We should assess new pipelines like the Americans do
rbarnes
Posted On February 25, 2014
Clare Demerse
Over the last few months, debates about pipelines have become a staple of the news in Canada. Indeed, pipelines have become the main pretext for our conversations about climate change and the impacts of oil sands development – at least when Neil Young doesn’t happen to be in town.
As a result, many Canadians have come to know the starting lineup of the pipeline expansion team, from Keystone XL and Northern Gateway to Trans Mountain and Line 9, very well.
In 2014, we can expect to hear a lot more about the biggest new prospect of them all, a 4,400-kilometre-long project called Energy East.
Proposed by TransCanada, the same company that’s behind Keystone XL, Energy East would carry more than one million barrels of crude a day from central Alberta to New Brunswick. Ontario Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli has called the $12-billion proposal “the largest pipeline project in Canada in over 50 years.” Anything that big carries significant opportunities, risks and consequences.
