Posted on 07/09/2013 7:19:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
American greenies imagine they can save the planet by stopping construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, but in the real world they will expose Mother Gaia (and human beings) to greater harm by forcing more oil to be transported by rail. Pipelines are far safer than rail transportation, as we are reminded by the horror that engulfed much of the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec in flames. Thirteen people are known dead, but as many as 50 are missing, while charred bodies still are being pulled from the ruins.
This reality should haunt the nightmares of greenies, people generally given to worry. Forget global warming, this was real warming to hellish levels. Even for those environmentalists who regard humans as a plague, the environmental damage in Lac-Megantic is severe. The AP reports:
Crews were working to contain 27,000 gallons of light crude that spilled from the tankers and made its way into nearby waterways. There were fears it could flow into the St. Lawrence River all the way to Quebec City.
An increasing share of oil in America is being transported by rail. The North Dakota shale oil bonanza is vastlyenriching the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, a Warren Buffet property. Keystone XL could take away a good share of that traffic. But the trend is nationwide. A local Bay Area refinery plans to spend $50 million to create a rail facility for receiving tanker car transported oil. No doubt, precautions will be taken locally to prevent or mitigate any possible environmental damage, but what of the vast network of rails on which oil tanker cars could travel?
The plain fact is that there is far more human interaction required to move oil by rail than by pipeline. One small fault on rail bed or track could cause a derailment
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Greenies do not worry about people, property, the environment, or anything real. They only worry about the false god of their imagination.
Actually, they would like to see 5 or 6 billion people eliminated. They would consider this tragedy to be a good thing.
cough**terrorism**cough**coverup**cough.
But the greenies would argue “...we don’t need ANY stinkin’ oil, by rail OR pipeline. We could all just live in mud houses or caves, and not drive, and eat seaweed, and and and...”
Crazy-azzed greenies would NEVER admit that their plans contribute to disasters like this train wreck or the BP rig mess.
Quite!
Ha ha...good ol’ Grass Lake, MI. I knew this was your post as soon as I saw it, CC.
Many years ago someone changed the “Welcome to Grass Lake” sign (Wolf Lake Road) to read “Welcome to __ass _ake” by painting over some letters. :)
The pipeline opponents are not against pipelines per say, they are against oil and industrielization in any form, and they are anarchist to boot.
From Wiki re: 1991 Cantera spill
The spill, accompanied by a toxic chemical cloud that sent area residents to hospitals, quickly stripped bare a 41-mile stretch of the Sacramento River. Wildlife experts estimate the agricultural fumigant designed to kill soil pests killed more than one million fish and thousands of trees during a three-day floating journey to Shasta Lake.
CSX wouldn’t let this happen.
That or something between incompetence and gross negligence.
Maybe someone needs to reevaluate the protocols for leaving a train loaded with crude oil unattended at the top of a grade.
Warren Buffet, Democrat donor and fan of Obama, says, “Keep my train cars rolling, and kill the XL pipeline! Who cares how many little towns explode along the tracks?”
I remember a derailment in Grass Lake when I was a kid. My grandfather took me over there to gawk at it. It was a trainload of Fords.
Millions of barrels of crude oil have been safely transported, but like jumbo jets, when there is a wreck, it is bad.
The alternatives to get this oil to that market?
Pipeline to the Gulf and barges/tankers or haul it in trucks.
Both have their self-evident drawbacks.
The pipeline capacity problem continues, and will continue, even with Keystone, and the refineries which were using imported overseas crude for feedstocks can use North American (US) oil instead if it is hauled in by rail.
The problem here is not that the train was transporting oil so much as the policies and procedures surrounding the idling of the train overnight where such a disaster could possibly occur.
Focusing on oil as a cargo will not fix those procedures nor the potential for failure in the future. There are a host of other cargoes which could have had a similar outcome.
I noticed on Fox, the crawl was blaming the construction of the rail cars, but there was no mention of the train being left at the top of the grade unattended.
As for Keystone, it was designed to take heavy crude from Canada to US Refineries further south, and some Bakken/Three Forks oil would have been transported, but that would have still left a transportation capacity deficit.
The Keystone pipeline would not have taken oil east to refineries in Nova Scotia, no matter what.
Would you leave a trainload of oil tankers unattended overnight? Maybe those policies should be examined first.
We have a winner!!!
Insight: How a train ran away and devastated a Canadian town
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3040657/posts
Be sure to read post #27 as part of the understanding why the breaks eventually would fail after shutting down the air supply. Not immediately, they would first hold close but still depends on individual pressure tanks to hold the breaks after loss of main supply.
Spell check doesn't catch all stupid mistakes...
The U.S. MSM has done an excellent job of burying this story since it happened. MSM used the SF plane story and anything else to hide the Quebec City story and to protect obami.
I read that this was North Dakota crude that headed to eastern Canada. So the pipeline cross the northern border is quite relevant.
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