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Here is a predictor of wonderful things to come: Oil spills from toxic sludge. Of course, simply flooding a neighborhood is no big deal, but flooding aquifers and lakes, well, that makes water kind of hard to drink.
If we are pretending climate change does not exist, let's also pretend that these pipelines won't leak.
The big problem is heavy bitumen, unlike regular oil, sinks when it gets into water so it is almost impossible to clean up as usually they just skim the oil off of the surface. The other big problem is because it is so heavy they have to make the pipelines run at extremely high pressure so they're far more likely to break especially as the bitumen must be mixed with corrosive chemicals just to make it act like a fluid and those chemicals corrode the metal of the pipeline. That's why all the major pipelines moving tar sands crude have spills at an average of one per month.
Pipelines will leak. There is no perfect current solution.
They could do double lined pipelines like they require for off shore pipelines. That way if the first one leaks or ruptures then the second one catches the spilled oil. That's the same reason all the oil tanker ships have double hulls.
Bitumen is so thick — about the consistency of peanut butter — that it doesn’t flow from a well like the crude oil found in most of the nation’s pipelines. Instead the tarry resin is either steamed or strip-mined from sandy soil. Then it is thinned with large quantities of liquid chemicals so it can be pumped through pipelines. These dilutents usually include benzene, a known human carcinogen. At this point it becomes diluted bitumen, or dilbit.
The situation [of this spill] was made even more difficult because the EPA and other responders didn’t know they were dealing with tar-sands oil until more than a week after the spill. That’s because pipeline operators aren’t required to disclose what specific kind of crude they’re pumping — even after an accident.
Pipeline companies also aren’t required to disclose what chemicals they mix with bitumen to make it thin enough to flow down a pipeline — that’s considered a trade secret. This is particularly scary because these diluents evaporate into the air after a spill, and any people unlucky enough to be nearby breathe in the mysterious mixture.
Officials initially estimated that the spill would be cleaned up in a couple of months. Nearly two years later, it’s still not done — and it likely never will be, because scraping up all of the oil would destroy riverbeds. Gentler cleanup efforts continue. Meanwhile, about 150 households have been permanently relocated.
This has all the markings of a disaster waiting to happen, because pipelines will have spills. But hey, it will provide a few hundred jobs for the few years it takes to build this monstrosity, so it's all good, right?
Oil is a global commodity. The more available world wide the lower the price world wide. I have no problem with the pipeline.
I'm not against oil pipelines either but I do think they should be heavily regulated as the cost of a spill is pretty darn high and hard to clean up. A requirement for double lined pipelines would make them a heck of a lot safer.
I dont undestand why GOPers dont want to admit, this is not American oil, not meant for American markets. Candian owned oil sold by Candian owners to whom they choose, not America, not Americans.
For all those that claim they are State's rights advocates...Americans are losing thier land. Who's rights are you protecting in advocating for Keystone?
The claim of 1000's of jobs is bogus. It's like laying railroad track; once the track is layed, the job is done.
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