The Keystone pipeline - still not a good idea

From The Political Carnival...
 Via The Guardian:

    Germany's largest and most prestigious research institute has pulled out of a Canadian government-funded CAN$25 million research project into sustainable solutions to tar sands pollution, citing fears for its environmental reputation.

    As many as 20 scientists at the world-famous Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres have ceased involvement in the Helmholtz Alberta Initiative (HAI), after a moratorium on contacts was declared last month. [...]

    "It's a clear signal that Canada's energy and climate policy is not accepted by the international community, especially Germany," [Professor Frank Messner, Helmholtz UFZ's head of staff] said [...]

    Canada's tar sands deposits contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in human history, according to James Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

    "If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate," Hansen famously wrote. It would elevate global temperatures to levels not seen since the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, he added. [...]

    A 2011 report commissioned by the EU from Adam Brandt, an Assistant Professor at Stanford University, found that the lifecycle emissions of fuel from tar sands - also known as oil sands - were between 12-40% higher than conventional crude, with the most likely barrel being 22% more carbon intensive.