Bobert, you are raising several points that need response. A little at a time, otherwise we will be covering too much at a time.

Pipelines: The real question should concern the pipeline grid as a whole, not just one- Keystone- which is already mostly operational.

Pipelines have been built across the country without any oversight. Each state has allowed lines that serve local or regional needs without regard to the needs of neighbor states or the country as a whole, and in many cases with little consideration except expediency. Competing companies serve their own immediate markets but mergers are bringing some of this together. Oversight? Needed, but there are constitutional problems, political agendas and personal desires in the way.
The pipeline grid has developed without overall design specifications. Some lines are inadequately engineered, others are old and in need of replacement, some duplicate each other, some are designed to carry one type of product rather than a variety of batched products efficiently.

Putting together worst case scenarios about this hodgepodge grid as an objection to a modern batched line, as has been done, does not help. Pipelines are the most efficient overland bulk transport method for petroleum and chemical products.

Petroleum transported in pipelines. Very little is good only for road metal. Many chemical products that go into our plastics are derived from heavy petroleum products, in fact the light paraffinic crudes are less useful in many applications.

Canadian oil sands bitumens are upgraded on site, so no unusable product is put into the pipelines.   

The Kansas study is based on the worst case scenarios of the oldest and worst lines in the country. It has little applicability to modern barched lines. The points made by the authors have been ludicrously oversimplified.

Tired tonight. Bobert raised other points that need discussion. Maybe tomorrow. On his side is the fact that there is a complete lack of any effort toward the development of government policies that encourage renewable, efficient energy, or even to discuss the problems that will be involved in a gradual changeover (there are many, including education and restructuring of the workforce).