Alaska Dispatch Blog by Jim Behlke.  According to a December 27, 2009 Toronto Star article, the proposed 760-mile Mackenzie Valley Natural Gas Pipeline from northwest Canada’s Beaufort Sea coast to Alberta had an estimated cost (in 2003) of as low as C$2 billion. Costs had swollen to C$16.2 billion by 2007, (amounting to about C$21 million per mile) and were "expected to rise further if shovels ever turn the ground." This 30-inch pipeline would only have a third or less of the capacity of an Alaska-to-Alberta pipeline, and it would span less than half the Alaska line’s minimum distance.