5 ms·

This is similar to the criticism of a pipeline that's been planned for many years in America called Keystone XL. It's proponents claim it will create thousands

This is similar to the criticism of a pipeline that's been planned for many years in America called Keystone XL. It's proponents claim it will create thousands of jobs. It's detractors say that most of the jobs will be temporary and once the pipeline is built, only 50 employees will be required to run it. But this ignores one important fact. For plumbers, welders, electricians, bricklayers and crane operators, every job is a temporary job. Building that pipeline or datacenter employs them only for a couple of years, but pays them good money for work that is satisfying to them. When these reports choose to look only at permanent jobs, it explicitly ignores blue collar workers in favour of white collar ones. The calculus for politicians is different from those who write white papers for think tanks. The blue collar workers vote. Simple as that.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Scoundreller 8y ago
One way or another, that landlocked oil in Alberta will make its way to market. If the US doesn't want it, it will get pipelined to the Pacific coast and tankered to Asia or sent by rail within North America or to the Pacific. I think Keystone XL's real detractors are US oil producers. It's real proponents are oil consumers that (clearly!) could not care less about where the oil comes from.
- gumby 8y ago
  > One way or another, that landlocked oil in Alberta will make its way to market. That's not necessarily true. The point of the capital investment in the pipeline is that the overall cost will be lower than shipping it from the pacific. If the pipeline doesn't exist, it may not be economic to mine the tar sands (this is especially true for tar sands oil which is very expensive (== itself consumes a lot of energy) to extract, so is only viable when oil prices are quite high. > I think Keystone XL's real detractors are US oil producers. Some of them, but the majors are integrated and having an alternative supplier to feed their refineries is good for them. The other source of opposition is people who don't want to deal with the externalities: the pipleline itself, of course but more importantly leaks. Keystone's other pipelines leak and there's no reason to believe this one should be any different.
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    > The point of the capital investment in the pipeline is that the overall cost will be lower than shipping it from the pacific. Lower, maybe. But transoceanic shipping is cheap and gives you far more flexibility in sending to whichever customer will pay the most. > If the pipeline doesn't exist, it may not be economic to mine the tar sands The current problem is that the capital investments in the extraction infrastructure have already been made. It's cheaper to continue operating them at a loss than to shutdown entirely. If the operations go bankrupt, they'll continue operating when a buyer can take over without any of the previous debts. It's at the point where it's taking government intervention to get the extractors to reduce production. The most economical decision for them is still to flood the market with production. It's like the Worldcom fibre infrastructure constructed in the 1990s. It was a terrible investment, but once it's built, it's not worth turning off. > the majors are integrated and having an alternative supplier to feed their refineries is good for them. If they're integrated and have a balanced production and consumption, a pipeline from somewhere else throws a wrench into that. > externalities: the pipleline itself, of course but more importantly leaks. Keystone's other pipelines leak and there's no reason to believe this one should be any different. Pipelines will always be the best way to move bulk liquids from A to B. There are also externalities to oil-trains and more expensive oil.
gumby 8y ago
The important part is at the end: "The calculus for politicians is different from those who write white papers for think tanks. The blue collar workers vote. Simple as that." While that is true, the think tanks have the perspective right: the local government is spending (foregoing) millions in taxpayer money to channel thousands to a small set of people. I'm all for those people being paid, don't get me wrong. But it's an insanely inefficient and destructive way to do so.
Scoundreller 8y ago
The output of a pipeline to the US is an input into other US industry. A data centre's output is then piped anywhere in the world for near-zero cost, providing near-zero local value.
null000 8y ago
This is accurate, but ignores that there are other, better things that could be done with the money considering that these are private companies who are going to be building these data centers one way or another. These deals measure in the hundreds of millions - if that money was taken and put to good use instead of making unfathomably profitable companies more profitable (maybe increasing school funding, maybe improving public infrastructure, maybe providing free or cheap healthcare) the states shoveling money into the fire would be massively better off in the long run. Remember: These aren't datacenters that wouldn't be built were it not for tax cuts, and they're often not even datacenters that would be built somewhere else were it not for tax cuts (see: Google pitting two states against eachother when they were going to build 2 data centers anyway) they're datacenters that are going up one way or another, but the private companies push for ridiculous tax incentives regardless.
lotsofpulp 8y ago
The correct solution is for the temporary workers to demand compensation sufficient to offset the risk of not having future work. There should be no tax games allowed, for anyone, if the goal is to stop allowing taxes to be gamed.
- bluedino 8y ago
  Many blue collar workers are seasonal and get unemployment benefits otherwise
afarrell 8y ago
How many of those blue collar workers vote in the same district as the projects?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Scoundreller 8y ago

One way or another, that landlocked oil in Alberta will make its way to market. If the US doesn't want it, it will get pipelined to the Pacific coast and tankered to Asia or sent by rail within North America or to the Pacific. I think Keystone XL's real detractors are US oil producers. It's real proponents are oil consumers that (clearly!) could not care less about where the oil comes from.

gumby 8y ago
> One way or another, that landlocked oil in Alberta will make its way to market. That's not necessarily true. The point of the capital investment in the pipeline is that the overall cost will be lower than shipping it from the pacific. If the pipeline doesn't exist, it may not be economic to mine the tar sands (this is especially true for tar sands oil which is very expensive (== itself consumes a lot of energy) to extract, so is only viable when oil prices are quite high. > I think Keystone XL's real detractors are US oil producers. Some of them, but the majors are integrated and having an alternative supplier to feed their refineries is good for them. The other source of opposition is people who don't want to deal with the externalities: the pipleline itself, of course but more importantly leaks. Keystone's other pipelines leak and there's no reason to believe this one should be any different.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  > The point of the capital investment in the pipeline is that the overall cost will be lower than shipping it from the pacific. Lower, maybe. But transoceanic shipping is cheap and gives you far more flexibility in sending to whichever customer will pay the most. > If the pipeline doesn't exist, it may not be economic to mine the tar sands The current problem is that the capital investments in the extraction infrastructure have already been made. It's cheaper to continue operating them at a loss than to shutdown entirely. If the operations go bankrupt, they'll continue operating when a buyer can take over without any of the previous debts. It's at the point where it's taking government intervention to get the extractors to reduce production. The most economical decision for them is still to flood the market with production. It's like the Worldcom fibre infrastructure constructed in the 1990s. It was a terrible investment, but once it's built, it's not worth turning off. > the majors are integrated and having an alternative supplier to feed their refineries is good for them. If they're integrated and have a balanced production and consumption, a pipeline from somewhere else throws a wrench into that. > externalities: the pipleline itself, of course but more importantly leaks. Keystone's other pipelines leak and there's no reason to believe this one should be any different. Pipelines will always be the best way to move bulk liquids from A to B. There are also externalities to oil-trains and more expensive oil.

gumby 8y ago

The important part is at the end: "The calculus for politicians is different from those who write white papers for think tanks. The blue collar workers vote. Simple as that." While that is true, the think tanks have the perspective right: the local government is spending (foregoing) millions in taxpayer money to channel thousands to a small set of people. I'm all for those people being paid, don't get me wrong. But it's an insanely inefficient and destructive way to do so.

Scoundreller 8y ago

The output of a pipeline to the US is an input into other US industry. A data centre's output is then piped anywhere in the world for near-zero cost, providing near-zero local value.

null000 8y ago

This is accurate, but ignores that there are other, better things that could be done with the money considering that these are private companies who are going to be building these data centers one way or another. These deals measure in the hundreds of millions - if that money was taken and put to good use instead of making unfathomably profitable companies more profitable (maybe increasing school funding, maybe improving public infrastructure, maybe providing free or cheap healthcare) the states shoveling money into the fire would be massively better off in the long run. Remember: These aren't datacenters that wouldn't be built were it not for tax cuts, and they're often not even datacenters that would be built somewhere else were it not for tax cuts (see: Google pitting two states against eachother when they were going to build 2 data centers anyway) they're datacenters that are going up one way or another, but the private companies push for ridiculous tax incentives regardless.

lotsofpulp 8y ago

The correct solution is for the temporary workers to demand compensation sufficient to offset the risk of not having future work. There should be no tax games allowed, for anyone, if the goal is to stop allowing taxes to be gamed.

bluedino 8y ago
Many blue collar workers are seasonal and get unemployment benefits otherwise

afarrell 8y ago

How many of those blue collar workers vote in the same district as the projects?