my friend!