December 9, 2014 | Wall Street Journal | Amy Harder
Pipeline opposition is getting pricey, according to a new tally from the Wall Street Journal. Although you may have only heard about protests against the Keystone XL pipeline, another half dozen projects valued at $15 billion have been delayed by activism. In the long run, that may just be the tip of the iceberg. The WSJ analysis show there’s opposition to another 5,100 miles of pipeline, worth $25 billion, although protests haven’t shut them down yet.
Those might sound like big numbers, but it’s just a fraction of the pipeline slated to be built in the next two decades. As Inside Energy reported earlier this year, by one estimate, half a million miles of pipeline will be built in the United States by 2035 — enough to wrap around the Earth 22 times. That build-out is accompanied by safety concerns and pushback from landowners like Rocky Foy, who already has twelve pipelines on his property. But the alternative to pipelines are crude oil trains, which as Inside Energy has reported, have their own set of problems.
