Cult of irrationality

Dear "serious" news channel: This is not helping:

On Friday, CNBC anchor Joe Kernen described climate science as a “bona fide cult” of “enviro socialists” in an interview with the former CEO of Shell Oil.

The two of them yukked it up over this "foolishness." The CEO laments we're "not dealing with the real problems." I assume by that he means, his profit margin is simply not obscenely high enough yet. He'll never get that gargantuan bonus without it.

It's not surprising CNBC would be in the pocket of BigBusiness but ye gods, they're working against their own self-interest when they promote denialism like this. It's irrational.

CNBC has long-misrepresented climate change to its viewers, including Larry Kudlow and Rick Santelli. In fact, a study from Media Matters found that over half of CNBC’s climate coverage miscasts the science.

Meanwhile, that "cult" of climate scientists may not have all the solutions, but 97% of them sure as hell have identified the problems. So what do these short-sighted idiots on CNBC expect to do with all the money they make on fomenting denialism? By the time they extract every last penny of value from ravaging the enviroment, the planet won't be habitable anymore. They'll have nowhere to spend it.

Bigger pipelines breed bigger disasters

The tar sands oil spill cleanup in Arkansas is ongoing, not that you're going to see it happen. There's apparently a media blackout in place so the only video is being surreptitiously captured by locals. But here's something new. It's quite possible taxpayers would end up paying for a major tar sands oil spill, say if the KXL pipeline was built and subsequently ruptured. And this is why:

Companies that transport oil are required to pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, giving the government a pot of money for immediate spill responses. The Enbridge pipeline in Michigan and the Exxon pipeline in Arkansas, however, are exempt because these pipelines are not considered to be carrying “conventional oil,” despite the fact bitumen spills are more expensive and more dangerous.

In a January 2011 memorandum, the IRS determined that to generate revenues for the oil spill trust fund, Congress only intended to tax conventional crude, and not tar sands or other unconventional oils. This exemption remains to this day, even though the U.S. moves billions of gallons of tar sands crude through its pipeline system every year. The trust fund is liable for tar sands oil spill cleanups without collecting any revenue from tar sands transport. If the fund goes broke,the American taxpayer foots the cleanup bill.

And how could this happen you ask? As the saying goes, follow the money:

Connolly’s story highlights the clear effects of the revolving door of money from politicians and fossil fuel companies keeping the safety standards and oversight low. In 2009 and 2010 fossil fuel companies like Enbridge spent $25.8 million lobbying Congress and in return they received subsidies and tax loopholes worth $20.5 billion. That’s a 5,800 percent return on political investment; about $59 in return for each dollar they spend lobbying.

Just how cheaply our politicians can be bought never fails to astound. Least they could do is whore themselves out at high class call girl rates instead of a $5 hooker on lower 10th Avenue.

The frightening thing is we already have thousands of miles of pipelines carrying who knows what kind of toxic fuel all over the country.



[original larger graphic]

Tar sands oil shouldn't be exempt from the fund. They should be paying double considering tar sands crude is much more dangerous than conventional oil. As Charlie Pierce informs us:

One question central to the debate is whether this type of fuel is more corrosive than conventional crude. Fuel from Alberta's oil sands can pose a greater risk if it is transported at a higher temperature or under greater pressure, Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts Inc., a Redmond, Washington-based pipeline safety consultant, said yesterday in a telephone interview. Operators using modern pipeline-safety techniques can manage the risks by cleaning out the line more frequently or carefully monitoring how the bitumen is diluted, he said. "You just don't write off the corrosion threat," he said. "You've got to be sure you're managing it."

[Insert sardonic laughter] As Charlie so perfectly put it:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't all this bitumen-diluting and frequent line-cleaning, to say nothing of "modern pipeline-safety techniques" as a whole, cost, you know, actual money to the oil companies and their ancillary business partners, who are on the whole greedy bastards who'd soak your white-haired granny in crude like she was a Louisiana pelican rather than spend an extra dime not to? Thought so.

Every major disaster I can recall was traced to cutting corners on safety and maintenence. And none of these "greedy bastards" are going to do more than minimally necessary to clean up their mess either. It seems one added hazard of the filthy tar sands crude is it's so heavy it doesn't float. It sinks to the bottom of waterways. Three years after the major spill in Michigan the oil corporation had to be ordered to do more dredging in the river they fouled. Which they'll probably fight in court while it continues to lie there and quietly poison the water.

Does anybody really want to trust these people with bigger pipelines able to do infinitely more damage? I don't.

This is your future with the KXL pipeline

The Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline hasn't been authorized yet, but the filthy tar sands oil is already streaming through the heartland in existing pipes that have been retrofitted by Big Oil, in this case our old friend Exxon-Mobil. The unfortunate residents of this neighborhood in Arkansas got a hard lesson on what that means this weekend, when the pipeline sprung a leak.


[photo via]

Imagine walking out your door and discovering this.



The town evacuated the neighborhood and shut down sections of highways because a single spark could blow up the whole damn place. Not to mention the toxic fumes are not conducive to breathing.

No one knows exactly how much oil spewed into lovely Mayflower, AK before they managed to shut the line down. I've seen some claims of hundreds of thousands of gallons but surely it was a lot:

Exxon Mobil said it's investigating the cause and working with local authorities in clean-up efforts. The company added that the breach was in a pipeline that originates in Illinois and carries tar sands oil to the Texas Gulf Coast.

In 2009, Exxon modified the capacity of the Pegasus pipeline, increasing the capacity to transport Canadian tar sands oil by 50 percent, or about 30,000 barrels per day. In a 2012 report, Bloomberg News reported the pipeline daily capacity to be 96,000 barrels of oil per day.

There's 42 gallons in a barrel of oil. Considering how far the spill reached before they contained it, it's a safe bet we're talking thousands of barrels. Worse yet, according to this (unverified) video at least one homeowner had no idea the pipeline was so close to his home.

Just this little leak is being classified as a serious incident. The KXL would be a much bigger pipeline, snaking across our entire country, including over major aquifers and agricultural land. A rupture in a KXL pipe could be a major disaster for the entire nation.

Why the price of gas is so high

I don't drive that much lately. The last time I filled up my car was about a month ago. Still I noticed this mysterious spike in gas prices:

The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has jumped 45 cents in the past 31 days, according to AAA, the fastest run-up since 2005. [...]

Analysts differed widely on the causes of the increase.

They blame lower output from OPEC, investor concern about potential oil supply disruption and US refinery shutdowns for routine maintenance but none of it makes sense under the usual "supply-and-demand fundamentals."

Indeed, the price rise makes no sense at all. As West Wing Report noted on the twitter, "U.S. demand (EIA data) at 2000 levels for November." However, international demand is high. WWR gones on to tell me the price spread between U.S. oil (West Texas Intermediate) $95.64 and Brent Sea $117.51 is driving up U.S. exports of refined products. Obviously, "U.S. refiners are exporting as much as they can because foreigners are willing to pay more."

Which brings to mind the idiocy of the drill here, drill now conservatives. Republicans promise them if only we drilled more of our own oil, the prices would magically go down a couple of bucks a gallon. If only that were true. In fact, at this very moment we have so much oil backed up in the supply chain, America has run out of oil storage. The refineries can't process it fast enough to move it out.

But the real reason the prices aren't going down is pretty much market manipulation. Big Oil is shutting down refineries. And why, when prices are so inflated, would they do that you ask?

“Atlantic Basin capacity closures have improved refining fundamentals,” the nation’s biggest refiner, Valero, said in a slide presentation at a Credit Suisse conference this month. It estimated that nearly 1 million barrels a day of refinery capacity has been closed on the East Coast or in the U.S. Virgin Islands in the past two years, which Valero said allowed it to increase profit margins.

Profit margins. It's always about the profit. Cheaper gas would help our economy recover for everyone, but artifically manipulating the supply chain boosts the corporate bottom line quicker. Corporate welfare above country. Meanwhile, Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to protect Big Oil's tax breaks while insisting we need to shred the social safety net to save the Republic. And the GOP's useful fools embrace this sociopathic corporate con because, pisses off liberals. Crazy.