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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: 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... :)