A primer on the Kinder Morgan pipeline

There is no more bitter divide in Canada today, than the one between British Columbia and Alberta over plans to build the Kinder Morgan pipeline from the oil fields to the sea. It's a complicated issue with competing players and interests from politics, economics, and the environment.

Pipelines are a mode of transportation that sends liquid or semi-liquid goods from one place to another. But pipelines themselves don't move.

That's especially true in Canada. 

The Keystone XL, Energy East, and the Northern Gateway pipeline projects have all gone nowhere, and they've gone there very slowly and torturously. In the process, they've pitted provinces against each other, and divided Canadians into bitterly opposed camps.

Author Chris Turner joined Michael Enright to help us understand what the Kinder Morgan proposal is all about and how it's become such a political linchpin and environmental flashpoint.

Chris Turner is the bestselling author of such books as The Leap and The War on Science, and his latest book is The Patch: The People, Pipelines and Politics of the Oil Sands. Listen to the full interview at the top of the page.