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Montana oil spill renews worries over pipeline safety


I wasn't so much thinking about the construction materials, as much as we have some obsolete infrastructure, and a lot of it is beyond traffic capacity. Wooden trestles are just fine running through the mountains. But a lot of railroad bridges, in urban areas do not have enough trackway, or too many trains are running on them. there's one example on the Potomac River, of a brick railroad bridge that is obsolete simply because it was built before modern ships and boats and it's a swing open bridge, and it has to swing open to let a lot of ships through which delays trains. That type a thing as more of what I was thinking about
 
No, I'd rather they take their Canadian oil and transport it across Canadian land, instead of putting American land at risk for Canadian profits.

I'd rather those Canadian profits be used to pay for American workers, American refineries.

Currently only United States has the type to refineries needed to refine that heavy oil, and see here's the deal, if we don't move on the deal eventually TransCanada will just build refineries in British Columbia to refine that oil, and if you know anything about British Columbia, their environmental regulations are not near as good as ours, he'll probably week all kinds of oil out into the water surrounding Vancouver Island at the expense of Washington and Oregon fisheries and waterfront interests
 
Not really. They'd just be another boondoggle waste of public money.

Railroad tracks aren't repaired or paid for by the government. The railroads and their workers do it themselves.
 
Today a grandmother fell down her stairs and died somewhere in America. We should immediately ban all stair cases. Somewhere else, a child choked to death on solid food, we should ban solid foods. Als in breaking news snow is cold and children get frostbit, children should be banned from touching snow and parents should be jailed if they allow their kids near that danger.

Right, because a single person or family is the same as environmental damage to an entire region's water source. /sarcasm

I wonder, is this the typical limited view that allows people to just dismiss environmental harm outright?
 
Railroad tracks aren't repaired or paid for by the government. The railroads and their workers do it themselves.

Plenty of govt subsidies to be had.
 
What seems to be lost in the discussions about Keystone, is that oil
whatever the source is the raw material.
Thorough refining, we manufacturer finished fuel products, and many other things.
We need some manufacturing basis to drive the economy, Services alone will not do it.

If we mainstream other sources of energy for residences and commercial buildings, like solar, wind, etc, we'd have loads of domestic oil left for manufacturing purposes.
 
Right, because a single person or family is the same as environmental damage to an entire region's water source. /sarcasm

I wonder, is this the typical limited view that allows people to just dismiss environmental harm outright?

The point was **** happens everyday. Getting melodramatic is pointless.
 
If we mainstream other sources of energy for residences and commercial buildings, like solar, wind, etc, we'd have loads of domestic oil left for manufacturing purposes.

No we wouldn't, what you're talking about is electrical generation. Crude oil is very rarely use for electrical generation in the United States, other than generators that is but those are for emergency use. Oil is mainly used as automotive fuel or fuel for transportation. In some parts of the country it may also be used for heating furnaces. But very little electrical grid power comes from the burning of oil
 
If we mainstream other sources of energy for residences and commercial buildings, like solar, wind, etc, we'd have loads of domestic oil left for manufacturing purposes.
The point is that the refining of oil IS the manufacturing process.
We are turning a raw material into a finished usable product.
We need to get off of organic oil at some point,
but we will need a viable alternative ready before that happens.
 
The point was **** happens everyday. Getting melodramatic is pointless.

No, you were minimizing the impacts in a ridiculous and unrealistic fashion. That was melodrama.
 
No we wouldn't, what you're talking about is electrical generation. Crude oil is very rarely use for electrical generation in the United States, other than generators that is but those are for emergency use. Oil is mainly used as automotive fuel or fuel for transportation. In some parts of the country it may also be used for heating furnaces. But very little electrical grid power comes from the burning of oil

We can add solar power to houses in Seattle for $40,000/home for complete (no additional sources needed) residential power. Homes here sell power back to the electrical companies. Here, in cloudy Seattle. We could have paid for every residential building in the US for what we spent in Iraq.

Oil powers generators everywhere. Lots of people have oil furnaces for heating. Not needed for solar.
 
So is it just Canadian oil you want to boycott or all oil from all countries arriving on our shores by ships that can and do run aground and then transported by road or rail where spills also occur? My guess is you are so anti oil you would stop it all if you could.

My preferred method is to acknowledge that oil supply has peaked and is likely in decline, and then to design and implement a rational and practical public policy that will help us develop renewable energy sources.
 
We can add solar power to houses in Seattle for $40,000/home for complete (no additional sources needed) residential power. Homes here sell power back to the electrical companies. Here, in cloudy Seattle. We could have paid for every residential building in the US for what we spent in Iraq.

Oil powers generators everywhere. Lots of people have oil furnaces for heating. Not needed for solar.

Do we have oil furnaces for heating here in the Seattle area? It doesn't even really get cold enough that oil was the most efficient method of heating. Out right live every house is either a woodstove, a pellet stove, or natural gas.

Many homes and businesses do have generators, but use of oil for electrical generation is an incredibly small percentage of electricity. I'm not aware of any oil firing electrical plant in Western Washington at least. The bigger share of our power comes from Hydro electric.

Even out in the Midwest Coal is the predominant form of electricity. One can argue the benefits of solar power, but I doubt it will save enough liquid fuel to End our dependence on foreign sources
 
Do we have oil furnaces for heating here in the Seattle area? It doesn't even really get cold enough that oil was the most efficient method of heating. Out right live every house is either a woodstove, a pellet stove, or natural gas.

Many homes and businesses do have generators, but use of oil for electrical generation is an incredibly small percentage of electricity. I'm not aware of any oil firing electrical plant in Western Washington at least. The bigger share of our power comes from Hydro electric.

Even out in the Midwest Coal is the predominant form of electricity. One can argue the benefits of solar power, but I doubt it will save enough liquid fuel to End our dependence on foreign sources

I was referring to national use of oil furnaces and power generation.

Once we can improve and mainstream solar batteries for cars, personal vehicles will go that way. Not commercial, not my pickup to haul my horse trailer, but it will become very cost effective for regular personal vehicles. That will be another huge savings.

We can use solar, wind, tidal, other methods to wean us from oil for many purposes. And then use domestic supplies for commercial transport and manufacturing.
 
What is your preferred method to transport oil? Trains derail, ships sink, trucks crash.

I prefer that Canadian oil meant for export out of the U.S. be processed in Canada. We have no reason to transport it here at all.
 
Just a preview of keystone.
Except it will be four times bigger and still will not effect gasoline prices by one penny.
 
Most of which is coming from an naturally occurring environmental nightmare situation--tar sands. I find it ironic that environmentalist want to make it harder for Canada to mitigate an environmental nightmare because it involves oil.

I am for the pipeline, but that is ridiculous. The Canadian Tar Sands is about the largest, and most toxic, industrial operation on earth in terms of the amount of land and water impacted.
 
The oil is going to be moved, regardless. I would prefer a lengthy and expensive cleanup to greater chances for explosions and deaths via railway or car. Thankfully we are increasing the safety for railway, but it's not going to be enough.
 
I am for the pipeline, but that is ridiculous. The Canadian Tar Sands is about the largest, and most toxic, industrial operation on earth in terms of the amount of land and water impacted.

It is 1) naturally occurring and 2) toxic as hell. Which part do you think is ridiculous. Once the oil is extracted, they are cleaning up the site to be pristine forest so deer, rabbits, and miscellaneous bi-footed creatures do not get sucked into the toxins. From what I have read, the cost of the restoration is going to be such that in the end it would have been better financially to have just drilled the oil from somewhere else if that was all that they were after.
 
It is 1) naturally occurring and 2) toxic as hell. Which part do you think is ridiculous. Once the oil is extracted, they are cleaning up the site to be pristine forest so deer, rabbits, and miscellaneous bi-footed creatures do not get sucked into the toxins. From what I have read, the cost of the restoration is going to be such that in the end it would have been better financially to have just drilled the oil from somewhere else if that was all that they were after.

There is nothing at all natural about this:

tssn-landing.jpg


I am all for building the Keystone Pipeline as that tar sands oil is going to be extracted either way and a pipeline is by far the lesser of evils when it comes to transporting that oil, but it is absurd to argue that the environmental impacts of extracting it are less than that of leaving it in the ground.
 
There is nothing at all natural about this:

tssn-landing.jpg


I am all for building the Keystone Pipeline as that tar sands oil is going to be extracted either way and a pipeline is by far the lesser of evils when it comes to transporting that oil, but it is absurd to argue that the environmental impacts of extracting it are less than that of leaving it in the ground.

It's only big when you're there. Pan the camera back, it's not that big.
 
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