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Exploding Oil Tank Cars: Why Trains Go Boom
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Marcus Stern and Sebastian Jones report on Bloomberg that as federal regulators continue investigating why tank cars on three trains carrying North Dakota crude oil have exploded in the past eight months, energy experts say part of the problem might be that some producers are deliberately leaving too much propane in their product, making the oil riskier to transport by rail. Sweet light crude from the Bakken Shale formation has long been known to be especially rich in volatile natural gas liquids like propane and while there's no way to completely eliminate natural gas liquids from crude, well operators are supposed to use separators at the wellhead to strip out gases before shipping the oil. The worry is that some producers are adjusting the pressure settings to leave in substantial amounts of natural gas liquids and purposefully selling their crude "fluffed up" with propane to maximize their profits." (Read more, below.)
"'There is a strong suspicion that a number of producers are cheating. They generally want to simply fill up the barrel and sell it—and there are some who are not overly worried about quality,' says Alan J. Troner. 'I suspect that some are cheating and this is a suspicion that at least some refiners share.' As an oil train shakes, rattles and rolls toward the refinery, the propane begins to separate from the liquid and turning into gas. If one of those cars ruptures, the propane gas inside will likely make contact with outside air. If the gas is ignited—perhaps by a spark thrown off when the car rips open or maybe a spark thrown up from steel wheels scraping over steel tracks—the car can explode. Then the burning car can act like a blowtorch on the tanker next to it and at that point, railcars can explode in domino fashion. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) recently issued a safety alert that recent derailments and resulting fires indicate that the type of crude oil being transported from the Bakken region may be more flammable than traditional heavy crude oil. 'It's typical of this type of oil. So it's not surprising. There's no mystery to it especially if it were in a tanker not meant to carry that type of fluid,' says Ramanan Krishnamoorti referring to the much-criticized DOT-111, a black, torpedo-shaped railcar designed in the 1960s that has become the workhorse of the crude-rail industry. Washington doesn't appear to be in a rush to address the problem. On January 23, investigators at the US National Transportation Safety Board made broad recommendations that would have big consequences: They said crude oil should meet the same restrictions as toxic chemicals, which must be routed on tracks away from population centers. 'The large-scale shipment of crude oil by rail simply didn't exist 10 years ago, and our safety regulations need to catch up,' says NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman. 'While this energy boom is good for business, the people and the environment along rail corridors must be protected from harm.'"
There are already thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines in the country. The Keystone pipeline would be much newer and safer than the older lines. It would be built with today's steel technology, not steel from the 50s or 60s. The older oil pipelines are the ones to be concerned about - they are already seeping oil into the ground. Replacing the old pipelines would indeed be a "shovel-ready" job, but nobody is talking about that.
One of the main reasons oil from Canada is being transported by rail instead of pipelines is money. Warren Buffet is making money hand over fist transporting oil by rail, and he's one of Obama's biggest campaign contributors. THAT'S the sole reason for delaying the Keystone pipeline.
How many more trains are going to blow up and how many lives are going to be lost before we learn?
But they should be building refineries in North Dakota,
Ha ha, build a refinery? In the US? With the EPA and every environmental group in the world standing in the way?
One is being built in North Dakota right now. It should be in operation by the end of the year.
In other news, you and the person you responded to should take ten seconds to do a Google search before making fools of yourselves in public.
That little kid you've been stalking is GP's little BROTHER, not his sister. And, you better stop hanging around the bus stop trying to entice the boy into your van. That pedobear costume is a dead giveaway.
Exactly. The right answer is to fill the tank with a pressurized inert gas like nitrogen so that there's no O2 left for combustion, similar to what they're doing to the fuel tanks in modern jets.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
My experience is that anyone in favor of processing this sludge into energy has never even seen photos of the area around the Detroit Marathon refinery or the waterfront along the Detroit river where the processing by-product of coke-tar is stored. Yeah, they store that crap right on the shores of the headwaters of Lakes Erie and Ontario; the water supply for millions of people in two countries.
It isn't about anti-oil, I don't disagree the world needs oil. I need oil. This is about a form of it that is just beyond nasty to obtain and process. No one wants the coke-tar, it is stored in huge uncovered piles around Detroit getting blown into neighborhoods on both sides of the river. The plan has been to sell that stuff to China, but so far no takers. Their "plan" to mitigate the dust is to spray with with water, and just where do you think the runoff flows? If they can't sell this waste in Detroit with quick convenient access to steel mills, cement and power plants, do you think Houston will have better luck?
It is all fine and well to sit from my position in rural Michigan and say "hell yeah, turn that spigot on and gimme my $2 a gallon gasoline". But I can't; I've seen it and it is an ugly view into the future where we just don't care about larger swaths of land and the people that live there. I'm just done with the mentality of energy at any cost. If the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico doesn't affect your opinion, take a stroll and smell the coke-tar. This is a greedy grab of the last scraps of energy and the environment and people's health be damned in the process.
Oil spills from pipeline problems happen, just ask the people in Grand Rapids Michigan who are still dealing with the cleanup in the Kalamazoo river from Enbridge Energy's pipeline break. This too is Canadian tar sand oil, making its safe transit through the United States for processing.