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Comment by jayspell | Hacker News Reader

What they could have done is not cancel the Keystone pipeline. Enact common sense energy policy instead of pushing all their chips into green technology, a key component of which is battery based and whose supply chain is heavily linked to Russia.

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Isn't it more "common sense" to support green energy than to further invest in fossil fuels that we know will need to be phased out AND has price volatility that is currently causing major issues? Doubling down on fossil fuels right now seems like the exact opposite of "common sense", especially considering that investments now won't do anything to help in the short term.

The Keystone pipeline isn't the issue here. We still get that Canadian oil, it just comes by train instead of pipeline. As I understand it oil producers are currently sitting on oil leases that they could take advantage of to increase production, but they aren't because the investors think this oil bump is going to be too short-lived especially as we're transitioning more in the direction of EVs.

You realize that the original pipeline is still there? KXL was a shortcut that would save some money.

Also, the fuel processed from the pipeline is chiefly an export, so it wouldn't have affected prices in the USA.

Lastly, the XL pipeline was a huge risk to the American agriculture industry. There was opposition to it it on the right, particularly from ranchers in the region. Do you really think it's wise to put the beef and wheat industries in the north at risk just so refineries can sell oil overseas at a slightly lower cost?

> Also, the fuel processed from the pipeline is chiefly an export, so it wouldn't have affected prices in the USA.

Oil is (mostly) fungible. An export from Canada is additional capacity that doesn't compete for American oil that can stay in America.

What key part of the battery supply chain is Russia involved in?

Probably they meant Ukraine and Nickel.

Russia is the third largest producer of nickel in the world:

https://qz.com/2139399/surging-nickel-prices-are-bad-news-fo...

Nickel isn't essential, or cobalt for that matter. It's used in high-end batteries, but LFP is good enough for use in EVs and using nickel-based batteries for grid storage is just plain wasteful.

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