Energy Independence is with Alternatives, Not Fossil Fuels

Recently, there has been much fuss in Congress and politics in general, about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The 1,700-mile pipe would stretch from Ontario, Canada, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, in an attempt by Trans-Canada to simply earn more profit without a care in the world for any part of its negative environmental impact.

If anything, the opposition to the pipeline’s installment can be considered a bipartisan effort, with everyone from the average ecologist to farmers in Nebraska. Granted, their reasoning for opposing the XL Pipeline varies, but this still shows the massive movement spreading across the country against the proposed pipe. Although the pipeline could potentially provide faster and cheaper oil to the United States, it is definitely not the best solution to our current energy crisis.

For (at least) the past forty years, scientists, engineers, have been working on potential options as opposed to only focusing on the billion-dollar fossil fuel industry. To date, nearly a dozen alternative energies have been created including solar energy (panels and hot water), wind energy (turbines), and geothermal (heat and energy from below the ground) which are most popular.  Some others, like biofuel are good ideas but still cost    a little bit, so many probably won’t be able to afford it at first.  Paying for this technology is definitely tough to deal with when you first see the price tag -- trust me, I would know,   But, as my dad would explain to anyone after buying 24 solar panels, it’s “like buying a minivan and putting in your backyard [like us, or on the roof], except you lower your electric bill and earn money back from the process.”  

Here are some numbers for it: the total cost was $45,000 and change. With federal and state grants, covering around half, we only have to pay $24,000 now.  Yeah, that sounds like a lot, and it is.  However, since we garner more solar energy every time the sun is out, we don’t even use the entire amount, so a portion is sold back to the electric company.  At this rate, our entire solar panel system is set to be paid off before I graduate from college. So, yes, it is obviously tough to   cover the payments, especially in such an economic situation, but it literally pays off in the long run.  Unfortunately, not everyone is able to get solar panels, as it depends on the area and effectiveness (whether there is enough sunlight to cover them, etc). Critics have said that solar panels are still ineffective, but that is entirely false and has been proven so time and time again. Solar panels are just another potential energy source that we must utilize rather than being dependent on fossil fuels.

TransCanada, the company proposing the Keystone XL pipeline, has claimed estimates of massive job creation as a result of the pipe’s installment. However, with a closer look these numbers are severely twisted. According a Rolling Stone article, (Jeff Goodell’s “Is the Keystone Pipeline Really Dead?”), TransCanada assured that its Keystone XL pipe “would create 20,000 jobs in construction and manufacturing. [With an] additional 118,000 spinoff jobs that would inject $20 billion into the U.S. economy. Fox News went even further, suggesting that the pipeline ‘could provide up to a million new high-paying jobs’ in the U.S.” These figures actually were given by an economic consulting firm from Texas “called the Perryman Group – which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be little more than an ex-professor from Southern Methodist University who accepted funding from TransCanada for predicting a jobs boom.”

Where, in contrast to these numbers, the Department of State “estimated that building the pipeline would employ no more than 6,000 construction workers – and that once Keystone was finished, the number of permanent pipeline jobs could be as few as 50.” The numbers provided by TransCanada (and Fox News) are simply outright repulsive. Lying about the truth of actual employment opportunities, especially at a time when we still have a steady (though decreasing) jobless percentage of 8.3 percent, is just absurd considering it is probably solely for their own profit. Make sure you look at the sources before straight out believing what they say; don’t get brainwashed. The false job numbers are one thing, but the environmental impact the pipeline would have is an entirely other concern for millions in opposition to the proposed Keystone XL pipe.

   In his Rolling Stone article, Goodell also talks about the ecological results that would occur if the XL pipe were to actually be installed. The Head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen, “predicted that if [the] Keystone [XL Pipeline] went through it would be ‘game over’ for the planet.”

Professor of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at the University of Nebraska, John Stansbury, found that even a tiny, undetected leak from an underground rupture could contaminate almost 5 billion gallons of drinking water with dangerous levels of benzene, a known carcinogen.” Stansbury showed in a report that, in the category of “Pipeline spills per 50-year lifetime,” TransCanada estimates a mere eleven, when actual assessments based on historical data say it would be closer to ninety one. Needless to say, the Keystone XL pipeline is only another harmful spill waiting to happen.

In this case, unfortunately history seems to repeat itself too often. We all saw the devastating effects of BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill that destroyed the Gulf coast’s climate and tourism. The damage took a serious toll and they were only able to attract visitors with millions of contributions from oil industry. Another recent oil spill began on July 26, 2010, in Calhoun County, Michigan on the Kalamazoo River. The spill, caused by a pipeline owned by the Alberta, Canada-based Enbridge Energy, leaked nearly 890,000 gallons of crude oil (later estimated at over one million by the EPA) into Talmadge Creek. It took months and months to finally clean up the spill which had forced local households to not drink the then-contaminated water. Last year, in September, the clean-up costs reached nearly $600 million. Another noteworthy incident that deserves recognition is the Exxon Mobil spill in Montana last summer which caused 42,000 gallons of crude oil to spread down the Yellowstone River just a few a weeks after an inspection by the company and federal review came up with nothing detrimentally wrong.

Regrettably, President Obama has not done as much as he is able when considering his first three years in office. He supports alternative energy and the production of solar panels (for example) in the United States as a promotion of the green jobs industry, but has not stood tall in fight against the Big Oil and Gas industries. Recently, Obama even gave the okay for beginning construction for the Southern part of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Mr. Obama, along with all our legislators and the American populace, must wake up and see the actual would-be results of TransCanada’s proposed pipeline. Surely, if we don’t, the only forecast for our country is environmental disaster with a chance of falsely predicted employment. Seeing as how there is support from people on all sides of the political spectrum, the Keystone XL Pipeline will only have a negative impact in every aspect of its installment. We should be promoting alternatives that bring actual jobs, rather than blindly following a proposal that would destroy our environment.

We should focus on alternative energy, because that's a growing industry that could provide millions of actual jobs. Plus, it doesn't hurt the environment as much. Fossil fuels are estimated to run out within the next 100 years, so the time to start investing in green jobs and clean energy is now.