Major Tar Sands Oil Spill in Arkansas-Photo

Enough is enough! Join us in saying NO to more tar sands spills. Help us reach one million comments against the dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. More than 500,000 gallons of tar sands oil and water just spilled in Arkansas. Don't let this dirty oil nightmare ooze across America. Help us gather 1 million comments to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline! Submit your comment here >> Imagine coming home to this: Oil oozing down your driveway, pooling in your back yard, and filling up your local waterways. Sounds like a nightmare, right? This is the reality that families in Mayflower, Arkansas, have had to deal with since more than 500,000 gallons of dirty tar sands oil and water spilled out of a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline this past Friday. This spill is terrible and our hearts go out to the community in Mayflower affected by this disaster. This shouldn't have happened. That's why it's critical that President Obama and Secretary Kerry reject the construction of a much bigger pipeline, Keystone XL, which could cause even more devastating spills of tar sands crude in waterways and lands across America. We need you to raise your voice now. Tell the State Department to keep us safe from more tar sands spills by rejecting the dangerous Keystone XL pipeline! Unfortunately, the spill in Arkansas repeats a story we know too well. In 2010, an Enbridge Energy pipeline in Michigan broke and spilled more than 800,000 gallons of toxic tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo River -- and it still hasn't been fully cleaned up. That same year, TransCanada, the company that wants to build the Keystone XL pipeline now, built a pipeline that experienced 12 separate spills in a single year. In 2011, one of Exxon Mobil's pipelines in Montana ruptured and contaminated the Yellowstone River. And even just last week, a train derailed in Minnesota and spilled 30,000 gallons of tar sands crude. If these stories make your stomach churn, I know how you feel. It's absolutely infuriating that we keep allowing Big Oil to put our lands, water, and wildlife at risk, when we have seen over and over how it ends. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would be a monster -- carrying 20 times more oil than the Exxon pipeline that burst in the Yellowstone River two years ago.

If we have any hope of stopping it, we need you to tell Secretary of State John Kerry that this dirty pipeline is all risk and no reward. Send a message asking him to reject it  Right now, the State Department is accepting comments on its review of the potential environmental impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline. The initial draft of this review was completely off-base, downplaying the risks of spills and the devastating impact that this dirty oil would have in fueling climate change. Luckily, we have the chance to weigh in on this draft and push them to change it to recommend what many scientists have attested to -- that this pipeline is too dangerous to build and the tar sands oil needs to stay in the ground. So we're joining with groups across the environmental movement to gather one million comments opposing the dirty Keystone XL pipeline by the end of the comment period on April 22. With only 20 days to go, we need you to send a message now. Thanks to contributions from more than 3,000 LCV members, we hit our goal in our fundraising drive for this campaign and now we've got all the resources we need to win this fight. But we can't do it without your help. So thanks for taking a moment to make your voice heard today. Let's do this, Vanessa Kritzer Online Campaigns Manager League of Conservation Voters

1920 L Street, NW Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
202-785-8683

Why Canadian Tar Sands are the Most Environmentally Destructive Project on Earth

Our report reveals the following startling facts about the tar sands and petcoke.

• Petcoke in the tar sands is turning American refineries into coal factories.
  • There is 24 percent more CO₂ embedded in a barrel of tar sands bitumen than in a barrel of light oil.

• • 15 to 30 percent of a barrel of tar sands bitumen can end up as petcoke depending on the upgrading and refining process used.
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• Of 134 operating U.S. refineries in 2012, 59 are equipped to produce petcoke.
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• U.S. refineries produced more than 61.5 million tons of petcoke in 2011—enough to fuel 50 average U.S. coal plants each year.
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• In 2011, more than 60 percent of U.S petcoke production was exported.
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• Keystone XL will fuel five coal plants and thus emit 13 percent more CO₂ than the U.S. State Department has previously considered.

• Nine of the refineries close to the southern terminus of Keystone XL have nearly 30 percent of U.S. petcoke production capacity, over 50,000 tons a day.

• The petcoke produced from the Keystone XL pipeline would fuel 5 coal plants and produce 16.6 million metric tons of CO₂ each year.

• These petcoke emissions have been excluded from State Department emissions estimates for the Keystone XL pipeline. Including these emissions raises the total annual emissions of the pipeline by 13 percent above the State Department’s calculations.

• Cheap petcoke helps the coal industry.
  • As a refinery byproduct, petcoke is “priced to move,” selling at roughly a 25 percent discount to conventional coal.
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• Rising petcoke production associated with tar sands and heavy oil production is helping to make coal fired power generation dirtier and cheaper—globally.
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• From January 2011 to September 2012, the U.S. exported more than 8.6 million tons of petcoke to China, most of which was likely burnt in coal-fired power plants.
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• “PetKoch”: The largest global petcoke trader in the world is Florida based Oxbow Corporation, owned by William Koch—the brother of Charles and David Koch.

• Oxbow Carbon has donated $4.25 million to GOP Super PAC s, making it the one of the largest corporate donors to super PACs.

• Oxbow also spent over $1.3 million on lobbyists in 2012.

As mentioned above, the impacts of petcoke on the local and global environment have not been considered by regulatory bodies in assessing the impacts of the tar sands.

Petcoke’s full impacts must be considered by the European Union in its debate on the Fuel Quality Directive, by the U.S. State Department in its consideration of the climate impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline, and by Canadian, American and European governments in tar sands policies across the board.

Increasing petcoke use is a clear result of the increasing production of tar sands bitumen. Petcoke is a seldom discussed yet highly important aspect of the full impacts of tar sands production. Factored into the equation, petcoke puts another strong nail in the coffin of any rational argument for the further exploitation of the tar sands.

Why Canadian Tar Sands are the Most Environmentally Destructive Project on Earth



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From: EcoWatch Top News of the Day

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