Nothing brings foes together like the lust for fossil fuels, but the shelf life of such makeshift alliances is hard to predict. The TAPI gas pipeline planned from Turkmenistan to India, by way of Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be a litmus test for the appeal of positive economics over set geopolitical agendas. TAPI, for sure, is great news for energy starved South Asia, but it risks becoming a coercive tool to strong-arm downstream partners when bilateral or trilateral relations sour.
Once online in 2019, TAPI will funnel 33 billion cubic meters of gas along a 1800 km pipeline from Turkmenistan’s Galkynysh field to Fazilka in Indian Punjab. It will pass through Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan, cross borders into Quetta, then Multan and finally Fazilka. This route, as you can imagine, poses sizable security headaches. Foremost, the Taliban, who viciously spring back to life every time someone pronounces them dead. Also, we have the pyromaniacs of the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) who enjoy blowing up gas pipelines.
South Asia’s fluid and often stormy dynamics foreground the TAPI project. Pakistan and Afghanistan, for example, have spent most of 2015 locking horns over who supports which brand of militancy. Like his forerunner Hamid Karzai, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani accuses Islamabad of letting the Haqqani network use Pakistani soil as a springboard to launch attacks in his country. As recently as December 8, Ghani alleged to reporters in Kabul that Pakistan was waging
History of terrorism in Pakistan goes back to the time of Russian capture of Afghanistan. Pakistani powers have long had binds to residential aggressor amasses that help propel the nation 's center outside strategy engages. India and Afghanistan have blamed Pakistan 's security and discernment administrations for playing a "twofold amusement".
“’An old Sioux prophecy says that a black snake will come to destroy the world at a moment of great uncertainty,’ he said. ‘Unless the youth stop it’” (Enzinna 35). The Standing Rock Sioux tribe believe the “black snake” has arrived in the form of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Dakota Access Pipeline is a pipeline that originates in North Dakota and stretches across four states. The pipeline is roughly 1,000 miles long and would carry up to 600,000 barrels of domestically produced oil each day. This pipeline would run above the surface, but at certain points would run under lakes and rivers. In the beginning of the year 2016, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a rough draft of its proposed plan to begin construction of the Dakota Access
Pipeline is the best alternative and safest mode of transporting fuel compared to freight trains or tanker tracks. However, there are those who argue that it is not safe because of lack of adequate resources to inspect them, as well as the absence of regulations regarding the use of a pipeline to transport fuel. Equally important, another issue is the great hazard to human life and environment that can be difficult to control or eliminate in case of a spill.
The Keystone XL Pipeline is an oil pipeline system that runs in parts of Canada and the United States. The pipeline runs from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Illinois and Texas with a distribution center in Cushing, Oklahoma. The pipeline has provided several jobs throughout the two countries. Many people have concerns about spills, emission, and the amount of oil left. This paper explains the location of the pipeline, the problems and concerns that surround it, and the positive outcomes it has created.
The construction of pipelines means that companies would have to dig up ground, which could lead to several issues. The most notable issue of the oil pipelines is the destruction of the life cycle. Deforestation, homeless wildlife, and soil erosion are the main factors that would be greatly affected in the life cycle. (Williams, 2012). Although this issue is of great concern, there is not a more effective, efficient, and safer way to transport oil across the country. All other modes of transportation cause greater emissions of detrimental gases to the environment from the pulling of the heavy amounts of oil. Lastly, pipelines have valves that can block off spillages, while other methods have no possible way of stopping these spillages, causing the same environmental defects as the construction of the
Since July of 2016, there has been an extensive amount of tension between protesters and law enforcement over an oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The Dakota access pipeline is a 3.7 billion investment project that would carry 470,000 barrels of oil a day from the oil fields of western North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois. The Dakota access pipeline is a stirring issue and is causing thousands protesters to camp out in rural North Dakota to protest for what they believe. The Dakota access pipeline is to be built by Texas energy transfer partners to move a massive amount of crude oil a day. This pipeline is 1,172 miles long, thirty inches in diameter. It will connect the expanding Bakken and Three Folks Production areas in North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline will allow domestically produced oil from North Dakota to reach larger markets in a more direct, safer, and cost-effective manner. The issue with the pipeline is it would have to cross under the
Imagine living in a third world country with overcrowded houses and no job. That is how, “about 22% of our country’s 5.2 million Native Americans live” (A Program of Partnership With Native Americans). Right now Native American people take up about 2% of all land in North America, most of it being around the area of North and South Dakota. Over the past week there have been protests over the insertion of an oil pipeline through the Native American people, mainly the Standing Rock tribe’s, sacred land. This new pipeline would, “threaten water supplies for the Standing Rock Sioux and millions of others downstream, and its route would destroy tribal burial grounds and sacred cultural land” (Healy). Many of the Native American people, along
In his speech before the Bloomberg Energy Conference in New York on April, last year, former Canadian Minister on Natural Resources Joe Oliver outlined the significance of the Keystone XL oil pipeline in meeting the growing demands of the United States for an environmentally safe and secure energy source and distribution. He argued that North America’s continued growth as a global superpower depends on how it can meet its energy demands without depending so much on offshore sources such as the Middle East which are mostly in conflict and are therefore unstable. Oliver seems to present a compelling argument in favor of Canada’s energy projects especially when he cites independent third party reports made by the International Energy Agency
With the tales of these three individuals told, it is hard not to feel a sense of pity and uncertainty about Afghanistan and especially the United States’ role in Afghanistan. With the consensus of entering Afghanistan originally being to stop terrorism, throughout Gopal’s book it seems that the goal, or better yet, the idea of wiping terrorism away had certainly been lost. No longer does it seem that the United States is helping, rather that the U.S. is one of the main problems in the country. The details and facts listed in the book open a
Two-thirds of the world’s remaining oil reserves are in the Middle East which will make international policy imperative in the future (Campbell 2007). It is
Keystone pipeline is a proposed crude oil pipeline that would be built from Hardisty, Alberta all way through Steele, Nebraska. It would stretch for 1,179 miles and it would transport up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day. The project was proposed by Trans-Canada to the United States government in 2005 and since then, it has been a controversial subject between the two neighbouring countries. The company argues that the pipeline would support more than 42,000 direct and indirect jobs while reducing American dependence on foreign oil by 40%. The president has the veto power over the decision on keystone and so far nothing has been agreed on with both parties. The project is currently being reviewed by the U.S senate.
The approximate 1,172 mile, 30-inch diameter, would connect Bakken and Three Forks production areas in North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois. The pipeline would allow oil to be moved in a “More profitable and environmentally safer manner.” Yet, any leak would cause immediate and irreplaceable
From the pipelines that I looked at the most economically and politically viable would be the keystone pipeline. This is because the United States of America and Canada are very close to each other, which creates less distance for the pipe to travel through, nor does it need to be built to withstand an underwater tunnel, such as the Poseidon Pipeline and the Nabucco pipeline. This means that the pipeline costs less to build, as less piping must be built, and it does not need any special materials: With a decrease in the cost, it means that there is more profit in the energy pathways. Furthermore, all three energy pathways that I researched showed that the pathway only went through countries with have positive geopolitical relationships.
Advocates for the Keystone XL pipeline claim that it would permit the United States to upsurge energy security and diminish foreign oil as a necessity. The United States alone requires more than eight million barrels of imported oil per day and the dispute over the projected Keystone XL pipeline isn’t a dispute of fossil fuels against alternative resources. An ample percentage of the produced oil that will flow through the Keystone XL pipeline will most likely wind up being used up outside the U.S. This project will raise the weighty value of oil in the Central region of the U.S. by rerouting oil from the refineries located in the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico and other exporting
The ongoing debate regarding the urge to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline Project through Keystone XL Pipeline Project Approval Act has become more interesting as the President of United States, Barack Obama vetoed the act proposed. The Senate tried to override the veto recently; however, such effort end up in failure as their vote failed to achieve two third of the required vote in order to override the veto (“Text”). This project has been the talking of people for years as some wonder the advantage and the disadvantage of this project. Recent poll shows 61% of U.S. citizens want the Keystone XL Pipeline Project Approval Act to be passed. This project requires the approval from the U.S Department of State because the projected pipeline will cross the international border between U.S. and Canada. In addition, according to Molina, the approval of this project means tar sands crude oil will be transported as much as 830,000 barrels per day from Alberta, Canada to southern Nebraska. This project is the extension of the current Keystone pipeline which transport crude oil to Illinois and Oklahoma since 2010 (170). Proponent of this project believe the approval of this project will benefit the citizens. According to Korman, this project will provide the states with safe, secure, and sustainable sources of energy; and enhance the economy growth –