Pipeline Problem down South 8

[dik]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pipeline-blast-alabama-idUSKBN12V2FC

 

[SLTA]

There are already lines at gas stations here. Ugh.

Please remember: we're not all guys!

 

[marty007]

Ugh...

Living in Canada, there are huge debates about oil pipelines for getting Alberta tar sands bitumen to the coast and the potential for damage to the environment.

The pipeline companies all say that they will follow best practices, but then there is this one line that has now had 2 problems in the last few months. The environmentalists are going to have a field-day.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Which is why the Keystone XL pipeline has been such a political 'hot-potato' here in the U.S. And even if the oil would have eventually made it into the gas tanks of American cars/trucks, which there was little actual evidence of that ever taking place, it was still seen as too big a risk by most people considering where the pipeline was going to routed.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[IRstuff]

The other side of that coin is all the money people along the way were going to rake in.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[JohnRBaker]

At the risk of their children and grandchildren having clean drinking water...

And to your point that people "along the way" would make money, I assume you're referring to the people who would be hired to help build the pipeline, correct? Exactly how long do you think that any one person would be employed during the construction activity in their immediate area? In fact, I suspect that very few people from "along the way" would actually be hired, at least not for any well paying jobs. I would bet dollars-to-donuts that if the pipeline were ever built, that the vast majority of the people working on it would be members of a permanent crew that moved with the progression of the construction, as it would be impractical to try and train unskilled workers hired from the local area just to let them go when they moved further down the road only to have to hire and train another work crew from the next town's pool of unemployed workers. And once it's built, there will be virtually no permanent jobs created as a result, at least not "along the way".

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[BigInch]

Pipelines can have some advantages. They generate temporary employment for steel makers and welders, wood choppers, excavators, a few engineers .. for a year or two. Some property tax revenue. And they can remove (up to 10s of) thousands of oil tankers from the highways and put thousands of truck drivers out of work. Then 100 or less guys can run it, including the lawyers and the CEO. That's an advantage, right???

 

[hokie66]

Taking the trucks off the roads is definitely an advantage.

 

[cranky108]

The railroad can also take trucks off the road, but that's not an issue because there seems to be a shortage of truck drivers, and roads for them to drive on.

Pipelines (like power lines) can be a good thing, if the value of the land is low, something like much of the farm land. But if purchasing new right of way (or reworking old right of ways) the pricing model does not fit for some landowners (or renters). I recall several such things in the past. Like farming hills to allow pivot irrigation systems cross above pump jacks, or moving a power line because the farmer was willing to pay us to do so.

Then there is the unreasonable people who just don't like any intrusion on there land (even if the right of way was there before they purchased the land).

It sounds like a pain to fix, and it will take some time to fix.

 

[BigInch]

Railroads cost more than pipelines to ship petroleum products, but they are cheaper than highway trucking. Both, statistically speaking, are more dangerous than pipeline transport and have higher emmissions as well. In fact the only real "relative" disadvantage is that they don't employ a lot of people. If the truth be known, even permanent environmental damage, provided they don't leak, is far less for a pipeline than either building a highway, or a railroad. Where these Canadian pipelines get into trouble is there is no to little advantage to allow them to cross the USA. Basically it's introducing unwanted competition for a reward of very slight tax revenue, with no real gainfull, long term employment benefits. It only adds a disproportional amount of risk of environmental damage, which many people don't think is worth giving them the permit. The Gateway Pipeline and Transmountain Pipeline projects in Canada ran into the same problem within Canada itself between two adjacent provinces when Alberta tar sand oil was proposed to cross British Colombia and be exported at Kitimat and Vancouver, then on to Japan and China. BC did not think it was worth the risk of having all that Alberta oil floating around in the straits. The US is simply voicing the same concerns as BC.

 

[JNieman]

From what I've read, railroads are already basically full of traffic. In many areas, passenger train trips are inconvenient and time consuming beyond reasonable expectations because they have to always yield right of way to coal and oil/gas transportation, which leaves them sometimes sitting for an hour at a time, waiting for the other to pass, before continuing. It was relatively frequent on some trips I've been on. I've read many articles before, stating that the rail system just can't handle the volume, so it's either going on roads or going in pipes.

 

[BigInch]

Well railroading is 7-10x pipeline cost.
Trucks are around 15-20x.
Only ocean tanker shipping is cheaper than pipelining.

Back to this happening. It appears to be a construction accident. They damaged the line that they were working on. Pretty much takes it out of being a pipeline design or operation problem.

 

[cranky108]

Rail companies are not allowed to disadvantage passenger traffic over that of other rail traffic. But they also are not required to give passenger traffic preference. Passenger rail is faster where the rail is owned by the company providing the service. And the reason most rail companies exited passenger service is in was not cost effective.

If risk is the only reason to not build a pipeline, or rail the oil, or even truck it, then the conclusion is simple. We do without the oil, and tell the production company to get out of the business.
The fact is if we all felt that way, then going to work is too much of a risk.

 

[IRstuff]

JB,

I was thinking mostly the lease agreements, if any, and the operator itself, which, after the sunk costs, only has maintenance and the product traffic control. Given such a high disparity in cost, pipeline operators have lots of headroom for profit with only a small risk of encouraging other transport mechanisms.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529

 

[BigInch]

Railroads were first, pipeline's second. If railroads were cheaper, pipelines would never have come into existance, as transport of unperishable comodities doesn't generate prime revenue. Passenger service did generate good rail revenue, before airlines. Rail is not at all competitive with pipeline transport. Now passenger rail is only competitive where rail can offer, and there is a high demand for, fast service with travel times less than or equal to the sum of flying time, security check, and taxi ride and cost to city center. I personally willingly pay more for rapid rail service simply because of the convenience of city center to city center movement of the rails and the herding stress of airport security routines. More personal space for legs and laptop makes it even better. And don't forget that railroads cost 5-10 times as much to build and are immensely more complicated to operate anyway. Generally rail is only affordable for petroleum transport when there is existing rail service nearby and a pipeline is not available. Rail transport of petroleum is therefore generally only a temporary solution, that can be highly useful, but only until a pipeline can be built.

 

[SwinnyGG]

I don't have a lick of data to prove it, but my gut feeling is that if you compare the environmental impact of pipeline transport vs. rail, including rail spills/waste/process overhead and all that, a well operated pipeline is going to come out way, way ahead on the environmental side.

 

[BigInch]

jgKRI, IMO and that of many others, you are absolutely correct. Pipelines, as eco-unfriendly as many think they may be, actually are the best way to move petroleum products, presuming that, once built their environmental impact is relatively finished. Ocean tankering, although the cheapest, doesn't work well for mid-continent transport and it may have the highest risk of massive environmental damage in the shortest amount of time, as one can easily lose 1-2MM BBLS in the space of a few hours or less. Rail and trucking are simply too costly, relatively high risk and too dirty to be an effective long term solution.

What most people find objectionable about the Dakota Access Pipeline is that it will be hauling heavy tar sand oil.

 

[Spartan5]

What most people find objectionable about the Dakota Access Pipeline is that it will be hauling heavy tar sand oil.

Exactly.

Of all the evils of oil, transport is the least of them. That pipeline is a just a facilitator. It's like the heroin/cocaine mule hauling the drug through the airport. No harm, no foul, no problem. Right?

All of this is driven by cheaper is better; and that consuming as much as possible is good. Negative externalities be damned.

 

[ornerynorsk]

Let the chips fall where they may . . . There are groups of people who are perpetually offended, angry, resentful, disgruntled, disenfranchised, indignant, and otherwise in a generally miserable state of emotion. If they had enough good sense to cover the head of a pin, they would fully realize that a pipeline, as others have mentioned, will present the least risk and least negative impact of any method of transport. If they had the previously mentioned sense, they would be negotiating with the company to be involved in the oversight and monitoring of the future maintenance and inspection, and maybe encourage some of their children to enter technical fields that would promote such involvement, instead of proudly standing on the ancient pedestal of ignorance and loudly proclaiming "nope - nope - nope" while their young people self-medicate and repeat the vicious cycle of social ills and poverty. Progress happens, whether certain people groups like it or not. This is not pre-contact America, and it never will be again. You have to play with the hand that life deals you, you may as well learn the game and try to benefit from it rather than clinging to obsolete ideology and being relegated to the sidelines.

Rant over.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[JNieman]

For some people, the question isn't whether we should use pipelines or trucks.

For some, it's whether or not we should continue investing in petroleum at all.

For others, it's simply /where/ the pipeline goes.

So far, this conversation has been mostly whether or not a pipeline is better when compared to trains, planesships, and automobiles. When talking about the DAP, it's a different question.