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UP looks at hauling liquefied natural gas
Wait a minute. The railroads already move propane to rural dealers. What am I missing? Is propane different from “Liquefied Natural Gas” ?
Hello world, and tree huggers…railroads have been transporting LPG( PROPANE) for years. would it be too presumptious to be believe they would use the same protocol when transporting Natural Gas?
"Liquefied Petroleum Gas or LPG (also called Autogas) consists mainly of propane, propylene, butane, and butylene in various mixtures. It is produced as a by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining. The components of LPG are gases at normal temperatures and pressures.
Liquefied Natural Gas or LNG is natural gas stored as a super-cooled (cryogenic) liquid. The temperature required to condense natural gas depends on its precise composition, but it is typically between -120 and -170°C (-184 and –274°F). "
Big difference!!
More bang for your buck!
I’m glad Eddie Scher reminded us that the railroads didn’t haul any hazardous material during WWII.
Just for the sake of precision, the railroad network was not built to connect major cities, at least east and north of St. Louis: the cities followed the railroad networks.
From the public perspective, LNG and LPG are about equally dangerous. Both will undergo BLEVI explosions, given the right (wrong?) conditions.
To be honest Ive seen railroads hauls this hazardous stuff, propane, butane, etc. and their tracks are NOT in the best shape, Ive seen it, FRA should do more to mandate better track to haul this stuff, but as we all know, the government is reactive NEVER proactive, when the sh** blows up is when they do something.
So the environmentalists and safety wonks don’t want hazardous materials hauled by rail. But they don’t mind this stuff out on the highways with the potential of injury to many more people if the tank truck should crash and rupture. But maybe 10,000 gallons of explosive LNG on the highway is better than 30,000 gallons out in the hinterlands where 90% of the railroad mileage is located. The logic escapes me!
Methane, the main constituent of natural gas rises, so it will not be the same as spilled oil. But the first responders guide says to let it burn out unless you can fix the leak and stay a mile away. All the more important to not transport it in junk tanker cars.
I think it is considerably less hazardous than oil, myself.
I can’t help wondering if a low freight car like a flatcar with the front end shaped like a cowcatcher should be in front of the lead locomotive to shove the reckless drivers off of the line, especially in these cases.
All the railroads haul plenty of propane, anhydrous, and many other deadly chemicals. You don’t see these trains having problems frequently and UP won’t either hauling liquefied natural gas. As for the track maintenance, I see it firsthand on the BN and they spend a ton of time and money on their track. Obviously with higher speed mainline you see more inspections and more money put into it. Where you see lesser quality rail and inspections, you see significantly lower speeds. Personally, I believe the public would be amazed at the amount of maintenance and inspection these tracks receive if they were ever exposed or educated about it. I think the highway administration outta take a few classes from the railroads. Overall, the railroads do a phenomenal job of maintaining their right of way.
In New Hampshire the town of Newington has a company calle SEA 3 that wants to expand it’s LNG distribution. For years tankers have come up the river past the Portsmouth Naval shipyard and nuke submarines and unloaded at the Sea 3 terminal. From there tank trucks and rail cars delivered the LNG to customers in a 4 state area. Well now that Natural gas is so cheap they want to bring in US produced LNG via rail car to be stored at the facility that has never had an accident. Now the city of Portsmouth NH is frothing at the mouth because the rail tracks come through their city. These rail tracks also have trains carrying spent nuclear fuel from subs along with fresh fuel but no complaints about that. Several lawsuits to stop this have come up and the STB has outright told the towns “It is an interfearance in rail transportation to try and stop the LNG trains and they will not be allowed to do that”.
Guess the environuts better get rid of their propane powered BBQ’s. Too dangerous?
In the 70’s there was a plan to put an LNG terminal at Chalk Point on the Chesapeake Bay roughly 65 miles from both Baltimore and Washington. The project was shelved largely because if one of the ships or the holding tanks blew up the fireball would reach both cities. It is unimaginable to risk what could happen if something went wrong transporting trainloads of something that needs no ignition source to blow!
“The rail system in America … was never designed to haul hazardous materials” The same argument could be thrown at our nation’s highways as well! NYMBY-ism at its best (sic)
SEA 3 in New Hampshire is proposing to transport propane via rail, not LNG. Propane in tank cars is handled in a liquid state under low pressure (under a few hundred psi). LNG is liquified by refrigeration and the cryogenic temperature (less than -200F) must be maintained by insulation and autorefrigeration. So handling it is a bit trickier.
I’m not sure Mr. Scher knows what he’s talking about. Why would you build a railroad that doesn’t connect population centers? It’s a proven fact that lines which run from nowhere to nowhere generally go broke. (-: Does he propose to take every semi-truck hauling hazardous cargo off the highways as well? Guess what will happen the next time he goes to gas up his car! Duh.
I presume that ths will be done with insulated cars since the contents must be keep liquefied, and this will help prevent a fire from causing additional cars to rupture and explode. Liquefied and non-liquefied National Gas is already carried on the Highways, and pressurized could solve the problem of no gas pipe line in th Dakota oil Fields.national Gas is transported in pipelines already. Even the wild desert area in southern Wyoming and Idaho has a pipeline. It is time we stopped shipping gasified oil and do what was done in the pass and degasify and ship the gas separately as a liquefied product in a separate train or in a pipeline.