Being an ardent opponent of the KeystoneXL in rural America isn’t a popular position. Webster defines a keystone as “the central principle or part of a policy, system, etc., on which all else depends.” The vision for a 21st-century pipeline was sold as a necessary component of our energy challenges and a massive job creator but does not meet Webster’s definition. The pipeline was neither and should be better characterized, through the lens of American rural landscapes, as an assault rather than an asset.
Giving credit where credit is due, KeystoneXL is someone’s vision; when political will met that vision, the opportunity moved from ‘paper to pipeline.’ This grand scheme dictated the destruction of the boreal forest, extracting hydrocarbons formed millions of years ago, forcing in a pipeline, and moving thousands of miles to Gulf refineries where the final product will be shipped to foreign lands. KeystoneXL promised thousands of temporary construction jobs and a handful of permanent jobs. It risked the possibility of polluting the nation’s largest underground freshwater supply – the Ogallala. And most economists predicted the pipeline would increase the cost of gasoline in the Rocky Mountain region by 10 to 20 cents per gallon.
From a Colorado perspective, there seemed to be little upside. The proposed pipeline project only magnified our lack of commitment to a vision of a robust and resilient 21st-century American economy.
In the absence of our own vision, the void is being filled by someone else’s.
“We must think anew, and act anew” ~Abraham Lincoln.
But let us for a moment imagine the revision of the foundation of the failed Canadian project: the 1,379 miles of pipe laid horizontal and pointing towards Texas. Let’s turn it 90 degrees vertical and apply an American idea to the proposal. Instead of creating a carbon bomb, we’ve created the infrastructure to displace hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide annually. Slicing the pipeline into 212-foot segments (the average height of a wind turbine tower) and turning the pipe upwards gives us 34,337 opportunities for wind development across our midwestern landscape. Using a Colorado-made Vestas product, these “sticks” transform themselves into 72 gigawatts of wind energy potential, nearly enough generation capacity to displace the 329 coal plants in the United States that face retirement from age or inability to meet new air standards.
From a freshwater perspective, something important to every one of us in the West, displacing 72 megawatts of U.S. coal generation could save over 1,000,000 acre-feet of freshwater annually. Through the lens of job creation, converting Keystone to kilowatts becomes the actual job creator. Using industry statistics of an average 250-megawatt wind farm, simply turning the horizontal pipe upwards would create 150,336 construction jobs, 124,416 positions in manufacturing, 23,040 jobs for planning and development, and 7,776 permanent jobs in operations. From a rural economic perspective, having this scale of infrastructure investment from North Dakota to Texas would give us the platform to create a natural, lasting rural renaissance across the Great Plains.
My example of slicing the pipeline into wind towers was merely illustrative but to prove a point on how my perspective judges the Keystone plan quite differently from my neighbors. The structural challenges needed in today’s money-soaked, climate-denying world are daunting. As a part-time creature of Washington, D.C., focused on rural policy issues, I have waning faith that grand visions are possible in today’s poisoned political well.
If these last two years with progressive majorities in both chambers have given me anything, it’s a restoration of my waning faith. The conventional wisdom of mid-term elections instructs us that we face headwinds. January will bring us a new majority in Congress. Now, more than ever, we need to seat a majority in both houses guided by science and the belief that we can be a global leader in new energy sources and technology that will best serve a 21st-century economy. This economic construct will bring new opportunities to our rural landscapes.
Perhaps unconventional wisdom in this mid-term election might better instruct us that new opportunities are just around the corner.
I will remain “The Optimist.”
Michael Bowman is a Colorado agriculturalist and longtime advocate for federal policies that strengthen rural communities and focus on alternative crops, natural resource sustainability, soil health, renewable energy, and environmental markets. …