Tag Archives: Obama administration

Crude oil trains are unsafe, period. Stopping them will protect our communities and climate

Repost from Oil Change International
[Editor:  An important article by Lorne Stockman, Research Director
at Oil Change International in Washington, D.C.  Quote: “For the sake of a mere 4% of total petroleum passing through the United States, we say stop the trains now, protect North America’s communities and build an energy system that protects the climate and our citizens from a reckless oil industry.”  – RS]

Crude oil trains are unsafe, period. Stopping them will protect our communities and climate

By Lorne Stockman, March 26, 2015

rail-blog-featured v1The five major oil train derailments and explosions that occurred less than a month apart in the U.S. and Canada recently has refocused attention on the reckless practice of moving millions of gallons of crude oil at a time on a train through the continent’s communities.

The only sensible and safe position on crude-by-rail is clear. We need an immediate moratorium on crude-by-rail shipments in North America. This needs to stop now.

Based on the recent developments and disasters, we now know that nothing short of a moratorium on moving crude by rail in North America is required, until the safety of our communities and climate can be fully guaranteed.

The evidence that the practice is unsafe is undeniable. It’s hard to imagine a more terrifying proposition than one of these trains derailing and exploding in your community.  It is not a disaster waiting to happen, it has already happened over and over again.  That the regulator has still not acted is inexcusable.

Before we go into the details of what it would take to make it safe and why that will not happen without essentially banning the practice, let’s quickly examine what is at stake in terms of U.S. crude oil supply. This is important because it seems that the main reason the Obama Administration has failed to act is because it somehow considers the supply of crude oil enabled by crude-by-rail to be too important to effectively regulate.

This is unacceptable in and of itself, but when you see what’s really at stake regarding our community safety and climate crisis, the assumption appears to be beyond comprehension.

According to our estimates based on Association of American Railroads (AAR) data, about 850,000 barrels per day (bpd) of U.S. crude oil was loaded onto trains in the last quarter of 2014.  In addition, the Canadian National Energy Board reported that around 175,000 bpd of Canadian crude oil was exported by rail to the U.S. in the same period. For simplicity’s sake let’s call it one million bpd.

Meanwhile, the petroleum products consumed in the U.S. in the last quarter of 2014 averaged just less than 19.5 million bpd.  But 24 million bpd passed through the system as the U.S. exported an average of around 4.5 million bpd, including both crude oil and refined products.

In fact, while some pretty wild claims have been made about the current oil boom leading to “energy independence”, the U.S. still imported over 9 million bpd of crude oil and products in the same period.

So given the enormous amount of total petroleum passing through the U.S. system, what would be the impact of banning crude-by-rail immediately until we can work out whether it’s worth risking another disaster? The answer is not very much.

Crude-by-rail accounts for 4.1% of the total petroleum moving through the system (consumption plus exports) or 5.1% of total U.S. petroleum consumption.

What about U.S. oil production? That stood at 9.1 million bpd in Q4-14. The 850,000 bpd that went by rail is just 9.3% of that.

So over 90% of U.S. production traveled by means other than rail and there is in fact spare pipeline capacity in North Dakota and elsewhere. (See here for North Dakota government list of pipelines, refineries and rail facilities)

CBR---Total-Petroleum-Q4-14-Chart
Source: Oil Change International, U.S. Energy Information Administration, Association of American Railroads, Canada National Energy Board. … NOTE: Difference between Production plus Imports vs. Consumption is Refinery Gains and Natural Gas Liquids entering the refinery system.

Any way you cut it, crude-by-rail carries a very small percentage of the oil in our country, yet continues to pose an outsized risk to communities around the country. The build out of terminal capacity suggests that the practice could grow especially if the U.S. crude oil export ban is lifted. This would trigger a rush to move crude to the east and west coasts for export, threatening the communities along the way with much more frequent crude train traffic.

OCI_Box-CrudeTrains-Unsafe
CLICK TO ENLARGE

Are we really unable to ensure public safety because we’re worried that we may impact the transportation of 9% of U.S. oil production or 5% of our oil consumption?  Is government’s role really to weigh the probability of a major death toll against a fraction of energy supply or is it to protect the public? Aren’t our communities and our climate worth more than 1/20th of U.S. oil consumption?

Without crude-by-rail, the industry will have to produce only slightly less than it currently does, which is much more than it produced only a few years ago.  Is that really worth bomb trains endangering 25 million American every year?

The current effort to make crude-by-rail safer through increased regulations is in fact sadly misguided and inadequate. That crude-by-rail is inherently unsafe is painfully obvious.

That it cannot be addressed through looking at any single variable, such as tank car standards or the volatility of a particular crude oil grade, was made clear by a Department of Energy report released earlier this week.

That report aimed to look at whether Bakken crude oil is more volatile than other crude oil. It concluded that there was insufficient information about the crude oil in the Bakken to assess that at this stage. But in the press release the DOE made an important statement regarding the focus on any one particular cause of the terrifying crude-by-rail explosions that have so far occurred.

“The report confirms that while crude composition matters, no single chemical or physical variable — be it flash point, boiling point, ignition temperature, vapor pressure or the circumstances of an accident — has been proven to act as the sole variable to define the probability or severity of a combustion event. All variables matter.”

This goes to the heart of why crude-by-rail cannot be made safe.

It’s not Bakken crude, it’s all crude oil. It’s not the vapor pressure or boiling point of the crude; it’s the incredible weight of a 120-car train carrying 3.5 million gallons of crude oil and the pressure that exerts on rails making derailments more likely. It is the enormous kinetic energy that such a train exerts on tank cars during a derailment. It is the speed the trains travel and the inability of any tank car, including the more robust designs proposed in the draft rulemaking, to withstand the impact of a unit train full of oil derailing at anything near the slowest speeds that would maintain a viable rail freight system. (The tank car design proposed in the draft PHMSA rule has been shown to puncture at speeds of between 12 and 18 mph, while speed limits for crude oil trains are currently set at 40 mph. See pages 119-120 here.)

So there is a combination of things that could be done to prevent derailments and/or the occurrence of explosions and fire in a derailment; e.g. stronger tank cars, shorter trains, slower speeds, less gaseous crude among other things. But the rail and oil industries are fighting the tightest standards for any of these variables and so far it seems the Administration has not shown itself capable of fighting back.

Nearly two years has passed since 47 people were killed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec by a crude oil train carrying Bakken oil. Since then at least ten fiery derailments have occurred among countless other less dramatic spills and incidents. The regulator has so far failed to propose an adequate suite of measures that would fully protect the public.

That the rail and oil industries are fighting any requirements that will increase their costs is standard practice; it will cost them money and the sociopathic nature of corporate behavior puts profits before the interests of society. But while the oil industry opposes stabilizing gassy crude oil, stronger tank cars and fast phase-outs for the existing stock of dangerous cars, the rail industry opposes better braking systems and stricter speed limits.

Together they make a strong team of opposition to the range of safety measures that might be effective. A safety regulator under fire from the combined power of two of the most notorious and well-resourced lobby machines in the history of the United States is unlikely to come up with a solution that prioritizes the public’s interest.

Beyond the urgent issue of the safety of hundreds of North American communities that live within a mile of the train tracks, some 25 million people in the U.S. alone, we urgently need to transition to a clean energy economy as fast as possible. The All of the Above energy policy that has brought us reckless crude-by-rail has been focused on pulling oil out of the ground as quickly as possible no matter the consequences, rather than transitioning us away from oil. That needs to change beginning with ending this dangerous practice.

For the sake of a mere 4% of total petroleum passing through the United States, we say stop the trains now, protect North America’s communities and build an energy system that protects the climate and our citizens from a reckless oil industry.

Go here for more on crude-by-rail

 

OPEN LETTER: Crude by rail unsafe; Valero should withdraw its application

By Roger Straw, March 12, 2015

Crude by rail unsafe; Valero should withdraw its application

To the Editor of The Benicia Herald, and published there on Mar. 12:

Many thanks to Dr. James Egan for his thoughtful letter of March 10, “Timely decision on crude by rail warranted: Deny Valero’s application.”  His local voice amplifies a growing national sentiment, that crude by rail is simply too dangerous at this time.

As Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity wrote this week, “Before one more derailment, fire, oil spill and one more life lost, we need a moratorium on oil trains and we need it now.  The oil and railroad industries are playing Russian roulette with people’s lives and our environment, and the Obama administration needs to put a stop to it.”

Even as officials in Washington DC are dealing with this crisis (much too slowly), Benicia has a powerful role to play.  We can do our part by denying Valero’s permit.  In fact, Valero can do its part – by acknowledging the horrendous piling up of recent derailments and explosions, the failing infrastructure and the unsafe tank cars, and withdrawing their application for the time being.  That would show real leadership in the oil industry.

Dr. Egan covered most of the issues extremely well, but didn’t mention that the tar-sands crude produced in Alberta Canada has proven volatile on trains as well, with two recent derailments resulting in spills and huge fires within 23 miles of each other outside Gogama, Ontario.  Tar-sands crude starts out as a sticky thick bitumen, and must be diluted with volatile and toxic fluids in order to be pumped into rail cars, a mix that can explode and burn just as Bakken crude explodes and burns when a tank car is ruptured.  The first train exploded outside Gogama on Feb. 14, and the second on March 7.  Those poor folks in Gogama are holding their breath, as the track runs right through town, and the First Nation people who live even closer to the derailments are in shock.  Valero has admitted that it wants permission to ship Bakken crude and tar-sands dilbit by train.

In addition to those two crashes in Ontario, we have seen conflagrations in West Virginia on Feb. 16 and in Illinois on Mar. 5.  You can’t have missed those.  Four “bomb train” explosions in three weeks!

In January 2014, I started a personal blog to keep an eye on crude by rail in the news.  At first, there wasn’t much beyond our local efforts to stop Valero’s proposal “in its tracks.”  Increasingly, the regional and national media have awakened to the health and safety issues that can destroy communities along the rails.  You can’t imagine the absolute flood of media coverage this last three weeks.  I can’t keep up anymore.  I’m picking and choosing which stories to repost [at BeniciaIndependent.com].

The economy of Benicia may very well take a tumble if Valero’s proposal is permitted: housing values may fall and businesses may look to safer locations and relocate.  According to Valero’s own analysis, the few jobs created by introducing oil trains here will be taken up by residents of other Bay Area towns.  New hires will spend most of their money where they live, not here in Benicia.

We need to take the long view – Valero can continue to process crude oil brought in on ships.  The multi-billion dollar industry will weather this minor setback.

Fourth Oil Train Accident in Three Weeks Shows Need for Immediate Moratorium

Repost from The Center for Biological Diversity

Another Oil Train Derails and Catches Fire in Ontario

Fourth Oil Train Accident in Three Weeks Shows Need for Immediate Moratorium

Center for Biological DiversityGOGAMA, Ont.— An oil train derailed and caught fire early this morning in Ontario near the town of Gogama, the second such incident in Ontario in three weeks, and the fourth oil train wreck in North America in the same time period. Since Feb. 14, there have also been fiery oil train derailments in West Virginia and Illinois. The Illinois wreck occurred just two days ago, and the fire from that incident is still burning.

“Before one more derailment, fire, oil spill and one more life lost, we need a moratorium on oil trains and we need it now” said Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The oil and railroad industries are playing Russian roulette with people’s lives and our environment, and the Obama administration needs to put a stop to it.”

In the United States, some 25 million people live within the one-mile “evacuation zone” of tracks carrying oil trains. In July 2013, a fiery oil train derailment in Quebec resulted in the loss of 47 lives and more than a million gallons of oil spilled into a nearby lake. A report recently released by the Center for Biological Diversity also found that oil trains threaten vital wildlife habitat; oil trains pass through 34 wildlife refuges and critical habitat for 57 endangered species.

Today’s Ontario accident joins an ever-growing list of devastating oil train derailments over the past two years. Oil transport has increased from virtually nothing in 2008 to more than 500,000 rail cars. Billions of gallons of oil pass through towns and cities ill-equipped to respond to the kinds of explosions and spills that have been occurring. Millions of gallons of crude oil have been spilled into waterways. In 2014, a record number of spills from oil trains occurred.

There has been a more than 40-fold increase in crude oil transport by rail since 2008, but no significant upgrade in federal safety requirements. The oil and rail industries have lobbied strongly against new safety regulations that would help lessen the danger of mile-long trains carrying highly flammable crude oils to refineries and ports around the continent. The Obama administration recently delayed for several months the approval of proposed safety rules for oil trains. The proposed rules fall short because they fail to require appropriate speed limitations, and it will be at least another two and a half years before the most dangerous tank cars are phased out of use for the most hazardous cargos. The oil and railroad industries have lobbied for weaker rules on tank car safety and brake requirements.

The administration also declined to set national regulations on the level of volatile gases in crude oil transported by rail, instead deciding to leave that regulation to the state of North Dakota, where most of the so-called “Bakken” crude originates. Bakken crude oil has been shown to have extremely high levels of volatile components such as propane and butane but the oil industry has balked at stripping out these components because the process is expensive and these “light ends” in the oil bring a greater profit. The North Dakota rules, which go into effect next month, set the level of volatile gases allowed in Bakken crude at a higher level than was found in the crude that set the town of Lac Mégantic, Quebec on fire in 2013, or that blew up in the derailment that occurred last month in West Virginia.

The crude involved in today’s accident may be another form of flammable crude, called diluted bitumen, originating in Alberta’s tar sands region. The Feb. 14 derailment and fire in Ontario on the same rail line involved an oil train hauling bitumen, otherwise known as tar sands.

“Today we have another oil train wreck in Canada, while the derailed oil train in Illinois is still smoldering. Where’s it going to happen next? Chicago? Seattle?” said Matteson. “The Obama administration has the power to put an end to this madness and it needs to act now because quite literally, people’s lives are on the line.”

In addition to its report on oil trains, the Center has sued for updated oil spill response plans, petitioned for oil trains that include far fewer tank cars and for comprehensive oil spill response plans for railroads as well as other important federal reforms, and is also pushing to stop the expansion of projects that will facilitate further increases in crude by rail.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 825,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Obama admin to give companies more time to upgrade DOT-111 & C-1232 tank cars

Repost from Bloomberg Business News

Revised Oil-Train Safety Rule Said to Delay Upgrade Deadline

by Jim Snyder, February 12, 2015

(Bloomberg) — The Obama administration revised its proposal to prevent oil trains from catching fire in derailments, giving companies more time to upgrade their fleets but sticking with a requirement that new tank cars have thicker walls and better brakes.

The changes, described by three people familiar with the proposal who asked not to be identified because the plan has not been made public, are in proposed regulations the U.S. Transportation Department sent to the White House last week for review prior to being released.

The administration is revising safety standards after a series of oil-train accidents, including a 2013 disaster in Canada that killed 47 people when a runaway train derailed and blew up. Earlier this month a train carrying ethanol derailed and caught fire outside of Dubuque, Iowa. No one was hurt.

Companies that own tank cars opposed the aggressive schedule for modifying cars in the DOT’s July draft, saying it would have cost billions of dollars and could slow oil production. That plan gave companies two years to retrofit cars hauling the most volatile crude oil, including from North Dakota’s booming Bakken field.

Railroads and oil companies fought the brake requirement and proposed a standard for the steel walls that was thinner than suggested by the agency.

‘Too Long’
Karen Darch, the mayor of the Chicago suburb of Barrington, Illinois, and an advocate for safer cars, said she was encouraged that the rules included stronger tank cars and upgraded brakes. She disagreed with adding years to the retrofit deadline.

“Taking more time on something that’s already taken too long is problematic,” Darch said Thursday in a phone interview.

Officials in the President Barack Obama’s Office of Management and Budget could change the proposal before the final version is released, probably in May. Darius Kirkwood, a spokesman at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the Transportation Department unit that wrote the rule, said he couldn’t comment on a proposed rule.

“The department has and will continue to put a premium on getting this critical rule done as quickly as possible, but we’ve always committed ourselves to getting it done right,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said this month in a statement about the timing of the safety rule.

Rolling Deadlines
The current proposal would require companies to first upgrade tank cars known as DOT-111s, which safety investigators have said are prone to puncture in rail accidents, according to one of the people. Cars with an extra jacket of protection would remain in use longer before undergoing modifications, according to one of the people.

A newer model known as the CPC-1232, which the industry in 2011 voluntarily agreed to build in response to safety concerns, would have a later deadline than the DOT-111s for modification or replacement, three people said.

The CPC-1232s have more protection at the ends of the cars and than the DOT-111s and a reinforced top fitting.

The draft rule also would require that new tank cars be built with steel shells that are 9/16th of an inch thick, the people said. The walls of the current cars, both DOT-111s and CPC-1232s, are 7/16th of an inch thick.

A joint proposal from the American Petroleum Institute and the Association of American Railroads argued to set the tank-car shell thickness at half an inch, or 8/16ths.

Company Lobbying
Railroads and oil companies also lobbied against a proposal that the trains have electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, which are designed to stop all rolling cars at a same time.

The Association of American Railroads in June told Transportation Department officials that the electronic brakes would cost as much as $15,000 for each car and have only a minimal safety impact.

Trains often haul 100 or more tank cars filled with crude. These trains have increasingly been used to haul crude as oil production has boomed in places, like North Dakota, that don’t have enough pipelines.

Rail shipments of oil surged to 408,000 car loads last year from 11,000 in 2009.