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Feds Issue Emergency Order On Crude Oil Trains

Posted by timothy on from the what-about-a-line-of-pipes dept.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Joan Lowy writes for AP that the Department of Transportation has issued an emergency order requiring that railroads inform state emergency management officials about the movement of large shipments of crude oil through their states and urged shippers not to use older model tanks cars that are easily ruptured in accidents, even at slow speeds. The emergency order follows a warning two weeks ago from outgoing National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman that the department risks a 'higher body count' as the result of fiery oil train accidents if it waits for new safety regulations to become final. There have been nine oil train derailments in the U.S. and Canada since March of last year, many of them resulting in intense fires and sometimes the evacuation of nearby residents, according to the NTSB. The latest was last week, when a CSX train carrying Bakken crude derailed in downtown Lynchburg, Va., sending three tank cars into the James River and shooting flames and black smoke into the air. Concern about the safe transport of crude oil was heightened after a runaway oil train derailed and then exploded last July in the small town of Lac-Megantic in Canada, just across the border from Maine. More than 60 tank cars spilled more than 1.3 million gallons of oil. Forty-seven people were killed and 30 buildings destroyed in the resulting inferno. Hersman says that over her 10 years on the board she has 'seen a lot of difficulty when it comes to safely rules being implemented if we don't have a high enough body count. That is a tombstone mentality. We know the steps that will prevent or mitigate these accidents. What is missing is the will to require people to do so.'"

26 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Environmentalists eat your heart out. by danbert8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know, a PIPELINE would be a lot safer way of transporting crude oil around the country... Stopping the construction of pipelines results in more of these rail car accidents you know.

    --
    Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    1. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, we've obviously never had major pipeline spills.

    2. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by timeOday · · Score: 3, Funny

      That's an interesting spin on the recent spate of oil disasters.

    3. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by sinij · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I assume you are capable understanding that there is no such thing as perfectly secure system or completely bug free software? If so, then why does your brain takes a vacation when we start talking about petroleum?

      Our civilization is built on oil-derived products, we do not have a choice of not shipping it. If we stop shipping oil significant portion of human population will starve and/or freeze and die.

      Given our available shipping choices, pipelines are by far safest and energy efficient way to do it.

    4. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by boristdog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, I've been saying this for a while. Pipelines are way safer but we also need stricter pipeline regulations.

      I have three oil pipelines that go through my property. While they are pretty solid, the pipeline companies refuse to do any maintenance (such as when one becomes uncovered in a creek bed where it's supposed to be at least 3 feet underground) until you call the news crews out.

    5. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Our civilization is built on oil-derived products, we do not have a choice of not shipping it.

      In the short term. We should construct incentive networks that slowly migrate off fossil fuels while the costs are reasonable. We are not doing that, and it's going to be hazardous to our entire system.

      Building pipelines, while occasionally useful and necessary, should be done with due attention for the long term economic incentives it creates.

    6. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by geekoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Let me know when the people whose ares have a pipeline get a piece of the action.
      Rails are already built.
      And a rail accidents is trivial spill next to a pipeline accident.

      But hey, lets take all the risk and damage so some company can make more money, and put the risk on the people.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by danbert8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're right, pipelines built in the 1930s do fail from time to time. Mainly because it's so hard to build new ones that pipeline companies try to run old pipelines at as high pressure as they can get away with. You should see the difference in how pipelines used to be constructed vs how they are built now. A new pipeline is an amazing feat of engineering. Old pipelines were just whatever pipe they could find laid in the ground.

      To make an obligatory Slashdot car analogy: I am suggesting we make new planes so people will be able to travel safer than driving a car. You come back with "yeah, we've obviously never had major plane crashes".

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    8. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3

      Yeah, we've obviously never had major pipeline spills.

      Major pipeline spills are less common and don't kill dozens of people.

    9. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by danbert8 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I just hope you call before you dig... The biggest single cause of pipeline releases is 3rd party excavation damage:
      http://primis.phmsa.dot.gov/co...

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    10. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And what other choice is there? Even if AGW isn't happening (and all but the smallest fraction of experts in fields related to climatology say it is), sooner or later the economics of using a non-renewable energy source are going to kick us in the balls.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    11. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by sinij · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Most of your food is shipped from far away places and this is economically feasible only due to cheap energy derived from oil. Most of your food is grown with use of fertilizers produced from oil, without fertilizers yields will be greatly reduced. Reduced yields + less fertile climate = a lot less food.

      Sure, we can learn to live in sustainable-energy-using urban centers and bike to work, but we can't learn to not eat. This is why oil is so crucial for our civilization.

    12. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by danbert8 · · Score: 3, Informative

      http://www.manhattan-institute...

      Plenty of studies done... According to this one rail is about 4x more likely to have an incident per weight-mile. Which is still ahead of the 40x more likely when transported by road!

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    13. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There is enough material on the planet, and enough insolation on the planet to provide well over 100% of our energy needs by means of solar. That's a bit of a pipe dream, so reasonable migration steps with nuclear and slowly diminishing fossil fuel dependency is entirely doable. And it would cost us a fraction of our GDP.

      Of all major industries, energy is the field with the lowest ratio of research funding to revenue(most are about 5%, medicine is about 15%, energy is like 1-2%). It's entirely clear we're just not trying much.

    14. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nuclear is absolutely fantastic, because when done correctly, you create your next generation of fuel using this generation. Potentially thousands of years of energy supply.

      Solar and wind are superior outside of financial constraints, because they don't have any catastrophic failures possible from poor maintenance.

      Properly disincentivize fossil fuels gradually over the course of a couple decades, through taxes, tariffs, and regulations, and let the slack get picked up in whatever way is most market friendly.

    15. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by danbert8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not the most efficient method, and historically one of the worst environmentally and the most dangerous to large populations when there is a failure. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge proponent of hydro power, but it's not without severe disadvantages.

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    16. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It already kind of kicked the commuter society in the balls through gas prices. "Peak oil" happened, and we all just kinda grinned and bore it through extremely rapid commodity inflation.

      We didn't listen, when it would have been cheap to do so, so now it's a little more expensive to address(and we're still not doing anything about it).

    17. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Pipelines can ship solids, liquids, and gasses, Some pipelines are fully capable of transporting crude oil, then immediately transporting refined gasoline, then natural gas, then transporting coal, without huge maintenance cycles between. A client need only purchase transport from the shipper and their load will go through the pipeline.

      It surprised me that you could switch between mediums without decommissioning, fully cleaning, and then recommissioning the pipeline at great expense. Quite the opposite, pipelines do allow for low-cost changeover of medium in normal operation. You cannot pipeline water or other food-grade materials in this way.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    18. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Just so we're all clear about what is bullshit and what is actually the concern: some environmentalists such as myself don't care about safety of moving the stuff around. If you manage to make a new carbon sink that can eat up all the carbon being pumped out by the gas, you could deliver it across the country by strapping tanks to the back of baby seals and throwing them via catapult towards crowded cities for all I care. But you won't, and if gas prices stay artificially low, we won't stop driving for any trip longer than a half a block, which is why I'd prefer to stop the pipeline AND see the rails stopped.

    19. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Informative

      A new pipeline is an amazing feat of engineering. Old pipelines were just whatever pipe they could find laid in the ground.

      All the engineering in the world means dick if you never inspect it and actively lobby against mandatory spill detection technologies because they make pipelines more expensive.

      To make an obligatory Slashdot car analogy: I am suggesting we make new planes so people will be able to travel safer than driving a car. You come back with "yeah, we've obviously never had major plane crashes".

      Airplanes have been having a lot more problems since the airlines started off-shoring maintenance.
      It's been an ongoing problem for ~10 years now.

      It's no surprise that the cheaper route is not the safer route when it comes to planes and pipelines.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    20. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by danbert8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Never inspecting things is not allowed actually... http://primis.phmsa.dot.gov/co...

      Spill detection is present on every pipeline, it's just a matter of how sensitive it is. It is in a pipeline's best interest to keep product in the pipe as a leak is lost product even if you didn't have to worry about disasters and cleanup.

      Airplanes have the same problem as pipelines. A lot of them were made a long time ago, and people have been trying to string them along past their design lifespans. New pipelines are far safer than old pipelines. Trying to block construction or replacement of pipelines is counter to making pipeline disasters less likely.

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    21. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by Darktan · · Score: 3, Funny

      Because oil tankers never call on ports in North Dakota or Alberta. It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

    22. Re:Environmentalists eat your heart out. by JoeMerchant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of all major industries, energy is the field with the lowest ratio of research funding to revenue

      which they more than compensate for via ownership of a major political party.

  2. Feds Issue Emergency Order On Crude Oil Trains by danielpauldavis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What I call the "suffering quotient": if 1 person dies, that 1 unkonwn person's death is largely ignored. If 50 or 100 die, we might do something about preventing the next accident (we might not.) Conversely, if a famous person dies, we pay attention and deal with the problem that killed our celebrity. We need to get some famous people killed by these crude oil spills or nothing will be done.

    --
    Cranky educator.
    1. Re:Feds Issue Emergency Order On Crude Oil Trains by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Funny

      I nominate Justin Beiber for this heroic endeavor.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  3. Re:This is why we need the government regulation by Eunuchswear · · Score: 5, Funny

    And, in the oxymoron stakes:

    meaningful self-regulation

    is a clear winner.

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video