@koherecoWatchdog

The image is Bidens response when asked about how he blocked the pipeline the effect it would have on workers. So yea its about the pipeline.. why what image do you see?"

And yes i am saying that a pipeline does not facilitate burning oils, well not exactly. Oil can get from point A to point B many ways, the three main ways are train, truck, and pipeline. The quantity of oil transported is based on demand, blocking one of these only causes the oil to move by the other and has no effect on the amount of oil in circulation or consumed.

Combine that fact with the fact that of those three ways pipeline contributes by far the least amount of pollution per barrel.

So the effect of blocking the most evo-friendly mode of transport and forcing companies to utilize significantly less eco-friendly modes of travel is not that there is less facilitation of oil, only that there is far far more pollution and little else to gain.

@freemo ah, my bad.. I pasted the wrong URL (I use bitlbee not a GUI). The pipeline reduces the delivery cost, which has the ultimate effect of increasing consumption.

@koherecoWatchdog Not really the effect is marginal..

That would be like arguing we need to push for more coal energy because coal is less economical and costs people more therefore it reduces consumption.

Increasing price by 10 cents and then ensuring the oil you deliver pollutes x3 as much as it would otherwise is no win.

@freemo You have to pay drivers, pay for the fuel itself, pay for the infrastructure (like office workers) to schedule deliveries, etc. So of course there's a substantial cost savings with the pipeline or the profit-driven oil co wouldn't be trying to do the pipeline. The actual pollution from the trucks/trains is marginal.

@koherecoWatchdog None of that is based on reality unfortunately in terms of the actual data.

The contributed pollution from trucks hauling oil across country is astronomical. Any area that needs a pipeline likely does not have access to trains so its going to be by truck not train.

The cost for drivers is offset by the cost for pipeline engineers. You have fewer pipeline engineers but they cost 5x as much to hire, so thats a moot point.

I dont think you realize just how many trucks we are talking here, 10,000 + more trucks ont he road is a **lot** of pollution.

@freemo it would be ideal to allow the pipeline but then introduce a cost-prohibitive tax on the fuel, but that's impossible to do politically.

@freemo It was tried in California. Sadly, even CA democrats who are generally pro-environment fought fiercely to shut-down the democrat in office who tried to increase the gas tax. Ppl's tune changes as soon as their own lifestyle becomes threatened.

@koherecoWatchdog If you cant implement solutions that reduce oil consumption, real solutions, then better to do nothing.

Blocking pipelines is a huge step backwards and is effectively dumping millions of tons of CO2 into the air with no real benefit other than costing people a few pennies on their gas price which we already know people will easily pay anyway.

@freemo if the fuel cost raises by 10 cents due to market circumstances, car drivers will pay it. But if the cost of fuel increases by 10 cents due to an artificial gas tax, ppl will stop at nothing to send the politician packing and overturn the tax.

@freemo so it's important to embrace scenarios that cause the market price to increase.

@koherecoWatchdog not when those scenarios have a net result of more pollution and not less. Blind ignorance towards a goal without analylizing the results of an action is how we cause more harm than good...

Dice it however you want the simple fact, and what the numbers show, is that if you block pipelines the net result is more pollution, not less. Pipelines contribute negliible pollution, Trains for transporting oil alone (and thats more ecofriendly than trucks) contributes 10 million tons of just CO2 for the transport of oil inside the USA. Trucks produce significantly more than that.

@freemo The figures you're talking about apparently don't account for cost reducing demand. Not that they're sloppy, but how could they? It's guesswork. And as you've said, your working assumption is that a cost increase doesn't decrease consumption. This is why the figures are bad.

@koherecoWatchdog As a data scientist ive worked on this problem before, and yes it factored in cost cutting demand, and it isnt hard to do actually. We look closely how gasoline prices effect consumption and it isnt very significant, and certainly does not outweigh the cost-benefits your describing.

@koherecoWatchdog

Since I worked on this in a data science role I know the numbers intimately. To give you an idea of just how insignificant the price-demand curve is for consumers:

In 2008 we have the most telling data, the average national gasoline price shot down from $4 dollars a gallon to $1.75 a gallon (nominal price) before rising back up again to $4 dollars a gallon in the year or two that followed.

Despite the price having decreased by more than half there was no noticable difference in number of miles driven by vehicals in on the road (total across all vehicles). In fact it **decreased*** slightly from 3.275 trillion miles traveled per year to 3.2 trillion miles traveled per year.

Likewise as the prices rose again there was no significant difference seen either.

Definitively showing that an increase in gas price (or decrease as the case may be) has a negligible effect on consumption, even when the difference in price is extremely significant.

@Demosthenes @tursiops

@freemo @tursiops @Demosthenes i heard that ppl take more recreational road trips when fuel is cheap.

@koherecoWatchdog

That could be true, but the data shows little if no effect.

Presuming that is true my guess would be that they just replace their normal commute to work with a similar number of miles taking the family on vacation. The net miles in the end being somewhat the same. Just speculation though, all I know is gas prices have a surprisingly small and insignificant effect on consumption.

@tursiops @Demosthenes

@freemo i think of car travel more like other utilities like electricity, you usually have a stable consumption, with the possibility of some savings if you cut down on comfort or are enabled to do so by technical advancement.

@bonifartius yea, as a general rule you wont find price has a very strong influence on consumption.

@koherecoWatchdog Exactly... which is why its good to try to push for an increase fuel tax (particularly if that fuel tax is going towards ecological investments). But should you fail to get such a law passed (and as you say its likely you may not) then its better to do nothing then to block a pipeline out of desperation and cause far far more damage than doing nothing.

@freemo it's a given that car drivers out number non-car drivers, and that they will fight like hell to maintain their lifestyle. And this is not just in the US. Brussels shows the effect of the car lobby bullying to the point that it only costs 30eur to park on the street & the street is so ram-packed with cars that communes disallow garages on (which removes a public parking spot from

@koherecoWatchdog yea the car drivers are of course a big part of the issue, but in fact they arent the bulk of the pollution or the majority of gas consumers. So they really arent where the focus should be. Airplanes and freighters (large boats) are the bigger problem

@koherecoWatchdog @freemo There are tradeoffs going on. First, telling people they can get other jobs is just as shitty as Gov Cummo saying something similar to people who lost their jobs back in March. It's tone-deaf and callous. Some of those energy companies can move their contractors, but many though they were part of a multi-year contract and this totally fucks them (my dad immigrated to the US working for an energy contractor in the 70s).

Also, it's all tradeoffs. A pipeline is going to use way less fuel than moving resources via trucks. It also ensures less dependences on foreign companies and interests. Energy independences does come at a cost: fracking might permanently damage ground water supplies.

So risk destroying our water resources or risk being dependent on countries with horrific human rights policies for oil. It's complex, and the media tries to dumb it down into garbage.

@Demosthenes Incorrect, blocking the pipeline means more pollution as it is transported via other means, the overall supply of oil is uneffected, they just buy more trucks and/or trains to move it. Same amount gets moved but now you have a ton of pollution while you do it.

Its not about oil spilled either, the ways in which they move oil that isnt pipelines equates to **huge** quantities of CO2, it essentially equates to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of extra trucks on the roads.

@freemo the amount of oil mined is heavily influenced by the profit margins available in the market. Are you saying that oil moved without the pipeline is cheaper than oil moved with it?

@Demosthenes No I am saying that the cost-benefit balance is nothing like what you are proposing.

By that logic we should replace all our nuclea power plants (relatively nonpolluting but not perfect, but very cost effective) with coal power plants because coal costs more to operate and the added cost will decrease consumption...

it doesnt work like that

Increasing the cost per gallon by 10 cents for the consumer by forcing the oil to be moved by trucks, but at the same time ensuring each gallon of gas contributes 2x the amount of pollution it did before, is not a win, not by any measure. You cant **increase** pollution by a huge margin and expect you to have a net positive result simply because the price goes up a little. Thats an aburd and self-defeating tactic.

@Demosthenes @freemo This is a false dichotomy. The relevant alternative would be to have a tax produce the desired disincentive. By making production inherently less efficient, you're giving up the direct environmental gains AND the revenue to use for other social goals. It's hard to imagine such a vociferous defense of such an obviously inept policy would be grounded in reasoned analysis rather than political tribalism.

@anonymoose

Well said, and exactly...

Plus as i stated earlier in this post: https://qoto.org/@freemo/105612036766523680

There is almost 0 impact on the consumption rate of oil anyway.

So what you'd see is at best a amrginal decrease in oil consumption (1% if your lucky, or if at all) and a HUGE spike in CO2 production.

Its equivalent to forcing all power to be generated with coal rather than nuclear because although coal produces way more pollution it costs more so people will buy less.

Its a self defeating ideology when done naively.

@Demosthenes

@Demosthenes @freemo Why not just increase fuel tax if this is what you want to do?

@valleyforge @freemo that would be a much better, more efficient solution in every way, but I'm not sure it's politically possible in the USA.

@Demosthenes

Not a "much better solution"... the only solution of the two considered. The other one isnt a solution anymore than building coal power plants is a solution to reduce power generatione missions.

@valleyforge

@freemo @valleyforge making oil less economical than other energy sources is the only way to actually drive widespread change. There are multiple ways to make oil use more expensive.

@Demosthenes

yes but if you have a marginal impact on the cost and a HUGE impact on the CO2 output you arent having any positive impact, your just punching yourself in the face repeatidly.

@valleyforge

@freemo @valleyforge "[increased fuel tax] would be a much better, more efficient solution in every way"

@Atlas Of course it is, he is the president im sure he has access to good data if he wanted. If he bothers to even check he knew damn well the end result of this is huge quantities of pollution and a step in the wrong direction. But I doubt he cares in the least what the actual effect is

@ArturoGoosnargh Well presumably if there were an actually effective regulation that reduced oil consumption (this isnt one of them) then it would in turn reduce the amount of natural gas burned.

Likewise it could be addressed through regulation by investing more infrastructure in natural gas pipelines (which many eco-conscious people do tend to promote for many reasons).

@ArturoGoosnargh I doubt anyone would just burn off oil, they will just find ways to transport it by buying trucks (which is what the data shows they do).. if they truely were ever forced to just burn oil why dont they just stop pumping it instead?

@freemo Yeah, I'm for MOAR pipelines.

It was a pointmade for the pipeline. Removing the pipeline doesn't inhibit the production of oil that much, instead they just stockpile it for years. Eventually the CO2 impact will be the same.

@ArturoGoosnargh Yea I get that, the point I am disagreeing with is that they will burn it, they wont.

What happens is they just stockpile it as they invest in trucks to haul it. Generally they quickly have more than enough trucks to be able to haul it away at a greater rate than it is produced. It almost never gets to the point where it sits around for very long.

@freemo Not sure trucks are economically worthy.

But tankers are.

@ArturoGoosnargh They are, but less so than other sources. The number of trucks on the road hauling crude oil is enough to produce 10 million tons of CO2 a year in the USA alone. So clearly it is economical enough.

@freemo In any case I don't worry that much about CO2 emissions, we are going to need CO2 capture anyways at this point.

As a non-american I think that is OK for the US to be oil self-sufficient :)

My country(Spain) has oil and gas deposits but due to eco-politics we are not extracting a drop. Doesn't stop us from mining expensive and bad quality coal "cuz it many jobs depend on it"

@ArturoGoosnargh

I'm not sure the fact taht things have gotten so bad that we will need CO2 capture to repair it is a justification to just keep spewing CO2.. the more we spew the more CO2 capture we will need to advert the worst case scenario and the less likely we will be able to provide those levels of capture.

So regardless of any need for CO2 capture it is still in our best interest to reduce CO2 emissions.

@freemo OK, I agree