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A major oil-by-rail terminal proposed on the Columbia River in Washington state poses a potential risk of oil spills, train accidents and longer emergency response times due to road traffic, an environmental study has found.
Many of the risks could be decreased with certain mitigation measures, but the study released Tuesday outlined four areas where it said the impacts are significant and cannot be avoided.
The study said that while "the likelihood of occurrence of the potential for oil spills may be low, the consequences of the events could be severe."
[...] The study identified the four risks that could not be avoided as train accidents, the emergency response delays, negative impacts of the project on low-income communities and the possibility that an earthquake would damage the facility's dock and cause an oil spill.
Washington state panel outlines risk of oil-by-rail terminal
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:51PM (8 children)
I was under the impression that while rail is far safer than road, it is less safe than pipelines. I admit that beliefs may have come from pro-pipeline propaganda, I don't know.
Maybe it is because rail has less "slow leak" potential since the individual cars can be inspected; wheras a huge pipeline is harder and more expensive to inspect.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @04:03PM (7 children)
Depends what you mean by safer. Trains have fewer accidents than trucks do, but when they do have accidents they tend to be on a much larger scale. Pipelines are OK, but they tend to leak oil and they require destroying large amounts of wildlife habitat to build.
Pipelines are also problematic because we're supposed to be getting to the point where we no longer need gas and making it more convenient to ship around, especially out of the country runs counter the goal of moving onto something less environmentally damaging and more efficient.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday November 25 2017, @04:23PM (3 children)
I disagree on the second part. "Large amounts" are relative, but it's not worse than a highway and the right of way for the pipeline may actually protect more habitat area than it destroys. The real problem for a pipeline is that it provides an obstacle to wildlife migration. That can be mitigated, but any tools such as fences for keeping people out, say to prevent theft or sabotage, will also keep some wildlife out as well.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:36PM (2 children)
This isn't interesting, it's a complete load of bullshit. Even if you ignore the land destroyed by the oil being used, it's still not true.
You lose 264 000 square feet per mile of pipeline at a minimum if you've got the minimal easement of 25' on each side and that doesn't even include the actual pipeline itself or the roads to and from various access points. That's a little over 6 acres of land that have to be kept suitable for crews to work on rather than whatever the native landscape should be like.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday November 25 2017, @09:25PM (1 child)
Which, let us note, isn't very much nor does it describe the entire right-of-way. For example, the Dakota Access [wikipedia.org] pipeline has an easement of 50 feet from the pipeline and a construction right-of-way of 150 feet. So twice as much land is set aside as is in the easement.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday November 25 2017, @10:28PM
Now, to be totally fair, your assignment is to figure out the land lost to a railroad right of way.
Most pipelines are buried for most of their route, unless there are permafrost issues. Which leaves all that open-space for wild life.
One of the funniest pictures I saw was of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (rip) laughing his ass off at a bunch environmentalists (including the US Secretary of the Interior) standing there with their mouths agape as a heard of Caribou migrated under a raises section of the Alaska Pipeline. (Something that every environmentalist on earth insisted would never happen.).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:25PM (2 children)
Unless you are building a honking big pipeline or dealing with permafrost, a pipeline is generally invisible to wildlife a year after the construction has moved on. And even big ones like the Alaska Pipeline didn't impact wildlife in the long run. And when they leak we (in the first world) insist the operator clean up their mess. Solved problem.
You identified the problem, Greens who insist we already beyond needing fossil fuels. Sorry, the unicorn farts still aren't online and if you want a modern technological civilization it requires energy. Wind and solar both shut down the second the subsidies stop so they are net losses the economy is dragging along in the hope they become productive someday. Pipelines are the safest way to transport large amounts of the stuff that makes the wheels turn, throwing off the excess wealth to play with green tech as they spin.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:39PM (1 child)
You're begging the question here. You assume that we need to burn that oil, which we don't. We could have moved from fossil fuels to other fuels at a much faster pace than we have if not for apologists like you.
We know for a fact that we ca't keep burning oil, but yet, we seem hell bent on burning as much of it as possible even though we could be throwing that money into alternate fuel sources that wouldn't require this sort of bullshit to move around the country.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:13PM
Should just a defective AC but sometimes it is hilarious to smack one of you goofballs.
Move to what? As I already wrote, -every- Green tech is a net economic loss, that if pretty much the definition of green tech since any that breaks through will get hated on. If it costs more wealth per unit of energy produced, just how do you propose to deploy more of it without ALSO deploying sufficient excess fossil fuels to throw off more excess wealth to piss away on your science projects? All of your energy is generated at a loss that has to be made up elsewhere, but the bigger the percentage of the total that comes from Green the harder and harder it gets to hide it, generating declining standards of living and political instability. Because you are a lie.
FUCK YOUR FEELINGS. Rebirth begins when a critical mass decides it has had enough and says that. Math says you and your ideas are a waste of finite resources.