# Buffett’s Burlington Northern Among Winners From Keystone Denial



## DET63 (Jan 24, 2012)

> Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.
> 
> With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.


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## Devil's Advocate (Jan 24, 2012)

Interesting. I wonder if the additional revenue received from hauling one of the most polluting fuel sources known to mankind will be enough of an economic bump for BNSF to counter increasing expenses related to more and more severe weather phenomenon.


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## Ispolkom (Jan 24, 2012)

BNSF and CP (the old Soo Line) already have a huge traffic in oil unit trains from Western North Dakota. At Christmas time I watched a couple long pulls of empties head west on the Hi Line through Minot.


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## DET63 (Jan 24, 2012)

I suppose TS's question, though, is whether having more trains hauling more crude oil that leads to more global warming and thus more flooding of the tracks will make eventually make it an un-economical proposition.


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## jis (Jan 24, 2012)

Trains already haul way more Coal than crude oil and are contributing to carbon emissions anyway. Not clear how much this will add to the mix. Besides, since US at present seems to want to do next to nothing about controlling Carbon emissions seriously railroads are the least of the problem. Net net rail is still probably a positive thing in the mix.


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## George Harris (Jan 24, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> Interesting. I wonder if the additional revenue received from hauling one of the most polluting fuel sources known to mankind will be enough of an economic bump for BNSF to counter increasing expenses related to more and more severe weather phenomenon.


Having been around long enough to remember the 1970's "The sky is falling" panics about global cooling, mass extinctions, agricultural failures due to frosts and freezes, etc., etc., I am a skeptic that this "global warming" excitment is anything more than the latest panic over something that is no more than a passing part of the natural cycle of climates.

Taht does not mean that I am unconcerned about gas, oil, and coal consumption for completely different reasons. We will at some point reach the practical limit of availability of these resources. *Reasonable and practica* alternatives must be found, and sooner is better than later. Solar and wind are at best "botique" sources despite being the fads of the moment. Where is the major work toward geothermal? If this plant has anything, it is rocks hot enough to boil water and spin turbines. This is where serious money should be spent, not giving it away to political supporters of the idiots currently in power.


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## Oldsmoboi (Jan 24, 2012)

George Harris said:


> Texas Sunset said:
> 
> 
> > Interesting. I wonder if the additional revenue received from hauling one of the most polluting fuel sources known to mankind will be enough of an economic bump for BNSF to counter increasing expenses related to more and more severe weather phenomenon.
> ...


At the risk of some self promotion, Wind technology isn't standing still. Something called a Wind Lens has the potential to triple wind turbine output at a given air speed. It also allows the turbine to operate at much lower wind speeds thereby giving wind a stronger generation baseline.


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## DET63 (Jan 24, 2012)

Three times zero is still zero. If the wind isn't blowing, or is blowing very slowly, the amount of electricity generated will be negligible. Therefore, windmills will be confined to areas where the wind blows consistently at a fairly high rate of speed (though not so much to damage the windmills!).


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## NAVYBLUE (Jan 24, 2012)

Global warming ?

Google "Climate Gate"

ALL U.S. scientists pushing "global warming" (now changed to climate change because people laughed at them when they used the old term ) receive their grant monies from the National Science Foundation. Wrong results, grants disappear.

In 2009, over 5,000 non IPCC/academic climatologists signed a petition circulated world wide condeming the IPCC for saying global warming was man made when there is no indisputable scientific proof that it is true. Never was in the news.

Global warming/climate change is a THEORY

Relativity is a THEORY.

Heliosphere solar wind terminal velocity shock (my SIL's PhD thesis) is a THEORY.

Theory, NOT facts.

Windmills kill thousands of birds yearly. Some on the endangered species list. Never is in the news.

Solar ? Really. Maybe in 25 years.

Natural gas is the answer. It is the most efficient burning fossil fuel out there.

We have over 2,000 years of natural gas reserves with recent discoveries

Las Vegas valley has (4) natural gas power plants with the (2) coal burners being replaced with natural gas within the next (5) years. We have some the lowest electric rates in the U.S.

Global warming. The last person I am going to believe is a government grant "*****" who is beholden to the NSF.

I want all the tree huggers to move to CA, drive your Prius, live in your solar home, use an outhouse, eat your organic food, hold hands, sing kumbaya and leave the rest of us alone.

NAVYBLUE


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## Hotblack Desiato (Jan 24, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> Relativity is a THEORY.


Relativity may be a theory (and why you brought up relativity in this thread is beyond me), but try building a GPS without taking relativity into account (after all, it's a _theory,_ not a fact) and see where it gets you.


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## NAVYBLUE (Jan 25, 2012)

Hotblack Desiato said:


> NAVYBLUE said:
> 
> 
> > Relativity is a THEORY.
> ...



*General relativity* is a* theory* of *gravitation* developed by Einstein in the years 1907–1915. The development of *general* relativity began with the equivalence principle, under which the states of accelerated motion and being at rest in a gravitational field (for example when standing on the surface of the Earth) are physically identical.

The on-board atomic clocks are good to about 1 nanosecond (ns) in epoch, and about 1 ns/day in rate. *Since the speed of light *is about one foot per nanosecond, the system is capable of amazing accuracy in locating anything on Earth or in the near-Earth environment. For example,* if the satellite clocks are fully synchronized with ground atomic clocks*, and we know the time when a signal is sent from a satellite, then the time delay for that signal to reach a ground receiver immediately reveals the distance (to a potential accuracy of about one foot) between satellite and ground receiver. By using four satellites to triangulate and determine clock corrections, the position of a receiver at an unknown location can be determined with comparable precision.

In the first statement, Einsteins Theory of Relativity is about gravity and it's effect on motion.

In the second statement we learn that GPS's have nothing to do with relativity. In RELATION to on the earth and in a fully synchronized orbit there is a time delay because of the speed of light between the GPS satellite and the ground station. A lag is put in the satellite PRIOR to launch so when it reaches orbit it is on the same time as the ground station receiver (ie: the GPS in your car). Thus by using triangulation, the car receiver knows where its at.

NAVYBLUE

PS:

Theory of relativity is a THEORY

Terminal velocity shock is a THEORY

Global warming is a THEORY


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## Hotblack Desiato (Jan 25, 2012)

And your point is...what, exactly?


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## NAVYBLUE (Jan 25, 2012)

Hotblack Desiato said:


> And your point is...what, exactly?


You don't understand "The Theory of Relativity" and how GPSs work and that neither has anything to do with the other.

But, thanks for playing. Johnny has some nice parting gifts.

NAVYBLUE


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## The Davy Crockett (Jan 25, 2012)

Totally off topic, but it occurs to me that in the familiar debate developing in this thread, one side implies that the bald eagle has been replaced with a certain chicken, while the other side says the new bird acts a whole lot more like an ostrich.... :unsure:


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## Hotblack Desiato (Jan 25, 2012)

I guess you can tell that to the folks who launched the GPS satellites and included relativistic corrections in their clocks prior to launch, apparently just for fun.

But, I still don't know what the heck your bringing up relativity in the first place has to do with anything in this thread, other than it being a bitter, anti-science rant.


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## George Harris (Jan 25, 2012)

Hotblack Desiato said:


> I guess you can tell that to the folks who launched the GPS satellites and included relativistic corrections in their clocks prior to launch, apparently just for fun.
> 
> But, I still don't know what the heck your bringing up relativity in the first place has to do with anything in this thread, other than it being a bitter, anti-science rant.


to continue with the off-topic: Huh? What I was reading was a rant against phoney science.

As to your thought about relativity: When the concept is called the *Theory* of Relativity, what is wrong with referring to it as a theory? Might be worthwhile to read the scientific definitions of hypothesis, theory, and law.

By the way, the primary calculations related to satellite launches and orbits, (and allowable speed on track curves to bring it back to railroads) are based on the *Law* of Gravity.


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## Devil's Advocate (Jan 25, 2012)

George Harris said:


> Having been around long enough to remember the 1970's "The sky is falling" panics about global cooling, mass extinctions, agricultural failures due to frosts and freezes, etc., etc., I am a skeptic that this "global warming" excitment is anything more than the latest panic over something that is no more than a passing part of the natural cycle of climates.


That's why the scientific method is so important. When used responsibly it is essentially self-correcting over time. The human mind, however, is not. In fact it is highly prone to biased and exclusionary reasoning. To be perfectly frank there is no reasonable comparison between a tiny number of media-hyped global cooling theories that enjoyed only the briefest of attention in the 1970's and three decades of sophisticated climate change models that are respected by the vast majority of the world's experts today. Heck, even Curious George eventually gave up debating the undeniable.

"I recognise the surface of the earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem." - George W. Bush in Copenhagen, Denmark on July 7, 2005.

In the end Bush simply claimed that it was too expensive, too complicated, and too late to actually fix the problem. He also blamed China and India for America's inability to do virtually anything of actual significance. Which is rather unfortunate, because no matter which variable you believe is _most_ responsible for causing global warming, the one and _only_ variable that humans have any control over is our greenhouse gas emissions.



George Harris said:


> That does not mean that I am unconcerned about gas, oil, and coal consumption for completely different reasons. We will at some point reach the practical limit of availability of these resources.


The thing about oil depletion is that it's only relevant in the context of cost. So long as petrol remains at current price levels there will be plenty to go around. As the price increases and technology improves more and more sources will become economically viable over time. It is my understanding that there are already _hundreds of years_ worth of oil reserves available for exploitation today at various price points and that more are being discovered all the time. Simply running out of oil is unlikely to be a serious problem for generations yet, but burning as much as we can get our hands on comes with a cost we may not be able to afford in other ways.



George Harris said:


> *Reasonable and practica* alternatives must be found, and sooner is better than later. Solar and wind are at best "botique" sources despite being the fads of the moment.


At one time every single power generation source was nothing more than a low scale prototype operation. Over time they were researched and subsidized until they became the clockwork behemoths they are today. I have no reason to believe solar and wind will not follow the exact same path as virtually every other power source as they are implemented into larger and larger installations. Even here in anti-green Texas we have several commercial scale wind installations and are moving toward commercial scale solar installations as well. The only problem so far is that our antiquated power distribution network is not setup to efficiently move this power in more than one direction.

There is no power source *less* practical or *more* "boutique" than nuclear fission, and yet that process still accounts for more than 20% of America's enormous electrical power market. I don't believe waste is good at any level, but if the American media is going to completely freak out over a $500 million dollar loan to a company like Solyndra then where is the outrage over the $20 _billion_ in public loan guarantees that the US government is using to push for a 'nuclear renaissance' that the private credit market still refuses to fund on their own? Twice the US congress has tried to increase nuclear power guarantees to over $50 _billion_ and were only thwarted by language unrelated to the nuclear subsidies. Amazingly, $50 billion worth of guarantees wouldn't even come close to what is necessary just to keep nuclear power in the 20-25% range as our current plants are carefully decommissioned, chopped into tiny pieces, and hauled to god only knows where for the next million years or so.



George Harris said:


> Where is the major work toward geothermal? If this plant has anything, it is rocks hot enough to boil water and spin turbines. This is where serious money should be spent, not giving it away to political supporters of the idiots currently in power.


Geothermal has a lot of potential but is still new to many politicians. Here in Texas it makes even more sense because we have already drilled this state into Swiss cheese while looking for oil and would not need to spend as much as other states would to get started. However, until we can get our politicians on board it will be hard to get anything approaching a commercial scale operation.


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## NAVYBLUE (Jan 26, 2012)

1. Three decades of sophisticated climate change models that are respected by the vast majority of the world's experts today

Unfortunately that's why they are called "models". The IPCC and U.S. grant ***** climatologists do not constitute the "majority" of the world's climatologists. Ask yourself this question. What has Dr Mann, now at Penn State and the father of the "hockey stick" used in the theory of global warming still refuse to release all the data from his work. He knows it is phony. Have you ever actually investigated Climate Gate ? Go to junkscience.com and read to what extent scientists will lie and bend data to protect their grants. Rachel Carson of Silent Spring fame is responsible for over (1) million people a year in Africa dying from malaria because of DDT banning. All her evidence was based on circumstantial evidence with NO scientific research or findings. Climate models for global warming ? Yea, the same computer modeling that has predicted severe hurricanes in the U.S. for the last (5) years and has been wrong every year. Yea, the same computer modeling that predicts the local weather and gets it right 57% of the time. Hell, I could do that with crickets and a mini weather station. You put way too faith in scientists. Follow the grant whores money trail and the Al Gore/carbon credit scam.

2. It is my understanding that there are already _hundreds of years_ worth of oil reserves available for exploitation today

We actually have about 1,300 years of oil reserves in the form of crude, tar sands, shale oil and plant oil. My brother in law who was one of the the lead engineers on the North slope in Alaska when it started and has worked in just about every country in the world than ends in "STAN", plus Angola, Chile, Cameroon, Nigeria and Indonesia for the last 43 years said the amount of oil reserves in the U.S. and Canada is estimated to be about 900-1,700 years worth. Some has to wait for newer technology. When he worked for Texaco in 1969 in Texas, he said he routinely drilled, found oil (thick non Brent sweet) and capped the well because the technology wasn't there yet to refine it at a profit level. They capped it thinking the middle east will eventually dry up as they had nothing else to offer the world except oil. The middle east (other than Iraq) is in trouble in about 50-75 years. We now hold all the cards. Didn't we go to Iraq for oil according to the N.Y. Times. Then how come it's going directly to China and the free market instead of directly to the U.S. I guess the Times was wrong ?

3. Even here in anti-green Texas we have several commercial scale wind installations and are moving toward commercial scale solar installations as well.

The only reason it is practical now is the tax write off for capital investment and other tax write offs. Can anyone say "ethanol". The only reason farmers grew corn for ethanol was tax subsidies. Now that we have found it takes MORE energy to produce (1) gallon of ethanol than the energy received from burning a gallon of ethanol has Congress decided to slowly kill it. Another stupid government idea stopped. One down, 3,997 more to go. Solar will NEVER be able to be produce power in the quantities/quality needed for consumer/commercial use on a large scale in my lifetime. Maybe in (50) years. Wind ? Dead birds from windmills. Greenies say it's O.K. Dead birds from oil spill. Bad oil companies. Shame shame oil company. No hypocrisy there.

4. There is no power source *less* practical or *more* "boutique" than nuclear fission. A 'nuclear renaissance' that the private credit market still refuses to fund on their own.

Less practical ? Tell that to France with 75% of it's power from nukes. Private credit for nukes ? It's called not being stupid. Can you say Shoreham. In 76-79 while stationed on Long Island, New York I watched how the greenies scared everyone using Hiroshima pictures and the plant stopped construction. Now LILCO over 28 years since they stopped construction has passed the 38 billion on to the consumers. That's why banks will not finance nukes. A minority (greenies) can scare a certain political party. In another stupid move, when the NAVY decommissioned some older nuke subs instead of tying them up to a pier and selling electrical power from cores that were still viable even after all the weapons systems had been dismantled and MAKE the government money, they mothballed them.

Geothermal. Now we're talking. Heat for a home. With natural gas/nuke plants we got electricity. After we get some adults in the White House we can move the energy situation forward and not backward.

NAVYBLUE


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## Ispolkom (Jan 26, 2012)

George Harris said:


> By the way, the primary calculations related to satellite launches and orbits, (and allowable speed on track curves to bring it back to railroads) are based on the *Law* of Gravity.


Naw, gravity is just a theory as well. After all, it doesn't work with quantum mechanics, does it? If you like intelligent design, you'll love intelligent falling.


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