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posted by mrpg on Saturday November 25 2017, @12:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-could-go-wrong? dept.

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


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:03PM (13 children)

    by Nuke (3162) on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:03PM (#601375)

    Sounds like those objections coulds be applied (and mostly more so) to any method of transporting and delivering oil. Perhaps it is different in USA, but rail transport in Europe, and the UK in particular, is orders of magnitude safer than any other form.

    potential risk of oil spills, train accidents and longer emergency response times due to road traffic

    Longer response times than what? Are they comparing with another location? Sorry, I have not read the study.

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  • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:51PM (8 children)

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Saturday November 25 2017, @02:51PM (#601394)

    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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @04:03PM (#601413)

      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)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 25 2017, @04:23PM (#601420) Journal

        Pipelines are OK, but they tend to leak oil and they require destroying large amounts of wildlife habitat to build.

        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)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:36PM (#601470)

          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)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 25 2017, @09:25PM (#601505) Journal

            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.

            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

              by frojack (1554) on Saturday November 25 2017, @10:28PM (#601525) Journal

              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.).

              --
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      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:25PM (2 children)

        by jmorris (4844) on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:25PM (#601465)

        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)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @07:39PM (#601471)

          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

            by jmorris (4844) on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:13PM (#601485)

            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.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @04:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @04:00PM (#601412)

    We've already had a train derailment in Washington recently that would have done serious damage to a small town if it had happened in the city limits. Just look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster [wikipedia.org] and https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/oil-train-derails-in-columbia-river-gorge/ [seattletimes.com] .

    With trucks you have a larger chance of smaller mishaps, with trains, you have a smaller chance of significantly larger mishaps. One truck catching on fire can cause something like this: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/12/tanker-truck-explosion-damaging-overpass.html [latimes.com] in a more or less worst case scenario, but trains can easily do that if they derail while carrying flammable liquids.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:23PM (2 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday November 25 2017, @08:23PM (#601488) Journal

    rail transport in Europe, and the UK in particular, is orders of magnitude safer than any other form.

    You don't actually have real freight trains in the uk. Great passenger service. Tiny freights and sufficient pipelines so virtually no oil by rail.

    The US is the opposite, lots and lots of long freights and not much for passenger service.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO1VvuqDkBI [youtube.com] 16,000 foot train with distributed power units.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMw54zzBVvA [youtube.com] Similar length but double stacked.

    UK clocked 64,507 Million Passenger-KM in 2015.
    US hauled only 39,287 Million Passenger-Miles in same year.
    Few people want to ride a train for 4 days to cross the US. But you can do Wick to Portsmouth in 15 hours using rail and bus.

    Pipe lines all over the US reliably deliver oil day in and day out with seldom an incident like the one (suspiciously timed) last week.
    Rail shipment of oil is risky business. Usually you lose 40,000 gallons at a time (one tank car) if you lose a drop, and after any accident it often catches fire (big moving metal things).

    Whereas pipelines usually can detect leaks within a few hundred gallons and shutdown the entire line, stop pumps, close valves in a couple minutes.

    But some people don't want to see pipelines built, so oil gets shipped by rail. Environmental lobby forces the worst case yet again.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 1) by redneckmother on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:36AM

      by redneckmother (3597) on Sunday November 26 2017, @02:36AM (#601573)

      Whereas pipelines usually can detect leaks within a few hundred gallons and shutdown the entire line, stop pumps, close valves in a couple minutes.

      Hmm... then, WHY are there thousands of gallons reported for spills from pipelines, and why does it take longer than "minutes" for a response and cleanup?

      Just askin'.

      --
      Mas cerveza por favor.
    • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday November 27 2017, @12:08AM

      by Nuke (3162) on Monday November 27 2017, @12:08AM (#601888)

      You don't actually have real freight trains in the uk.

      A smaller proportion of freight goes by rail in the UK because some weird accounting makes it more expensive for most loads than by road; the road tax on my car for example is getting on for two orders of magitude higher per mile than for a heavy goods road vehicle - so I for one am subsidising them. Nevertheless, it is misleading to say that there are "no real freight trains". There is considerable container rail freight to ports such as Southampton and Felixstow, and I live close to the line from South Wales into England and you don't need to be by it for long (it passes by my local supermarket car park) to see a long oil train originating from the oil terminal port of Milford Haven.

      Rail shipment of oil is risky business. Usually you lose 40,000 gallons at a time

      I understand that much rail track in the USA is badily maintained. In the UK OTOH, rail derailments in service are almost unheard of - the word "usually" would have no meaning here. It helps that freight mostly shares with passenger lines, whereas in the USA there are a lot of freight-only lines where they don't seem to be as fussy.

      Incidentally, I was once the guy at London Underground Railway's HQ who investigated derailments, or any tendency to derail. I did the maths. The only actual derailments I had to investigate were inside depots, and it was always the case that there was visibly very crappy track on a very sharp curve, both far more extreme than on a service line.