How best to move crude oil -- rail or pipeline?

[AUloggerhead 2,229]

http://www.foxnews.c...elines-for-oil/

With the recent train derailment in WV, the topic was bound to come up. The US currently operates about 185k miles of liquid petroleum pipelines & 325k miles of gas pipelines. Keystone XL pipeline will be only 1.7k miles long. Trucking is another alternative albeit more expensive way to move bulk product.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

I can't provide a link but I have seen statistics showing a pipeline is much safer than trucks or trains and certainly less impact to the environment. Very few disagree except a few of Obama' biggest donors.

[DKW 86 7,419]

Steyer makes another $BN killing the KXLP.

Oil spills be damned.

[cptau 169]

More oil can be moved efficiently and safely through a pipeline.

[AUMed 0]

Keystone, a great way to move the dirtiest tar sands oil on the planet through our beautiful country for the profit of a Canadian company.

[homersapien 11,367]

And while a significant number of people on this forum are AGW deniers, the fact remains we cannot burn all of the currently known oil reserves without drastically affecting our environment.

So if we have to burn oil now, let's at least focus on the "cleanest" and easiest to extract.

[Auctoritas 2,828]

More oil can be moved efficiently and safely through a pipeline.

Albeit to only 1 place. And, I suppose, at least with a pipeline you know where the catastrophic damage will be.

There is no good answer to this question- I would be curious to see an analysis of the pollution ratios for the oil sands (extraction, production, and use) vs regular oil transported by rail or other transport. I bet they are pretty close.

More to the point, the debate is functionally irrelevant; the entire thing is nothing more than political theater for both sides and a way to throw red meat at the base. As AUMed noted, the primary beneficiary is a Canadian oil company, and the US gets not so much.

If we are getting nothing out of it, then why are we arguing over it? The only reason is so that both sides can feel superior and try to say they are winning fabulous prizes and valuable points. The whole thing is pretty much ridiculous when we have a bunch of other more important things to argue about.

That's just my surly no-sleep opinion.

[homersapien 11,367]

We Hold These Truths to Be Inconvenient

Among the most sacred rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution is the ownership and control of private property. It's not quite as sacred as our God-given right to cruise Main Street with military-style automatic weapons, of course, but still pretty sacred.

The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank founded by Charles Koch and funded by his sons, David and Charles, publishes a Handbook for Policymakers. The Cato handbook calls property rights, "the foundation of every right we have, including the right to be free," and points out that "John Locke, the philosophical father of the American Revolution and the inspiration for Thomas Jefferson when he drafted the Declaration of Independence, stated the issue simply: 'Lives, Liberties, and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property."

"And James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, echoed those thoughts when he wrote that ''as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights."

These statements of bedrock conservative principle make it a tad contradictory for Congressional Republicans to continue their nearly-manic support for extending the Keystone XL Pipeline through parts of rural Nebraska, which requires a trampling of private property rights. What's even more incongruous is that the property rights "trampler" being cheered on by Republicans is a foreign corporation. TransCanada has been using the powers of eminent domain to force the sale of land, much of it productive American farmland, from American owners who don't want to sell, to build its Canadian pipeline.

How can a foreign corporation use the eminent domain process to take property in America from Americans? Good question. It's because they have good lawyers -- and lots of them. Their lawyers have been able to convince a number of courts that the "taking" is for a public purpose. That's how private property can be taken -- to build highways, schools, public buildings; things that benefit the public -- and then the landowner is paid a fair market price set by the court. In this case, though, the public purpose is for private gain: to allow the TransCanada corporation and its investors to make more money by transporting crude oil, primarily from Tar Sands deposits in Alberta, to petroleum refineries in Texas and Louisiana.

Trying to evade obvious questions about their support for taking private property from owners to allow its use by other private interests, Republicans have cited the overwhelming public bonanza of job creation -- nearly 4,000 over two years of pipeline construction, and as many as 35 to 50 permanent positions, according to the U.S. Department of State's analysis.

They've also cited its impressive projected economic impact, although the impact is mitigated somewhat by the fact that the refineries that will process the tar sands oil have existed for many years, as do the vast bulk of the refinery jobs.

Next were claims about the North American energy independence that will result from the infusion of Canadian oil into U.S. reserves-- except the oil is already slated to be sold on the world market.

In fact, there are two fundamental reasons for Republicans supporting the use of eminent domain to take private property for private sector profit:

• Absolute and slavish fealty to the oil and petrochemical industry that pumps so many millions of dollars into Republican campaigns coffers; and

• The party's visceral hatred for President Barack Obama and anything he favors.

It's not the first time we've seen such flexibility on inviolate and deeply-held principles.

Remember that the original blueprint for the Affordable Care Act came from the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Many of the same leading Republicans who now fulminate about the evils of Obamacare and deem it socialist and horribly intrusive used to support its approach until it was supported by Barack Obama.

The Congressional Republicans' willingness to turn their backs on the "sanctity" of private property rights demonstrates a lack of genuine belief in anything beyond "feed the kitty." It seems like this presents Congressional Democrats with a huge opportunity to make a convincing case that the Keystone XL pipeline is hardly the answer to full employment or energy independence dreams, and that Republicans' strident support is based simply on helping corporations that help them.

You'd think Democrats would be on this like a chicken on a June bug. You'd think.

http://www.huffingto...hp_ref=politics

[AUloggerhead 2,229]

Well ... ... I started this topic mostly for the safety angle and not so much for the political one. The cars were upgraded to more safer models and the track had been inspected just days before the derailment. This accident could have been worse as19 rail cars (of a train about 107 rail cars) caught fire.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/02/18/oil-tanker-cars-involved-in-west-virginia-train-derailment-had-been-upgraded/

Also, from the article:

... Shipments of oil by rail jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to more than 435,000 in 2013, driven by a boom in the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and Montana, where pipeline limitations force 70 percent of the crude to move by rail, according to American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. ...

At this point, it appears the pipeline infrastructure is incapable of dealing with the current production out of the Bakken oil patch.

[homersapien 11,367]

I hear you, but it's a sad day when we can't muster up the procedures and protocols to use our railroads safely.

To me, that's sort of a defeatist reason to invest in a pipeline for oil we really can't afford to use over the long haul.

[DKW 86 7,419]

The bottom line is that it will be built. Even if it gets delayed again until 2016, it will be okayed by the next President.

And while i support the carbon based fuel (CBF) is bad thinking, at this moment, we really do not have alternatives developed to replace CBF.

We should proceed and continue to work toward alternative fuels funded by a KXLP Tax.

[AUloggerhead 2,229]

I hear you, but it's a sad day when we can't muster up the procedures and protocols to use our railroads safely.

To me, that's sort of a defeatist reason to invest in a pipeline for oil we really can't afford to use over the long haul.

I'm not familiar enough with RR regs to say whether or not enough are in place to operate safely. My expertise is in construction mgt/safety, and I've also been involved in conducting 3 official boards of investigation into significant accidents. Despite voluminous construction safety regs, accidents still happen. People often do the most extraordinary things which may seem harmless at the time but set in motion events that result in an accident. The accident investigators are on the scene now and it may take a week or so for the analysis to determine the cause(s.)

http://wvmetronews.com/2015/02/19/federal-official-csx-train-going-33-mph-in-50-mph-zone-prior-to-derailment/

[cooltigger21 0]

The bottom line is that it will be built. Even if it gets delayed again until 2016, it will be okayed by the next President.

And while i support the carbon based fuel (CBF) is bad thinking, at this moment, we really do not have alternatives developed to replace CBF.

We should proceed and continue to work toward alternative fuels funded by a KXLP Tax.

A tax is the last thing we need. When an alternative becomes economically viable, it will come on board. Carbon based fuels are not a problem in any way, shape, manner or form.

[Auctoritas 2,828]

The bottom line is that it will be built. Even if it gets delayed again until 2016, it will be okayed by the next President.

And while i support the carbon based fuel (CBF) is bad thinking, at this moment, we really do not have alternatives developed to replace CBF.

We should proceed and continue to work toward alternative fuels funded by a KXLP Tax.

A tax is the last thing we need. When an alternative becomes economically viable, it will come on board. Carbon based fuels are not a problem in any way, shape, manner or form.

You do realize that we'd be taxing Canada and a Canadian company, right?

And that last sentence..I'm not sure if you are a troll or just really good at performance art.

[homersapien 11,367]

Some of the folks on this forum scare me.

[DKW 86 7,419]

The bottom line is that it will be built. Even if it gets delayed again until 2016, it will be okayed by the next President.

And while i support the carbon based fuel (CBF) is bad thinking, at this moment, we really do not have alternatives developed to replace CBF.

We should proceed and continue to work toward alternative fuels funded by a KXLP Tax.

A tax is the last thing we need. When an alternative becomes economically viable, it will come on board. Carbon based fuels are not a problem in any way, shape, manner or form.

You do realize that we'd be taxing Canada and a Canadian company, right?

And that last sentence..I'm not sure if you are a troll or just really good at performance art.

We do it all the time now. The Oil is not just coming from Canada, it going TO our refineries, etc. We can set a import/export tax on anything and everything.

[Auctoritas 2,828]

The bottom line is that it will be built. Even if it gets delayed again until 2016, it will be okayed by the next President.

And while i support the carbon based fuel (CBF) is bad thinking, at this moment, we really do not have alternatives developed to replace CBF.

We should proceed and continue to work toward alternative fuels funded by a KXLP Tax.

A tax is the last thing we need. When an alternative becomes economically viable, it will come on board. Carbon based fuels are not a problem in any way, shape, manner or form.

You do realize that we'd be taxing Canada and a Canadian company, right?

And that last sentence..I'm not sure if you are a troll or just really good at performance art.

We do it all the time now. The Oil is not just coming from Canada, it going TO our refineries, etc. We can set a import/export tax on anything and everything.

Yup. It blows my mind why someone would be against an import tax.

[WarTim 3,456]

Some of the folks on this forum scare me.

Fear is a bad thing homey. Let it go...

[homersapien 11,367]

It blows my mind that self-proclaimed conservatives would support the government taking land from citizens in order to profit a foreign company who will be selling oil to the rest of the world.

I bet they'd be singing a different tune if it were their land in question.

[homersapien 11,367]

Some of the folks on this forum scare me.

Fear is a bad thing homey. Let it go...

BS. Rational fear is a basic mechanism of survival. In this case of a rational, democratic society.

Funny to hear that coming from the side that is so full of irrational fear.