In the TED Book Keystone XL: Down the Line, Washington Post reporter Steven Mufson and photographer Michael Williamson travel the entire length of the proposed project and reveal starting realities about its impact on everything from the environment to town economies to people’s lives, in the areas through which it passes.

As debate over the Keystone XL boils over, it felt like the right time to ask Mufson a few questions. Below, his take on this highly controversial proposed project.

Why are Canada and the United States now in a rush to expand oil exporting? 

Canada is already a major oil exporter — in fact, they’re the biggest source of U.S. crude oil imports. Companies producing oil in the tar sands in northern Alberta are looking to double production there — and they need more ways to move that oil out. Currently, the limited options for transporting oil only pile onto the costs of production. The biggest and most natural market is the United States, both because our economy is big and because U.S. refineries on the Gulf of Mexico have been modernized and upgraded to handle low-quality crude oil like that coming out of Alberta. Once the crude oil is refined, it’s easier to sell in the United States or abroad. The United States both exports and imports refined products, though given the size of the U.S. refinery industry and relatively flat U.S. gasoline consumption, the volume of U.S. exports of gasoline and diesel has increased.

You say the pipeline is a Rorschach test of how Americans view energy issues. Can you elaborate?

For four decades, we have thought about oil as a scarce resource. We imported more and more at higher and higher prices and went to distant frontiers, whether onshore or offshore, to find oil and gas. The sheer scale of the oil sands in Alberta has been Exhibit A of those extremes. The Saudi oil minister has often said that prices had to stay above $60 a barrel to keep the Canadian oil sands economically viable. All of a sudden, the trends reversed and a slew of oil prospectors – like the North Dakota fracking pioneer Harold Hamm who is profiled in the book – and energy experts are talking about U.S. energy abundance. Imports have dropped nearly in half. U.S. oil output has climbed over 7 million barrels a day and the International Energy Agency has forecast that U.S. output will surpass Saudi Arabia’s by the mid-2020s. Canadian oil sands would compete for U.S. refinery space with Venezuela, and North Dakota, Louisiana and Texas shale oil has enabled the big refiner Valero to stop importing light, sweet crude oil.

It’s partly a matter of interpretation and partly a matter of outlook. There are the folks who worry about climate and make calculations about booming demand across the developing world. And then there are the optimists and industry people who see more opportunity – which in the case of prospectors and drillers translates into profitable opportunities.

So which is it? Are we energy rich or energy poor? The truth lies somewhere in between. Yes, the United States has surprising new resources at home, and U.S. consumption may have hit a plateau as fuel efficiency rises. This is a big benefit for the U.S. balance of trade and the domestic oil and gas industry. And while U.S. oil independence remains elusive, the Keystone XL pipeline would help make North American oil independence conceivable.

Why are two in ten Americans against the pipeline?

Opposition to the pipeline has three main themes. First, some oppose the pipeline because of climate concerns. The process of extracting oil sands crude – a mixture including low-grade petroleum known as bitumen –gobbles up much more energy than the process of conventional oil drilling. So it emits more greenhouse gases. Second, some people fear pipeline leaks, either near the vast Ogallala Aquifer in the Great Plains or in rivers that must be crossed. And third, some people – many on ranches and farms – oppose the use or threat of eminent domain to force them to sign deals with the pipeline builder and owner, TransCanada.

What are the environmental downsides?

In addition to those environmental issues, the pipeline is being built to provide outlets for oil from the oil sands in Alberta. Half of the oil sands are produced by a process that is akin to strip mining. Trees in Alberta’s vast boreal forest are cut down, wetlands and topsoil are peeled back, and black sands are taken by gigantic dump trucks to facilities that mix the sands with warm water to separate out the useful bitumen. The other half of the oil sands are produced by injecting steam in the ground and sucking up the petroleum. Alberta is vast, but visiting the big mining and drilling sites still makes quite an impression.

The pipeline itself would have no significant environmental impact – unless it leaks. The company has tried to address those concerns by saying it would drill deep below rivers and by making the pipe extra thick in some places. And it has sensors that alert TransCanada’s computer-monitoring center, in Calgary.

Why do some believe that tapping sands oil is ethically better than helping the economies of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela?

One key argument in favor of the pipeline is that it would bring the United States greater energy and national security. Many proponents say the United States would be more secure importing oil from Canada — a democratic, stable ally — than from Venezuela or the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was no great friend of the United States but much of Venezuela’s crude oil is also low quality, like Alberta’s, and Venezuela has been a major supplier to the U.S. refineries. So it might be more of an ethical issue. Would we rather buy from a democracy, or an Islamic state run by a royal family or from a country run by the heirs of the fiery populist ruler Chavez?

What will happen if the pipeline is rejected by Congress and the President?

Good question. One possibility is that TransCanada might file suit saying that the process was improper. But it is more likely that TransCanada would look to alternatives, most likely a line to Canada’s east coast and eastern markets. In addition, railways would step up efforts to add tank cars and tracks as they have done in North Dakota already. Foes of the pipeline hope rejection of the permit will slow down development of the oil sands, but the State Department’s new environmental impact statement issued in March says the oil sands crude will find one way or another to get to the Gulf Coast refineries.

Tell us a little about the effects of the project on the Native American cultures of the proposed area.

Many Native American tribes, especially in Oklahoma, have no problem with the pipeline. In Oklahoma, formerly called the Indian Territory, people have not been strangers to oil booms. But some Native Americans and their tribal leaders are bothered by the thought that the pipeline might inadvertently disturb ancient burial sites or other sacred grounds.  Indeed the pipeline’s route from Niobrara River in northern Nebraska to northern Oklahoma follows almost exactly the route, or Trail of Tears, that the Ponca Tribe followed when forced to move in the 1800s. In South Dakota, Native American tribes have also been outspoken, saying that the Keystone XL crosses treaty lands. The pipeline would narrowly miss the state’s reservations. But it has unearthed more than a century of mistrust and grievance among Native Americans.

Photo: Bloomberg/Getty

Steve Mufson, author of the new TED Book Keystone XL: Down the Line and a reporter at The Washington Post, has journeyed along the entire length of the proposed pipeline. He suggests that its real story is twofold: about the American frontier spirit, and about just how far we are willing to go to feed our oil addiction. In the book, Mufson asks readers to consider the Keystone XL debate — beyond the issues of climate change, tar sands and U.S. energy trade policy. He unpacks issues that don’t get as much play in the press: the ups and downs of the North Dakota shale boom, prairie populism in Nebraska, drinking-water concerns near the Ogallala aquifer, Native American communities’ desire to protect their land and burials sites along the Trail of Tears, and ranchers’ objections to the use of eminent domain by Canadian companies.

In many ways, the Keystone XL pipeline serves as a larger metaphor, Mufson says, illuminating the vast energy infrastructure it takes to sustain the American lifestyle. It underlines the choices we make in pursuit of short-term comfort. Which risks are we really willing to take?

To give you a taste of this riveting read, check out an excerpt from the book’s preface:

In spring 2012, I proposed an unusual road trip, one that would trace the full 1,700-mile route of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline. The pipeline project, which I was covering for The Washington Post, had aroused intense controversy. TransCanada, a Calgary-based company, had applied for an international permit from the U.S. State Department, something that had never raised many hackles before. But activists had turned the pipeline into an environmental litmus test for President Obama. In late August and early September 2011, pipeline foes protested outside the White House; more than 1,250 were arrested. The police carted off the likes of Middlebury professor Bill McKibben, actress Daryl Hannah and renowned climate scientist James Hansen. Later that fall, thousands of protesters surrounded the White House.

What made this pipeline different from the more than 2 million miles of existing oil and natural gas pipelines that had been built in the United States with little fuss or fanfare? A journey by car would provide a window onto what this policy debate looked like at the ground level.

The first stop: The gaping black pits at the oil sands, or tar sands, of Alberta, Canada, the source of the oil that would flow down the Keystone XL. Then a quick flight — to avoid driving a perilous highway full of sleepy truck drivers — to Edmonton. There in a rented car — a Ford Flex that made up in roominess what it lacked in grace or style — I set out, accompanied by Post colleagues photographer Michael Williamson and videographer Whitney Shefte and my 18-year-old daughter Natalie, who jumped at the chance to see those vast stretches of America.

From Edmonton, we drove through Alberta and part of Saskatchewan, then down the spine of America to the Texas Gulf Coast. We visited spacious corporate headquarters and crammed trailer parks, ranches and farms, boomtowns and dead towns, a border town of nine people and a century-old oil refinery. We attended a Nebraska cookout and an Oklahoma pow-wow. And along the way, this inanimate pipeline came to life.

It became clear that the real story of this pipeline permit was one about American frontiers — the lengths to which we go for oil supplies and the intrusive effects that quest causes all the way down the line.

Each segment of the trip touched on different issues: climate change and the oil sands; the U.S. energy trade with Canada; the North Dakota shale boom and its woes; prairie populism in Nebraska and pipeline politics; the Ogallala aquifer and the threat of leaks; Native Americans and their desire to protect land, water and burial sites along the old Trail of Tears; the fight of ranchers and farmers against a Canadian company’s right to eminent domain; and why both oil sands producers and Texas refiners want to see the pipeline completed.

Since the journey, the Keystone saga has continued. The Army Corps of Engineers approved the pipeline’s southern leg, and when construction began protesters in east Texas turned to civil disobedience. The new Secretary of State, John Kerry, has said he would rule soon on the permit needed for the northern segment.

As a journalist for The Washington Post, I take no position on whether the pipeline should be built. But I can paint a picture of the trade-offs. The United States stands at the brink of a sharp increase in oil produced at home and in neighboring Canada. The supplies could upend long-held economic assumptions, slashing our oil import bill, reviving domestic industries and creating jobs. But these resources come with risks. And concerns about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions have tempered any celebration of these newly accessible troves of fossil fuels.

Which risks are we willing to take? As long as the world relies on fossil fuels for transportation and industry, we will face unappealing choices. Drill in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s Arctic coast? Or drill in the Gulf of Mexico where a BP well spilled nearly 5 million barrels into the water? Drill thousands of holes in half a dozen shale plays, using vast supplies of water and producing hazardous waste? Or buy more oil from abroad, where most governments don’t agonize over development trade-offs? If nothing else, the Keystone XL pipeline illuminates the vast energy infrastructure it takes to sustain this American lifestyle and the choices we have made about that without really thinking.

Keystone XL: Down the Line is available for Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone.

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