The difference being the company that caused the mess, Enbridge, will be made to pay the full clean up cost plus significant penalties. When this is all said and done, the government will actually make money on the spill, just like all major spills.
When tar sands oil is brought out of the ground it is peanut butter consistency. In order to make it flow, it is mixed with volatile and toxic solvents.
Volatile and toxic solvents? It is mixed with naptha, or other lights separated from crude oil. Crude oil is a mix a of heavy to light hydrocarbons. Bitumen, brought out of the Canadian oil sands are just the heavies. It is mixed with lights our of separated crude oil. It is no more toxic or dangerous than crude oil as it is essential the same at this point.
It is high in sand and acidic sulfur.
It is high in sand coming out of the ground. That sand is separated out at the production field. It doesn't go down the pipeline.
All crude oil has sulfur, some has a lot, some has a little. All crude oil has some sediments in it as well, that get settled out along the way and into the refinery process.
If you want to actually educate yourself on the fluid, rather than just parrot ignorance from NIMBYs and environMENTALists, I suggest you read:
Comparison of the Corrosivity of Dilbit and Conventional Crude
http://www.ai-ees.ca/media/6860/1919_corrosivity_of_dilbit_vs_conventional_crude-nov28-11_rev1.pdf
It has to be put under pressure to make it move.
No. Dilbit does not have this property. Bitumen out of the ground, still at the production unit does, although it is often heated as well. But we were talking about the pipeline product Dilbit.
It is moved in intermittent bursts as is called for downstream.
Absolutely false. The flow is always continuous unless there is an upset condition like a leak. You are demonstrating you don't know what you are talking about.
The reason it leaked so badly is that pumpers did not realize that the lack of pressure was due to a big leak, not lack of volume.
False.
Read the details, its complicated.
Read real information, not made up crap by domestic terrorists trying to keep America down in the stone ages.
At least look at info from the EPA. They are hardly oil company support group.
http://www.epa.gov/enbridgespill/documents.html
There you will learn some of the delays in clean up were caused by the EPA.
The slurry is highly toxic, abrasive, very acidic and under pressure.
False. Dilbit is very similar to "regular" crude oil and moved under the same pressures and flow rates.
It is nothing like a regular oil pipeline setup.
False, not only is it the same setup, it is often moved in the same pipeline.
Surface transportation is a lot safer.
Surface transportation has a much higher spill rate per barrel moved than pipelines.
Besides it is mostly being sent out of the US.
False. Because our domestic demand is down, our refined product output now exceeds the domestic demand and the excess is exported, keeping our refineries online and the jobs at home, until our economy picks back up and the demand grows again. We don't export any real amount crude oil to anywhere except Canada in areas where that is the closest refinery.
Thanks. I didn’t know this stuff.