By Hook Or By Crook... Oops, I Mean By Rail Or By Pipe, That Oil Will Be Moved

[cali]

Objections to the Keystone XL Pipeline are that spills would be devastating to the environment and that extraction of tar sands oil would significantly raise greenhouse gases. Well, forget the latter because that's happening and it won't stop or slow down whether or not Keystone is approved. It'll just get moved by rail- as it already is.

Objections to rail transport are the dangers it poses to human life as well as environmental damage. Rail spills are more common but pipeline spills are 3x greater in quantity spilled. Rail now carries half the oil extracted in the U.S. and Canada, a stratospheric increase in the past 5 years. It's easy to build new terminals and it takes far less time to move the oil even if it's costs 1/2 again as much to move it.

So let's just move oil by rail, right? Well, except for these facts: Most of the tanker cars used are manifestly unsafe, prone to punctures and crash dangers and replacing them with safe tanker cars ain't so easy: Only one company manufactures them and there's a two year plus wait for those cars. The rail infrastructure, particularly in the Northeast where a lot of this product is bound, is abysmal. The routes for these trains, particularly in the Northeast and South, go right thru towns, past homes, schools, hospitals, etc. (a minimum of 50 people perished in Lac Megantic) Oh, I almost forgot to add regulatory laxness.

What do they call this again? A catch-22?

I know links are a deadly bore, but there's some awfully good info contained in these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline#Keystone_XL_controversies
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/world/americas/deadly-derailment-in-quebec-underlines-oil-debate.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/07/08/f-lac-megantic-oil-rail.html
http://www.pembina.org/blog/732
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-13/amid-u-dot-s-dot-oil-boom-railroads-are-beating-pipelines-in-crude-transport
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/05/14/pipeline-oil-spills-rail-spills_n_3273725.html
http://www.treehugger.com/energy-disasters/canadian-train-explosion-rekindles-oil-pipeline-versus-train-debate.html
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/national_world&id=9166064

[cali]

1. kick

[RobertEarl]

12. Still selling the keystone, eh, cali?

Haha.

The reason we oppose the keystone is because we need to move away from fossil fuels. Sucking on keystones, as you are suggesting, is to be an enabler of fossil fuel caused climate fuck-up.

Environmentalists have been telling you that trains would dump their loads. This latest dump and fire just proves they were right and it is about time everyone listened to them and got their act together and stopped polluting.

But we are having to fight all these ass-backwards fights with pipeline sales people, so we make no progress. And that means only the Koch brothers are happy.

[cali]

2. Quebec disaster highlights the danger in moving oil by rail

<snip>

In the midst of a boom in North American oil production, the amount of crude shipped by rail has skyrocketed. In 2008 9,500 carloads were shipped by rail, the Wall Street Journal reported; by 2012, that had soared to 234,000 carloads. On balance, the exploitation of new oil fields, like the growth in natural-gas production, has been a boon to the U.S. economy and foreign policy. But infrastructure has not kept pace. Particularly as political opposition has slowed pipeline construction, oil transport has had to rely on a network of railways, some of which are outdated and in need of repair. Investigators from Greenpeace found that some oil tank cars used in Canada and the United States were unsafe even 20 years ago. Along the same lines, in a 2009 report, the National Transportation Safety Board, investigating a derailment in Illinois, concluded that the outdated design of the cars was essentially a fuse waiting to be lit. A full report has yet to be released on the Lac-Mégantic disaster, but, as the New York Times has pointed out, it looks as though the cars in question were of that same model.

<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/quebec-disaster-highlights-the-risk-of-rail-in-moving-crude-oil/2013/07/08/6f5e5f90-e80c-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_story.html

Lac-Mégantic isn’t good for pipelines—it’s bad for oil, period

The scale and scope of the terrible tragedy in Lac-Mégantic, Que., is only beginning to sink in, and my thoughts are certainly with the victims and their families.

In the midst of shock and sadness, already there are those who have concluded this is an advantage for the pipeline industry in the oil debate. An op-ed by Diana Furchtgott-Roth in The Globe and Mail was quick to conclude that “after Saturday’s tragedy in Lac-Mégantic, Que., it is time to speed up the approval of new pipeline construction in North America…. If this oil shipment had been carried through pipelines, instead of rail, families in Lac-Mégantic would not be grieving for lost loved ones today, and oil would not be polluting Lac-Mégantic and the Chaudière River.” Queen’s Professor Warren Mabee was quoted in the Toronto Starsaying that “this could be a way for the pipeline lobby to emphasize a point that while they’ve had some problems, there’s not been this level of death and this level of impact.

I don’t agree. I think that this tragedy will have an industry-wide, negative impact. In reading these quotes and reactions, I see strong parallels to others in and around the oilsands industry after the BP spill. A couple of weeks after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank, then Environment Minister Jim Prentice stated that “the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico shows that Canada’s oilsands are less risky than offshore drilling.” Dina Cover of TD Bank was sure we would see an economic boom from new oilsands investment given “the notion that oilsands are a safer method of oil production (than Gulf Coast offshore).” And Eric Lam at the Financial Post offered a similar thought: “on-shore operations such as Canada’s oilsands may ultimately come out as winners.”

In the wake of the BP disaster, Andy Revkin wrote that “the oil disaster doesn’t belong to BP, or to President Obama or his predecessor; we all own it.” In my view, that applies to Lac-Mégantic as well as to BP. We all own this disaster, but it will be owned in large share by all those who make their living producing and transporting oil.

<snip>

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/07/08/lac-megantic-isnt-good-for-pipelines-its-bad-for-oil-period/

[Art_from_Ark]

4. And the recent Mayflower, Arkansas disaster

highlights the danger in moving oil by pipeline.

[cali]

5. yep, they both suck

but 50 people are dead in Lac Megantic. I'm torn. I live in the pathway of the proposed Exxon Enbridge Northeast pipeline which is an existing pipeline some 60 years old currently pumping light crude from Portland ME to Montreal. The last thing I want to see is what Exxon Enbridge wants- to reverse the flow and pump tar sands oil from Canada to Portland. That pipeline runs through some of the most pristine parts of Northern New England.

[Art_from_Ark]

6. I can certainly understand your feeling about this

As you said, they both suck. And they are both disasters in the making.

[suffragette]

9. The recent gasoline pipeline disaster in Bellingham, WA too

http://election.democraticunderground.com/10023191053#post11

[Art_from_Ark]

28. I had forgotten all about that

The Bellingham incident could have been much, much worse...

[Eddie Haskell]

3. The path to our fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon our nation's soul is grooved to run.

And condemned to eternal damnation.

[cali]

7. Okay then. I mean whaat???

[cali]

8. kick

[geek tragedy]

10. There's no good way to transport oil, the only way is to reduce demand.

But, that's a long term solution. While there is immediate demand, the transport will continue.

[G_j]

11. Every Plant And Tree Died’: Huge Alberta Pipeline Spill Raises Safety Questions As Keystone Looms

Last edited Tue Jul 9, 2013, 01:39 PM - Edit history (1)

How many have even heard about this?

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/18/2167151/every-plant-and-tree-died-huge-alberta-pipeline-spill-raises-safety-questions-as-keystone-decision-looms/?mobile=wp


‘Every Plant And Tree Died’: Huge Alberta Pipeline Spill Raises Safety Questions As Keystone Decision Looms

By Kiley Kroh on Jun 18, 2013 at 10:58 am

As the Obama administration’s decision regarding whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline draws nearer, the latest disaster is raising serious concerns about the safety of Canada’s rapidly expanding pipeline network.

A massive toxic waste spill from an oil and gas operation in northern Alberta is being called one of the largest recent environmental disasters in North America. First reported on June 1, the Texas-based Apache Corp. didn’t reveal the size of the spill until June 12, which is said to cover more than 1,000 acres.

Members of the Dene Tha First Nation tribe are outraged that it took several days before they were informed that 9.5 million liters of salt and heavy-metal-laced wastewater had leaked onto wetlands they use for hunting and trapping.
“Every plant and tree died” in the area touched by the spill, said James Ahnassay, chief of the Dene Tha.

As the Globe and Mail reports, the Apache disaster is not an anomaly:

The leak follows a pair of other major spills in the region, including 800,000 litres of an oil-water mixture from Pace Oil and Gas Ltd., and nearly 3.5 million litres of oil from a pipeline run by Plains Midstream Canada.

..more..

[cali]

14. Yep. there's no good way or even least bad way.

[suffragette]

13. Oil and coal

There have been numerous new oil and coal moving ventures being pushed out here on the west coast too, cali.
Most, perhaps all, to supply China.

And these stretch from Canada to Washington to Oregon.

One is the increase in coal trains from Wyoming. These are uncovered and would sift the coal dust throughout the route. Since the trains have right of way, they would also block train crossings, even for emergency vehicles, something that has already been an issue with fewer of these. They derail, too. And note Goldman Sachs is set to profit from this, too.

http://www.coaltrainfacts.org/key-facts


This one is about shipping the crude oil from fracking out through WA and OR:

http://columbiariverkeeper.org/featured/crude-oil-terminal-threaten-columbia-river-communities/


And the Enbridge Northern Gateway project:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enbridge_Northern_Gateway_Pipelines


All of this seems to have ramped up significantly and recently.

I wonder how much is tied to TPP negotiations. We still really know only a small amount about those secret agreements, and those bits only because of leaks.

[malaise]

16. Political and econmic expediency will be the death

of all of us

[suffragette]

19. Yes, and profit for the few at the expense of the many

Something I have noticed growing as well is cross border alliances by environmental groups, First Nations, etc.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3048049



At the same time, more $$$ is being proposed for Border Patrol already awash in it:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023208998


Hmm.....

[KittyWampus]

15. You are a courageous soul for posting this. The answer is to produce energy locally>

as close to the consumer as possible.

[cali]

18. It's just the facts and many, many environmentalists say the same thing

but thanks.

Many environmentalists oppose both rail and pipelines. “The answer is there’s no safe way to move this oil around,” said Eddie Scher, spokesman for the Sierra Club. “What we need to do is to get the hell off oil.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/2013/07/08/82e8e968-e807-11e2-aa9f-c03a72e2d342_story_1.html

[suffragette]

22. We don't agree often, but we do here

I'd add that we need to fund development of new and improved infrastructure to support transmission capacity for alternate energy, such as wind, which is in some places outpacing performance predictions:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x653404

[Motown_Johnny]

17. Let China buy it. We don't need it down here.

If it is going to go on the global market no matter what then just build a pipeline to the Pacific and ship it to China.

Let them deal with the Petcoke and keep it all the hell away from the Ogallala aquifer.

[suffragette]

20. And what about the Salish sea and the areas along the routes?

See my post above and my journal for other posts about this concerning the west coast, including Canada and the U.S.
And everything we send to them increases the amount that goes up into the too sphere and works its way back around the globe.

This isn't the answer.

The governments making these negotiations are doing so globally and we need to address it that way as well.

[Motown_Johnny]

23. We can't control Canada, they are a sovereign nation

and if they are going to pull these tar sands out of the ground no matter what then we can't stop them.

(That is the basis of the OP isn't it, that the tar sands will be refined no matter what?)



If we assume that there is no way to stop this crap from going on the global market then at least we can keep it out of our boarders.



IMO sticking China with this crap is better than having it refined here.

[suffragette]

24. The Salish Sea crosses the border

Last edited Tue Jul 9, 2013, 09:04 PM - Edit history (1)

The pollution won't be stopped by an invisible line.
http://treatyprotection.org/SalishSeaInfographic_final_small.pdf




That's why tribes are uniting against this across borders:

http://treatyprotection.org/


http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1149665/national-and-international-indigenous-leaders-support-tsleil-waututh-nation-signing-international-treaty-to-protect-the-sacred-from-tar-sands-projects

[Motown_Johnny]

25. I never said it would. I live near a watery boarder with Canada too.

I understand that if they spill over there it can impact us here. I still don't see how we can stop them from extracting their tar sands if that is what they want to do.

I honestly wish that they would abandon that crap and just leave it where it is but the OP postulates that it will be extracted no matter what. In answering that OP I stayed on topic. I don't want the Petcoke down here and I don't want the tar sand itself anywhere near the aquifer. Of course I don't want it near the Salish Sea either but given the choice of one or the other I need to pick the area that would impact this country the least.

[FarCenter]

21. ANALYST: The Great US Energy Boom Is Already Stagnating

Last year was one for the ages for American oil production, as production grew a record 14%.

2013 has been a different story.

In a new note, AllianceBernstein's Bob Brackett argues U.S. oil production is now at an inflection point: Halfway through the year, growth has ground to a halt:

With EIA weekly production data through July 3rd, we are halfway through the year and production is up 282,000 KBOPD (thousand barrels of oil per day), or 564 KBOPD annualized. This number is below previous 800 KBOPD of growth (2012 v 2011) (Exhibit 9) and 1,000 KBOPD of growth (Dec-2012 v Dec-2011).

Here are the charts: weekly production data ...

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-energy-production-inflection-point-2013-7

US crude oil consumption is declining. Gasoline consumption is declining. Crude oil imports are declining faster, because US shale oil production is increasing.

However, shale production is now flattening.

I'd expect that crude oil use in the US will be declining, since our economy is not so much more competitive than others globally.

$10 / gallon gas is on its way here.

[NoOneMan]

26. We could always leave the oil in the ground until we have this figured out

I mean, really, what's the rush? Im pretty sure itll be there tomorrow too

[cali]

27. ha ha. like that will ever happen

they'll use both rail and pipeline just like they're currently doing.