Research

Building Keystone XL will actually create a surplus of heavy oil on the Gulf Coast and force Canadian producers to regularly export their dirty oil into the world market. It is therefore clearer than ever that Keystone XL will facilitate more tar sands production and the increased Greenhouse Gas pollution that goes with it. Building the pipeline will clearly not meet the criteria of no significant increase in carbon emissions set by President Obama. The sooner that Democrats and Republicans wake up to the fact that Big Oil works only in its own interest and not in the national interest, the sooner we may start to move towards the clean energy future we so desperately need.

New Infographic! There are many reasons that the Keystone XL pipeline will clearly exacerbate the problem of climate pollution...but one that is often overlooked at our peril is the problem of petroleum coke (aka "petcoke").

A new report out today from environmental groups shows that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would, if approved, be responsible for at least 181 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) each year, comparable to the tailpipe emissions from more than 37.7 million cars or 51 coal-fired power plants.

New data reveals that a full 60 percent of gasoline produced at Keystone XL refineries was exported.

Existing analyses of the impacts of tar sands fail to account for a byproduct of the process that is a major source of climate change causing carbon emissions: petroleum coke - known as petcoke. Petcoke is the coal hiding in North America's tar sands oil boom.

In the world today, global warming is our collective cancer, and despite dire and clear warnings, the oil industry is still smoking away. The best climate science in the world tells us that in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.  But the amount of new oil production the industry is bringing online over the next eight years is exponentially more than we can afford to burn and stay under two degrees.  We simply cannot afford to burn all the oil that the industry is capable of producing over the next few years, and in the long term.

This report finds that Keystone XL would reduce gasoline supplies in America by diverting Canadian tar sands crude from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, blowing apart the tar sands industry's claims that building the Keystone XL pipeline would lower gasoline prices in America.

The Keystone XL pipeline has been presented as a boon to U.S. energy security by its proponents. It is no such thing.

Tar sands extraction projects are moving forward with increasing pace. The industry ambition is to grow production from today’s level an extraordinary 140 percent by 2025.

Keystone XL will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but rather transport Canadian oil to American refineries for export to overseas markets.