Pipleline or no pipline? It is an easy answer when alternatives to moving oil are made. No Keystone Pipeline Means More Oil Spills Critics of the Keystone XL pipeline have focused their objections on the environmental threats it supposedly poses, but the danger of oil spills will be greater if the pipeline is NOT built, an expert asserts. Clearly, we are going to continue moving crude oil and petroleum products from where they are extracted to where they are needed, observes Terry L. Anderson, president of the Property and Environmental Research Center in Montana and a senior fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution. When considering whether to approve the Keystone XL, therefore, the question has to be: Which is safer, pipeline or rail tank cars? A February report from the State Department disclosed that pipelines larger than 12 inches in diameter spilled more than 910,000 gallons of crude oil and petroleum products last year, compared with 1.15 million gallons for tank cars. But pipelines carry nearly 25 times more crude oil and petroleum products than rail cars do, Anderson points out in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal. The Keystone pipeline would facilitate delivery of up to 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to refineries in the United States. The State Department report estimated that the pipeline carrying 830,000 barrels a day would likely result in just 0.46 accidents a year, spilling 518 barrels. Rail cars would produce at least 383 spills totaling more than 1,335 barrels a year. Tank cars will also generate about 49 additional injuries and six additional deaths a year, compared with one additional injury and no deaths for the pipeline. The State Department, which concluded in 2011 that Keystone poses no significant impacts on the environment — and restated that finding earlier this year — also noted in February that Keystone would drill under rivers to avoid direct disturbance to the river bed, fish, aquatic animals and plants, and river banks. Anderson recalled that following a derailment in downtown Lynchburg, Va., on April 30, 30,000 gallons of crude oil burned or spilled into the James River. A May 9 derailment near Denver spilled 6,500 gallons of oil that eventually reached the South Platte River. And a 2013 derailment in Quebec spilled 1.3 million gallons, killed 47 people, and incinerated 30 buildings. Putting the debate over the Keystone XL in this context shows the absurdity of killing the pipeline project, Anderson concludes. The Insider Report in April disclosed that 65 percent of Americans support construction of the pipeline and just 30 percent oppose it. The American Enterprise Institute charges that President Barack Obama is holding off approving construction of the pipeline not for environment concerns but for political reasons — his fear of alienating one of his core constituencies, environmentalists
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 22:25:42 +0000
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