Transport constraints and Keystone XL: New Calculations from Max Auffhammer at UC Berkeley
Max Auffhammer at UC Berkeley brings his formidable economic talents to bear on the Keystone XL question, and finds that not approving the Keystone XL Pipeline will keep at least 1 billion barrels of bitumen in the ground. It is a nice counterpoint to the circular reasoning that still pervades the State Department’s Environmental Impact Statement. The key insight in Max’s piece is that transport to the tar sands is constrained even if every single one of the currently proposed pipelines are built as scheduled and rail shipments are expanded at a furious pace. This means that not building any one of these projects will keep some bitumen in the ground. Max calculates this amount as 1 billion barrels, but the amount could be higher if canceling Keystone affects whether others are built.
