Sunday, April 03, 2022

Short term versus commitments to long term oil facilities.

Ramping up US oil production with hardly a worry about climate change is seen by some Republican politicians as a solution to current geopolitical problems. Biden accused of standing in the way.

I think it's more than just Biden standing in the way. Worry about climate change is widespread.

We produce most of our huge domestic demand these days and ramping up more production could conceivably help Europe, but there still are the bottlenecks in capacity of LNG ports, for natural gas, between US and Europe. Increasing port and pipeline capacity would be long term commitments in the billions of dollars. Mostly private investments, but still long term commitments in an era of climate change.

Conservation could be promoted more.

For the short term solution, some folks aren't happy that Keystone Pipeline isn't being built from Canada to the US Gulf Coast ports. Pipelines are safer than oil by railroad tanker cars, but a pipeline is a long term investment. I hear that more oil is being sent by rail, from Canada and probably US oil production as well. Being sent by rail along the route that Keystone would have gone without committing billions into building that pipeline.

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