Super Pipe: The Arctic Pipeline - World’s Greatest Fiasco?

Published: Toronto: Griffin House, 1979
ISBN: 0 8876-099-9.

Description:
On the edge of the Arctic Ocean—along Alaska’s northern coastal plain, in Canada’s Mackenzie River Delta and the Beaufort Sea—lie North America’s largest untapped store of the most environmentally benign of the fossil fuels. Natural gas is virtually pollution free, causing none of the urban smog from burning coal and oil that kills 20,000 Canadians and Americans every year. It is also lower in the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. But North America’s available supplies of natural gas are dwindling, in both Canada and the United States.

In the 1970s, a quarter of a billion dollars was spent on proposals to build multi-billion dollar pipeline systems to bring this benign energy to Canadian and American consumers. The work included the most extensive engineering, environmental, and economic studies of a proposed industrial project ever undertaken in Canada by private businesses, as well as 100 days of public hearings across Canada and in the United States.

Canada’s National Energy Board rejected what it said was the most economic and shortest pipeline route to bring this energy to markets because of anticipated environmental impacts and the impact on northern native peoples.

The Canadian and American governments called for construction of an alternative and more costly pipeline system. "I will insist this pipeline be built," President Jimmy Carter declared. More than three decades later, revised plans to transport natural gas along longer and more costly pipeline routes are still floundering.

Super Pipe provides an insider’s account of seven years of struggle and controversy that marked the first concerted effort to tap this energy supply. It reveals the bitter rivalry among major energy companies, and the power of pressure groups.

"An important addition to the bookshelves of any person interested in one of the most significant events of recent Canadian history." Ian McDougall, law professor, Osgoode Hall, York University.