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Keystone Pipeline leaks 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota
Keystone Pipeline leaks 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota
"A total of 210,000 gallons of oil leaked Thursday (Nov 16, 2017) from the Keystone Pipeline in South Dakota, the pipeline's operator, TransCanada, said.
Crews shut down the pipeline Thursday morning, and officials are investigating the cause of the leak, which occurred about three miles southeast of the town of Amherst, said Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the state's Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
This is the largest Keystone oil spill to date in South Dakota, Walsh said. The leak comes just days before Nebraska officials announce a decision on whether the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, a sister project, can move forward."
Keystone pipeline - major leak/spill
Elsewhere there are notes of smaller spills in the same pipeline--this AC submitter is wondering about the long term use of a pipeline that is leaking when it's nearly brand new. Doesn't sound good for the long term.
PBS has a followup article from today (Saturday), 'We need to know' more about Keystone oil pipeline leak, tribal chairman says
The leak comes as the debate over the proposed path of the Keystone XL pipeline rages on. Nebraska's Public Service Commission is scheduled to announce its decision Monday on whether to permit TransCanada to build Keystone XL along its proposed route in the state, the Omaha World-Herald reported. A spokeswoman for the commission told the AP that the board's members will only use information provided during public hearings and official public comments in order to make their decision.
Related:
US District Court: Approval of Dakota Access Pipeline Violated the Law
Dakota Access Pipeline Suffers Oil Leak Even Before Becoming Operational
Company Behind Dakota Access Oil Pipeline Sues Greenpeace
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2017, @06:35AM (13 children)
There are lots of potential reasons for punctures other than sabotage. Accidents happen.
Bear in mind, this is equally true whether your contention is that a few spills is no big deal, or whether your contention is that a few spills are reason enough to shut all the everything down.
Of course, while we're about it, we should probably also do a comparison with the risks and costs of other forms of shipping, like rail - or just simply stop all the oil all the time (although given that we're shutting down nukes, odds are we're going to see plenty more oil and coal before the solar systems save us).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday November 19 2017, @07:04AM (4 children)
Accidents can be meticulously and thoroughly prepared for so that the consequences are mitigated as much as possible. When the consequences are really, seriously, tremendously fucking bad for us, we need to ask ourselves is it worth it? When we do that, we need to completely ignore the oil executives and investors that blindly say yes cuz the billions.
No, I don't have a problem with pipelines. As long as they're made safe, as long as their continually inspected, and as long as their maintained with government oversight. That little spill months back was at a pumping station that can handle it. The real catastrophe is when something happens in the middle of the piping in between pumping stations. You need irises and valves that can isolate that part of the line immediately so the whole volume of the pipe can't flow out. Ohhh, and it goes without saying, not violating any of our treaties. So the DAPL line is instantly disqualified, and the investors and everyone else can go fuck themselves. It's sovereign land, and it ain't ours. Fuck off.
You can also have a ditch below the pipe to at least divert the oil, and it can be made with dual pipes (one within another). If they actually used all the scientific instruments the way they could be, that would mean regular inspections of the line from within the pipe itself. As I stated before, the little trivial leak at the pumping station was no big deal, and a thousand gallons lost in an accident is capable of being handled. It's when you lose 210,000 fucking gallons into nature, or waterways, that it becomes an issue worth putting people in jail for and you might want to just shut the whole line down. It should've never happened if they were behaving, and if they were behaving and a major accident happened, then I'll agree it's an act of God and we can learn and move forward. Although, again, I'm not sure we're really weighing the risks to nature appropriately here.
It's not a technical issue why the lines shouldn't be allowed, it's a humanity issue. Specifically, that the oil executives and investors have none of it, and I think this is possible proof of that. At the very least I expect an investigation into the cause, and if negligence is found, then people need to "hang".
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday November 19 2017, @08:08AM (3 children)
It's funny how the executives never find their own water supply or property threatened by a pipeline. I have to wonder how much more safety they would demand if they faced the danger.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday November 19 2017, @06:00PM (1 child)
Well, before the current route it was going to be routed through an area inconvenient for some city (forget which city and inconvenient in what way). That was the route the engineers thought best. It got rerouted through Indian lands. Possibly because the land would have been too expensive, but I don't think I ever knew exactly why.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:28AM
You lie!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 20 2017, @02:13AM
How would you know?
Let's also suppose that this pipeline is as threatening to water supplies as you think it is. Where should we route pipelines when we have the choice? High population density areas or low population density areas? Which areas are likely to generate higher risk?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fritsd on Sunday November 19 2017, @11:16AM (7 children)
Well, that's what I thought (nobody listens to me boohoo): why not ship the bitumen by rail from Canada to Texas? It sounds like it's just chunks of dirty asphalt, after all. No need to make it liquid and spillable first.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday November 20 2017, @05:37AM (5 children)
They have to dilute it and pipe it to the rail head as far as I know.
The real question, which is safer, the odd big bitumen pipeline leak, perhaps in an out of the way spot where the leak isn't noticed or more train accidents that release small amounts of bitumen beside the railroad and are noticed quick.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Monday November 20 2017, @05:59AM (4 children)
No, any significant leak in a pipeline will be noticed right away. It is the tank cars that are dangerous and unpredictable. The size of the Keystone pipeline leak is only about 8 tank cars worth. It doesn't take much to have eight cars derail and spill their contents all around and there is a much greater chance of that bursting into flames somehow when hastily moving train cars smash, bash, bend, split and spill. Sometimes it takes hours for a full response to a train accident in a remote area. A pipeline will be shut down and isolated quickly, though at the pressures and flow rates in that size of pipe with a large rupture some is still going to spill. They do actually consider all this, contrary to what you may think, and try to make it as unlikely as possible and any potential impact from any problems as small and easy to deal with as possible.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday November 20 2017, @07:05AM
I'll be the first to say I don't know the numbers, but I'm pretty sure that multiple times I've heard about pipeline spills not being noticed for much too long. My google-fu is failing me but there is this from the wiki,
unluckily the original page won't load for me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fritsd on Monday November 20 2017, @04:54PM (2 children)
We're not talking about an ethylene or chlorine train derailing here; we're talking about a freight train with this type [wikipedia.org] of wagons filled with smelly rocks.
In case of spill, bring people with shovels.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday November 21 2017, @12:07AM (1 child)
Whaaaaa?.... Huh??!
We're talking about moving crude oil not some kind of ore...
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Tuesday November 21 2017, @04:38PM
It could well be that I'm confused; in that case, I'm sorry for the misinformation.
I thought that Canadian crude oil came from here:
Athabasca oil sands [wikipedia.org]
Where "oil sands" actually means: some kind of ore, if I understand the Wiki page correctly. I mean: they don't normally use open pit mining methods for crude oil, amirite?
picture [bloomberg.com]
So.
When (not if) the post-Peak Oil Athabasca bitumen is no longer profitable, they can use the 3456 km pipeline to export maple syrup to the south, or maybe coca-cola to the north :-)
(from the Bloomberg article:)
(The Bloomberg article from December 2014 has a handy graph that made me laugh: crude bitumen production from January 2010 to December 2019)
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday November 21 2017, @10:23AM
You don't ship the ore from a gold mine to somewhere else to have the gold extracted, that would be silly. You always do at least the first stage of separation right close to where you mine.
The same goes for oil. When you mine the raw ore, you process it into at least a reasonably well separated product to ship out and put the remaining sand, rocks and debris that are not hydrocarbons back where you mined it from.
Shipping out raw ores or bitumen contaminated with all kinds of other junk would be kind of insane and obviously not cost effective... :)