Van Jones, former Obama adviser, takes no prisoners in new anti-Keystone XL video

[Socialistlemur]

2. The video is wrong

He claims the fluid being pumped is "pipe eating gook". I don't think this guy has the education to understand what is being shipped....or he does know and he's setting up to pander.

The product produced in Canada is processed at the field or a nearby upgrader. It is heated to break up the molecular bonds, and the broken molecules are hydrogenated (hydrogen is extracted from natural gas and added to the broken molecules before they can reform). The end product depends on the amount of hydrogen added (the more hydrogen the better the quality, but if too much is added it's can reach diminishing returns). Some companies upgrade a portion of the oil and then mix the resulting light crude with the "tar" to make what they call a synbit. But the tar itself isn't pumped long distance. I think synbit does create more of an oil spill cleanup problem, but because the new pipeline isn't finished yet, there's a lot of oil moving by rail. I think rail transport is a lot less sensible.