Posted on 10/18/2013 4:47:22 AM PDT by thackney
When it comes to transporting oil, pipelines are the safest option, trumping trains and trucks, according to a new report from Canada’s Fraser Institute.
The study is just the latest to make the safety case for greater reliance on pipelines, coming while the Obama administration weighs whether Keystone XL is in the national interest and even as Tesoro starts cleaning up a seven-acre oil spill in a North Dakota wheat field.
U.S. data on incidents from 2005 to 2009 “show that road and rail have higher rates of serious incidents, injuries and fatalities than pipelines, even though more road and rail incidents go unreported,” said the report authors, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Kenneth Green, senior director of natural resource policy studies at the Fraser Institute.
“Transporting oil by pipeline is safe and environmentally friendly,” the report concluded.
Pipelines carry the bulk of oil moving across the United States and Canada each day, even though the surge in North American production has pushed more and more crude into trucks and onto trains. Under the current breakdown of crude oil and petroleum product transport In the United States, evaluated on a ton-mile basis:
70 percent is shipped by pipeline
23 percent is moved by tankers and barges
4 percent is shipped via trucks
3 percent moves on rail
Given the breakdown, Furchtgott-Roth and Green acknowledged it would be natural to expect pipelines to be responsible for more spills and injuries. But using data from U.S. and Canada, they found that road transport was the most dangerous option in terms of the number of incidents, with almost 20 for every billion ton-miles. By contrast, there were roughly two incidents per billion ton-miles traveled annually by train. Pipelines had fewer than 0.6 incidents per billion ton-miles annually.
The rates of injuries requiring hospitalization are 30 times lower among oil pipeline workers compared to rail workers involved in crude shipments, according to U.S. data analyzed by the pair. Trucking oil is 37 times more likely to cause such injuries than pipelines, they found.
The researchers say the “superior safety and environmental performance of pipelines is hardly surprising,” since the pipes are often buried underground and less exposed to damage. And there is extra protection in that pipelines allow oil to flow through its shipping container, rather than via containers that are being hauled around.
“When you have more moving parts, more potential interactions with other non-controlled actors such as trains and trucks, the potential for accidents is higher when compared to pipelines,” Green said.
But even though pipeline accidents are less frequent, when they do happen, they generally cause much bigger spills.
Even when pipeline operators react quickly to a leak, they can only close off long segments of pipe — and the high pressure of the fluid flowing through it means plenty can spew out of even small cracks.
Take, for instance, the incident in North Dakota — now believed to be the biggest onshore oil spill in the United States. In that case, an estimated 20,600 barrels of oil — and possibly more — spewed out of a quarter-inch-wide hole in Tesoro Corp.’s 20-year-old pipeline.
Green said the clash between the number of incidents and the size of spills among various forms of oil transportation mean that it is unclear which is the best method in terms of safeguarding the environment:
“When you have a pipeline spill, the release volumes are higher than for a truck or train incident. But with road and rail you have risk of more incidents in more places, so the overall question of environmental protection becomes unclear.”
Such safety issues could loom large in the Obama administration’s decision whether to give a permit for TransCanada Corp. to build its proposed Keystone XL pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border. The State Department is finalizing an environmental assessment of the project, that, as initially drafted, concluded that even if Keystone XL is never built, bitumen harvested from Canada’s oil sands will find its way into the marketplace via trucks and trains.
Shipping via rail generally costs more than moving crude through an aging network of pipelines originally built for yesterday’s oil drilling hotbeds, but train transport offers more flexibility and can more quickly adapt to the surge in production in areas like North Dakota.
The risks of all forms of crude transport were highlighted by Canada’s deadly crude oil train disaster in July, which destroyed Lac-Megantic, Quebec and killed nearly four dozen people.
That accident has already prompted new regulations in Canada, a potential rule making at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and worry by community leaders along rail lines in the U.S., worried about cargoes of both crude and ethanol rolling by. New scrutiny has been directed at the most commonly used oil tank cars on U.S. and Canadian rails today, which are single-walled designs.
70 percent is shipped by pipeline
23 percent is moved by tankers and barges
4 percent is shipped via trucks
3 percent moves on rail
Personally I think trucks are much better.
Liberals have an irrational, romantic attachment to trains.
Why is that? Using trucks cost more money, puts more traffic on our roads and has more accidents.
Ever hear of a pipeline taking out a busload of school kids?
If you’re hauling a ton of freight by truck, a gallon of fuel will only move it 155 miles.
Haul it by railroad, and a gallon will take it 413 miles.
Haul it by towed barge, and a gallon will carry it a full 576 miles.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.longman.html
For every ton of freight they haul one mile, trucks have a fatality rate that is six times that of railroads and 155 times that of inland barges.
Gee, the Marxist environmentalists were lying as usual to stop the Keystone.
Pray America is Waking Up
You Are An IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No shit.
But, I don’t have any railroads or barges. I have trucks.
THANKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And trucks are best hauling from individual well sites to pipeline injection points. They have a place and perform a needed function. But in competition with a pipeline, they don’t make sense.
LIBERALS DO NOT CARE ABOUT FACTS!
They care about how they FEEL about things.
The fact is the liberals do not want oil to be delivered cheaper. They want it to be MORE expensive so that people are more likely to buy a Prius. They want it to be more expensive so that they consume LESS. Less means lower CO2 output. More expensive energy, promotes conservation.
Case in point. I recently bought a 42 year old house here in NH. It has 5.5” of fiberglass insulation in the attic(approx. R12). Current building code requires R40. When the house was built, heating oil was probably $.50/gallon. It is currently $3.59/gallon. Multiply that by the 1000 gallons(or more)it will require to heat it this winter, and you start talking real money. Therefore, I will be blowing in about 12” of Cellulose insulation this weekend. It will cost me about $800 to do my house. However, I would think that will pay itself back within 3 years or less. Also, there is a federal tax credit of between $300-500 I will take that will actually make it pay off in far less.
Obviously, If oil was still $.50 a gallon, there would not be as much of an incentive to reduce my energy consumption.
This I believe has been the goal of the Liberals all along. They have made statements to this over the years. That is why they do not have an incentive to build the Keystone pipeline. It will make energy cheaper and more plentiful. That and Obama has been paid by the typical suspects to delay it as long as possible.
I don’t understand the freeper hate on trains? The government does have an explicit duty to build roads, airways, waterway, and railways and any new pathways.
The problem is selectively penalizing one industry and rewarding another based upon campaign donations.
Don’t mention it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There’s a billionaire who is buddies with Zero. He happens to own Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) There in lies the problem with Freepers and railroads. WB is the man’s initials.
Are you Willie Green in drag?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.