Keystone on Wheels

 

 

"Casey Jones would be very happy to see all this oil traffic we have on the rails!"

 

I have addressed this issue before. Every now and again, in the midst of the four hundred other critical issues perpetuated by our Administration, the subject of the Keystone Pipeline surfaces. How are we doing on this, one might ask? The answer is "great", as the Bakken oil fields continue to exceed expectations. Oil is rushing southward from Canada, North Dakota and Montana on thousands of rail tankers.

Much to the chagrin of the Administration as well as many of the wacko greenies, the New York Times recently published an article on how we are doing with all this new "black gold" we are finding. Part of that article said:

"The United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil producer by about 2017 and will become a net oil exporter by 2030." 

What? It just seems like yesterday that President Carter addressed the nation in his cardigan sweater and told us to turn our thermostats down to 50 degrees or something because the world was running out of oil.

Here is the truth of the matter - just like with that old cliché, "stuff happens", oil continues to flow. I will give the President VERY high marks for making it as difficult as possible for our country to be energy independent in our life time. However, the show must go on. Our new technologies have really proven to be game changers. The combination of our reserves which keep on growing and improved fracking methods have led to this unprecedented good fortune in energy. Think of it - we have will have come from a nation on its knees during the oil embargo of the 1970's to an oil exporter in 2030.

So with all this being said, who cares about that stupid pipeline from Canada anyhow? Actually, we all should. Transporting oil by rail is costly and risky. Pipelines are not risk free, but just like with everything else, we are getting better at this. We should all of us share the common goal of safer, cheaper energy. Getting oil from the fields to the refineries as cheaply as possible will only be accomplished using a state of the art pipeline. Environmentalists who think they have won a victory by the delay of the Keystone Pipeline have only "cut off their nose despite their face".

Before I get hate mail on this from some of my greener friends, let me again state my position on energy. We are in the twilight of using fossil fuels as the mainstay for our energy needs. We will continue to use oil in the manufacture of hundreds of products for decades to come. Our future after oil will be in fuel cells, solar and (yet to be invented). The most important thing to know is this - our energy future, no matter how it plays out, is bright. If I could go back in time to 1978 and say that, I would have been locked up in a loony bin.