Barack Obama and his allies in the environmentalist movement eventually won a years long battle in shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline. (At least for the time being.) So that was a great victory for the Green Warriors, right? All that nasty oil would stay in the ground and we can get on with the serious business of nailing solar panels to everything that doesn’t move. Sadly, that sunny prediction was not only unrealistic, but it’s falling apart even faster than I’d predicted.

TransCanada (the folks who were trying to get Keystone built) has filed the required paperwork in Canada to get started on a new pipeline to carry all of their product. But this one will head east to New Brunswick and the shipping lanes which depart from there to Europe and beyond. (Calgary Herald)

TransCanada says a draft impact study for its Energy East pipeline project has been submitted as requested by the Quebec government.

The 10-chapter document wasn’t released publicly, but an analysis of technological risks will be added once it is completed, the company said Monday…

Energy East would bring 1.1 million barrels of oil a day 4,600 kilometres from Alberta and Saskatchewan through Quebec and into New Brunswick for overseas shipping.

The $15.7-billion project has run into stiff opposition in Quebec, with politicians, citizens and environmentalists questioning whether the ecological risks outweigh the economic rewards.

We knew before Keystone was ever put on ice that Canada was ready to get started on the herculean task of driving a pipeline over the Canadian Rockies to a new western port where China could fill up their tankers. (And that’s still moving forward.) But there are too many customers across the Atlantic to ignore, and many of them would prefer friendlier, western options for purchasing their oil rather than dealing with the Russians. With that in mind, it looks like our northern neighbors have grown tired of waiting around for American politicians to get their thumbs out of their collective butts and will now drive the Energy East pipeline all the way across the Great White North and ship the oil themselves.

That means that there will still be hundreds of thousands of new construction jobs coming which will last for years on end.

In Canada.

It also means that countless shiploads of crude oil, natural gas and other valuable resources will be sold to our allies, generating profits aplenty.

For Canada.

New refinery facilities will be needed to process all of this product of course, requiring even more workers and investment and growth.

In Canada.

And all of that nasty old oil and gas in the ground up there in the Canadian northwest? Yeah… it’s not going to be staying in the ground. It’s going to be refined, shipped and consumed all over the world. And the Canadians will do very well for themselves with this huge economic boon.

Thanks, Obama.