I agree that the reaction to the pipeline is far greater in the country at large rather than just in the area along the pipeline route. But I do not see that the reaction at large springs up either for or against the pipeline as a case of follow the money. I see the reaction springing up solely against the project, and being a case of follow the green movement. The bone of contention is not oil spills per se, although those are part of the objection, but the overarching issue is opposition to the use of fossil fuels and causing climate change. The current administration, in my own humble opinion, has its boot on the neck of fossil fuel. It is as clear as day. They are not so much worried about spilling oil as they are against using it. <
Sam - I am political, but not an extremist. I don’t have a problem with pipelines thru eastern Ne and I live pretty close to the eastern border. This could affect the Missouri or possibly where Lincoln gets its well water for drinking.
But I use all the available energy just as everyone else and know we can’t ruffle about everything. It is just that in this case I don’t see the necessity of the proposed site. It isn’t like I think they should route it thru eastern Iowa and stay as far away from NE as possible. We are talking about roughly 150 miles - which I am sure in pipelines is like from the earth to the moon. But I have lived enough years to see what happens in an “accident” and what happens after these “accidents” - and not just in pipeline accidents.
Trains can and probably do carry hazardous waste thru here all the time. I have seen some of the accidents and they were handled by the railroad and other agencies involved in the cleanup in a very timely manner.
I am sure everyone gets the flavor of what I am thinking, so I will stop. But I wish that all the $$$ that the pipeline company is spending on ads that blanket our airwaves would use that $$$$ and move the pipeline that extra few miles. It would be $$$$ well spent…
Mookie
Here is James Hansen’s (NASA) take on the pipeline project:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/05/236978/james-hansen-keystone-pipeline-tar-sands-climate/
He says we need to phase out coal and leave the tar sands in the ground in order to stabilize climate change.
The original question was whether railroads could handle the job if the pipeline were not built. It might be useful to consider some numbers in this regard.
The pipeline is intended to deliver 700,000 barrels per day (Investor’s Business Daily 11/13/2011) to a terminal in the Houston -Port Arthur TX area. Other estimates range from 590,000 to 1.1 million barrels daily, but for this example let’s stick to the 700K figure.
Using a typical 30,000 gallon tank car (LD LMT 196,500 lbs, LT WT 66,500 lbs), we can determine how many cars are needed per day. Heavy crude weighs about 7.27 lbs per gallon according to figures I can dig up. Dividing the load limit of the tank car (196500) by the pounds per gallon of crude (7.27) you find that each car can carry 27028 gallons. Multiply the 700,000 barrels daily delivery x 42 gallons per barrel and divide that number by gallons per car (27028) and your result is the number of tank cars per day needed to unload at the terminal: 1087.
Question: How many trainsets are necessary to provide 1087 cars unloading daily at the south end? And of course the same number must be loading at the north end, as well. Of course there are many other questions about routes, traffic capacity, ROW improvements and more. I will be interested in reading your comments, particularly whether this attempt at analysis makes any sense at all and whether it sheds any light on the subject.
Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources just got back from China and they seem VERY interested in Canada’s oil situation, he said a pipeline to Kitimat, British Columbia is a very viable route. The U.S. wants to wait 18 months to decide if it will go through, Canada wants to start soon and the route to Kitimat could be done in 1 1/2 years or so, As Norm48327 said: wouldn’t it be easier to build more refineries in Canada and ship finished products for export? this has been hammered around Canada for a century, but Canadains are still referred to as “hewers of wood and drawers of water” We’ve tried to change this attitude for years to no avail.
One thing missing from this discussion is a quantitative estimate for a pipeline accident in the proposed route, where the estimate is based on the conditions found on that route. My understanding of pipeline ruptures are usually due to the pipeline being disturbed, which was the case for Laurel, Montana this last July (FWIW, I drove across the Yellowstone river ~100 yards upstream of the pipeline about 6 hours before the spill) and possibly the San Bruno rupture south of San Fran. Other causes include overpressure and internal corrosion. From what’s been reported about the proposed route, it appears to be a benign environment for a pipeline. This is not to say that the proposed route is risk free.
As for the carbon impact - with China’s interest in sources of oil. the Tar Sands will almost certainly be exploited whether or not the Keystone XL is built.
- Erik
Erik - my point exactly. The area is benign. But are the pipelines?
Mookie,
If I recall correctly, there are several hundred thousand miles of petroleum carrying pipelines in the US and there is maybe one major incident per year? That would imply that the section of the pipeline going through Nebraska would likely operate without incident over the life of the pipeline.
- Erik
[quote user="tpatrick"]
"…The original question was whether railroads could handle the job if the pipeline were not built. It might be useful to consider some numbers in this regard.
The pipeline is intended to deliver 700,000 barrels per day (Investor’s Business Daily 11/13/2011) to a terminal in the Houston -Port Arthur TX area. Other estimates range from 590,000 to 1.1 million barrels daily, but for this example let’s stick to the 700K figure…"
Using a typical 30,000 gallon tank car (LD LMT 196,500 lbs, LT WT 66,500 lbs), we can determine how many cars are needed per day. Heavy crude weighs about 7.27 lbs per gallon according to figures I can dig up. Dividing the load limit of the tank car (196500) by the pounds per gallon of crude (7.27) you find that each car can carry 27028 gallons. Multiply the 700,000 barrels daily delivery x 42 gallons per barrel and divide that number by gallons per car (27028) and your result is the number of tank cars per day needed to unload at the terminal: 1087.
"…Question: How many trainsets are necessary to provide 1087 cars unloading daily at the south end? And of course the same number must be loading at the north end, as well. Of course there are many other questions about routes, traffic capacity, ROW improvements and more. I will be interested in reading your comments, particularly whether this attempt at analysis makes any sense at all and whether it sheds any light on the subject…"
[/quote]
This whole issue seem to revolve around available infrastructure
The pipeline in its current incomplete existence is; presently not part of the discussion.
The infrastructure to l****oad 1087 (tpatrick’s number of tank cars) is most likely currently only partially available.
The railroad capacity to move those cars into loading facilities, inclusive of track work, manpower, and
Sam - I think the net result of your hard-earned experience in this case = natural resource (at base value) piped to Pacific…tankered to Asia. We’ll be driving vehicles (assembled here by Asian-owned companies) using high-priced, fossil fuel-produced electricity.
I am for using resources wisely in an economic manor.
I’m just really tired of spoiled, elitist, greeny, whiney, ignorant brats who’ve been conditioned to expect they should be handed a “job” mandated or funded by a grant from an oh-so-benevolent government that should fulfill their every desire, or they’ll “destitute” themselves for the cause by sitting-in at a city park, making certain TV is available there for the 3:15PM Packers game on Sunday afternoon).
I’m back to trains, now.
Sam,
I think you misunderstand my point. My viewpoint on global warming probably about the same as yours. I certainly did not bring it up as the reason why I oppose the pipeline. I am actually for the pipeline unless there is some obvious geophysical based flaw in the routing of it. I only brought up global warming to clarify what I see as the objection to the pipeline. I see the objection to the pipeline as being one small component of a much larger objection agenda. That is the agenda against the use of fossil fuels. And the reason there is that opposition against the use of fossil fuels is exclusively due to the theory that such use is causing the destruction of the planet through the mechanism of climate change.
I think erikem nicely summed up the main causes of pipeline spills: distinct events such as the Yellowstone River spill (probably caused by a river in high flood stage scouring the river bed deep enough to impact the pipeline); or more dispersed problems like corrosion. In either case, exposure to problems is directly related to length of the pipeline. You would have to justify the extra length of a line against the sensitivity of the area to be avoided. The Sand Hills are such a large area (one-fourth of Neb.) that to be coldly rational, you could not do significant damage to that vast an area, even with a large spill. On a more positive note, oil production and pipelines are a pervasively regulated industry, and pipeline companies have learned to monitor and quickly react to spills, as ignoring clean-up is not a real option.
With regard to tanker trains, the Tar Sands are a different situation than that of the tanker trains presently operating from North Dakota. The Bakken is still considered conventional production, and is profitable enough to sustain rail transport for now. The Tar Sands are much more marginal and would seem to require the economy of a pipeline.
I saw an item in the paper (LA Times I think) about the USA exporting over 800,000 barrels of refined oil products (Mostly diesel fuel oil) from refineries is Texas. So I bet that if that pipeline ever gets to Houston it will feed the refineries that export oil products. Of course it will depend on where the price is highest.
Jack
Obviously - the right people read the Trains Forum. They are moving the pipeline out of the sandhills.
I am pleased.
Now I need to start a campaign to run more trains by my watch site! Especially during the daylight hours!
[Y]
“Nebraska and Trans Canada Corp agreed on Monday to find a new route for the stalled Keystone XL pipeline that would steer clear of environmentally sensitive lands in the state.” So the pipeline will get built in Nebraska, but avoid the Sandhills and Ogadalla aquifer. Apparently some of the posts on this thread were pure Chicken Little hysteria.
Your logic and math above are all OK (or close enough) as far as you went, in my view. The only other calculation I’d add is the number of barrels per tank car: 27,028 gals. / 42 gals. per bbl. = 643.5 barrels per tank car, and so I get 1,088 cars per day to deliver the 700,000 bbls. per day.
To me, the next biggest unknown is the cycle time - how many miles each way at an average speed, plus time to load and unload, plus a little bit of ‘padding’. With round-trip cycle times in the 9 to 14 day&
Well, yesterday the project was on hold for a couple years. Has it now been resumed to continue without delay, or is it still on hold for two years even though a committment has been made to bypass the sand hills?
I’m not even going to bite on the chicken little bit, but our legislature and gov are right now in special session to figure out how to keep it out of both places.
What I have heard is that the pipeline builder has offered to bypass the sand hills, which will add 40 miles to the route and require an extra pumping station. However, I have heard nothing that indicates that the offer to bypass the sand hills has been accepted, or will be accepted as the final condition of approval. Moreover, I have not heard that the two-year delay has been cancelled as a result of the offer to bypass the sand hills, or that the offer to bypass the sand hills will be accepted after the two-year delay.
And I see no indication of any assurance that the pipeline will ever get built in Nebraska, little chickens notwithstanding.
[quote user=“Bucyrus”]
samfp1943:
To Bucyrus:. I think that we have got a problem of agreement over the whole global warming issue. I am extremely skeptical as to its ramifications and a real existance, and you seem to fall into another whole spectrum of belief about it. So maybe our best course is to agree to disagree(?)
Sam,
I think you misunderstand my point. My viewpoint on global warming probably about the same as yours. I certainly did not bring it up as the reason why I oppose the pipeline. I am actually for the pipeline unless there is some obvious geophysical based flaw in the routing of it. I only brought up global warming to clarify what I see as the objection to the pipeline. I see the objection to the pipeline as being one small component of a much larger objection agenda. That is the agenda against the use of fossil fuels. And the reason there is that opposition against the use of fossil fuels is exclusively due to the theory that such use is causing the destruction of the planet through the mechanism of climate ch