Ask President Obama to Evaluate a "Solar" Pipeline Alternative to the Keystone XL Project

See all the reasons at the web link below. To help in the fight to mitigate Climate Change the President needs to understand that the Keystone XL Project can not be approved. We should use the 1,200 miles of land earmarked for the pipeline to build a "solar" pipeline that will deliver the same amount of energy with essentially 0 carbon emissions.

We should ask the President through this petition to support a clean energy project alternative to the proposed leak-prone oil pipeline. As an alternative to a crude oil pipeline running through the heartland of this country, the property earmarked for the pipeline should be used to construct a “solar pipeline” because the miles of property needed to run an oil pipe line is long enough to build a solar panel network that will generate approximately the same amount of energy every day that the crude oil would produce when combusted in power plants to generate electricity. Sure, the investment cost, estimated to be approximately 45 billion dollars would be significantly more than the 5 to 10 billion price tag for the oil pipeline but instead of generating a product that will have a direct cost to American consumers of more than 30 billion dollars a year (303,000,000 barrels/year x 100 dollars/barrel) and have a social cost of approximately 6 billion dollars a year in environmental and public health damage, the “solar pipeline” will generate essentially 0 tons a year of carbon dioxide, generate electricity at little or no cost, and avoid approximately 6 billion dollars a year in environmental and public health damage. So in essence, when the direct cost to consumers (30 billion dollars) and cost to the environment and public health (6 billion dollars) are considered against the investment cost of 45 billion dollars, the return on investment of the solar pipeline is approximately 1.5 years. This petition will also show that individuals can make a difference by aligning and taking steps together to mitigate climate change--for more on the Power of Many go to www.facebook.com/Earthbook and find out how to take "Two Steps With Me" to Fight Climate Change

The technical basis follows: The “solar pipeline” would be the same length of the oil pipeline (6,230,400 ft.) and only slightly wider (~ 786 ft.) and cover 112,422 acres of land. Each acre would produce 2.76 million BTUs/hr./day and with an average 5 hours of sunlight a day, generate approximately 1,500, 000 million BTU a day of essentially carbon free energy. The 830,000 barrels of oil produce 1,600,000 million BTU a day of carbon intensive energy. (830,000 barrels/day x 42 gallons/barrel x 140,000 BTU/gallon)/ (1,000,000 BTU) x.33 efficiency= 1,600,000 million BTU a day).

Approximate cost –809,000 watts per acre, cost of thin film PV projected to be .50 dollar per watt by 2015, so ~ $400k per acre. $400,000 x 112,422 acres= 45 billion dollars.