Federal data: Not many oil trains for Keystone XL to displace
By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, April 2, 2015
Miles of pipe ready to become part of the Keystone Pipeline are stacked in a field near Ripley, Okla, Feb. 1, 2012. SUE OGROCKI — AP
New data on crude oil shipments by rail released by the Department of Energy this week show that there are relatively few oil trains taking the path of the controversial proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
In its first monthly report on crude by rail, the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that the bulk of oil shipments by rail are moving from North Dakota’s Bakken region to refineries in the mid-Atlantic and the Pacific Northwest.
Far less is moving from either Canada or the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, the location of 45 percent of U.S. refining capacity. Only about 5 percent of the crude oil moved by rail nationwide in January was bound for the Gulf Coast from either Canada or the Midwest.
A series of derailments has brought increased scrutiny to oil transportation by rail. Since the beginning of the year, four oil trains have derailed in the U.S. and Canada, leading to spills, fires and evacuations.
The White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing new regulations intended to improve the safety of oil trains. They’re scheduled for publication next month.
Some supporters of the 1,700-mile Keystone project have claimed that it would reduce the need for rail shipments. The pipeline would have a projected capacity of 830,000 barrels a day, and would primarily move heavy crude oil from western Canada to the Gulf Coast.
The government’s new data confirms, however, that the primary flows of oil by rail are not to the Gulf Coast. Northeast refineries, concentrated in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, have come to rely heavily on Bakken crude delivered by rail, and to a lesser extent, Canadian oil.
Oil trains have resulted in a 60 percent decline in oil imported to the East Coast from overseas countries, according to EIA.
Of the roughly 1 million barrels a day of oil that moved by rail in January, according to EIA, 914,000 barrels were from the Midwest petroleum-producing district that includes North Dakota, while another 130,000 barrels a day crossed the border from Canada.
In a report last month, the Energy Department projected that shipments of Canadian oil by rail could more than triple by 2016.
The mid-Atlantic region received 437,000 barrels a day from the Midwest district, and only 61,000 barrels from Canada. That’s roughly the equivalent of six or seven 100-car trains, each carrying about 3 million gallons.
Another 171,000 barrels a day from the Midwest, or about two to three 100-car trains, supplied West Coast refineries, mostly in Washington state.
The Gulf Coast region received only 107,000 barrels of oil a day from the Midwest and Canada combined. Another 107,000 barrels came from the Rocky Mountain petroleum-producing district, which includes the Niobrara region of Colorado and Wyoming.
Including oil that comes from west Texas or New Mexico, the equivalent of about three to four 100-car trains arrive at the Gulf Coast every day.
Repost from The Missoulian [Editor: An interesting summary of recent developments on crude by rail safety. – RS]
From Washington state to D.C., fears of oil train risks on rise
By Kim Briggeman, March 28, 2015 6:00 pm
Smoke and flames erupt from the scene of a train derailment Thursday, March 5, 2015, near Galena, Ill. A BNSF Railway freight train loaded with crude oil derailed around 1:20 p.m. in a rural area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi, said Jo Daviess County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Moser. (AP Photo/Telegraph Herald, Jessica Reilly)
Exploding oil trains are a hot topic in the United States and Canada, spurred by a recent spate of accidents and a prediction by the U.S. Department of Transportation last year that there are many more to come – 10 a year over the next two decades.
The oil boom in North Dakota and insufficient pipeline capacity have put a record number of cars hauling crude on the tracks, each capable of carrying more than 30,000 gallons of highly combustible oil when fully loaded. For a 100-car train that’s 3 million gallons.
A sampling of recent developments:
• An association of Washington Fire Chiefs requested Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway provide worst-case scenarios for potential crude oil train emergencies in selected areas of the state. They also want to see evidence of the levels of catastrophic insurance the railroad has purchased; comprehensive emergency response plans for specific locations in the state; and route analysis documentation and route selection results.
“Normally, we would be able to assess the hazard through right-to-know and other public documents,” a letter to BNSF said. “However, your industry has sought and gained exemptions to these sunshine laws. This exemption does not mean that your industry is exempt from taking reasonable steps to ensure catastrophic incidents do not occur.”
• Seattle vendors and former Mayor Mike McGinn joined forces at a news conference March 20 to highlight the potential destruction from an explosive oil train accident under Pike Place Market. The BNSF tunnel that runs under downtown Seattle passes under a corner of the market. An accident threatens the safety of 10 million annual visitors and the iconic market itself, the vendors said.
BNSF said it’s going to great lengths to make the tunnel safer, including spending $10 million in recent years to replace the tracks.
McGinn called the railway’s assurances “absolutely not sufficient for safety.”
• Four Democratic senators introduced an act Wednesday that would immediately bar the use of older, riskier tankers and set standards for volatility of gases in tank cars so they don’t explode as easily. The Crude-By-Rule Safety Act would set standards for new tankers that require thicker shells, thermal protection and pressure relief valves.
“Every new derailment increases the urgency with which we need to act,” U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said. “Communities in Washington state and across the nation see hundreds of these oil tank cars pass through each week. This legislation will help reduce the risk of explosion in accidents, take unsafe tank cars off the tracks, and ensure first responders have the equipment they need.”
• The American Petroleum Institute and the Association of American Railroads announced at a teleconference Wednesday they will jointly fund additional training for local first responders along railroad tracks to deal with crude shipment accidents.
There are initial plans for sessions in 15 states, beginning this weekend in Nebraska and Florida. The AAR last year dedicated more than $5 million to training at its Security and Emergency Response Training Center near Pueblo, Colorado.
• Noting that a fiery oil train wreck in downtown Spokane could lead to the evacuation of 20,000 people, city officials requested and on Thursday were granted a seat at the table in discussions to open an oil terminal in Vancouver, Washington.
BNSF supports the terminal and said it’s “more than prepared” to handle the increased loads through northern Montana, Idaho and Washington.
“Our northern route is perfectly positioned geographically as we run through the Bakken region and to the Northwest destination points,” BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas told the Spokesman-Review’s Nicholas Deshais in early March.
Jerry White, leader of the Spokane Riverkeeper, was not convinced. He referred to the fiery Feb. 16 of a BNSF train in West Virginia.
“When I was watching that disaster, something struck me,” White told Deshais. “The fire chief in that little town said they were just backing off and letting that oil burn. I projected that onto Spokane. Can you imagine this happening in the downtown corridor and the fire crews saying the only thing we can do is back off and let them burn?”
• A state official warned Minnesotans living along tracks carrying North Dakota crude oil to prepare themselves for an emergency.
“People need to take some personal awareness of what’s around them,” Kevin Reed of the Minnesota Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division told Don Davis of the Forum News Service. “How do I get out of the way before the fire department gets here?”
Last week, the Minnesota Department of Transportation reported that 326,170 Minnesotans live within half a mile of railroad tracks with trains carrying Bakken oil. A state report indicated an average of 6.3 oil trains a day cross Minnesota.
Gov. Mark Dayton said those numbers highlight the need for safety improvements on the railroads.
“It just underscores the risk factor and why it’s imperative that we do everything we possibly can to prevent these derailments and the catastrophes that can result from them,” Dayton said.
• The U.S. Department of Energy is studying crude volatility and whether it should be treated to remove dissolved gases before transport, an official testified Wednesday at a House Appropriations subcommittee budget hearing.
Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., asked why the more volatile crude transported from the Bakken couldn’t be stabilized before being loaded into tank cars in the same way crude from Texas is stabilized.
Timothy Butters, acting administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said that’s what the study seeks to determine. Results should be in by fall.
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
The 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.
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.
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.
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.
New Report Shows How U.S. Can Slash Greenhouse Emissions
Researchers Map Low-Carbon Investments and Policy Changes
2014-11-20
A new report shows how the United States can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, using existing or near-commercial technologies. The 80 percent reduction by 2050 (“80 by 50”) is a long-standing goal of the Obama administration, in line with the global commitment to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius. The new report, issued by the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP), comes on the heels of the historic climate agreement last week between the United States and China, in which the U.S. government reiterated the 80 by 50 goal.
“This US Deep Decarbonization Pathways Report shows that an 80 percent reduction of emissions by 2050 is fully feasible, and indeed can be achieved with many alternative approaches. This reports shows how to do it,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. “I believe that the report provides a solid basis for negotiating a strong climate treaty in Paris in December 2015.“
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and San Francisco-based consulting firm Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc. (E3) authored the report as part of the DDPP. The DDPP is led by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the French Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations.
“This report shows it is feasible to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. by 2050 without requiring early retirement of infrastructure,” said Jim Williams, chief scientist at E3 and lead author on the report. “Moreover, the economic assumptions in this analysis were intentionally conservative, and the results demonstrate that even then deep decarbonization is not prohibitively expensive.”
The study analyzed four different low-carbon scenarios covering different energy saving measures, fuel switching, and four types of decarbonized electricity: renewable energy, nuclear energy, fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage, and a mixed case. The scenarios achieved reductions of 83% below 2005 levels, and 80% below 1990 levels.
“All four scenarios we tested assumed economic growth,” said Margaret Torn, senior scientist and co-head of the Climate and Carbon Sciences Program at Berkeley Lab, faculty in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, and coauthor of the DDPP report. “All of our scenarios deliver the energy services that strong economic growth demands.”
The report finds that the net costs would be on the order of 1% of gross domestic product per year. But the report said that included a wide uncertainty range, from -0.2% to +1.8% of a forecast GDP of $40 trillion, due to uncertainty about consumption levels, technology costs and fossil fuel prices nearly 40 years into the future. The researchers assumed lifestyles similar to those today, and extrapolated technology costs based on present expectations.
“If you bet on America’s ability to develop and commercialize new technologies, then the net cost of transforming the energy system could be very low, even negative, when you take fuel savings into account,” said Williams. “And that is not counting the potential economic benefits of a low-carbon energy system for climate change and public health.”
The report suggests that a multifaceted technology approach is needed to meet the greenhouse gas reduction target. Buildings, transportation and industry need to increase energy efficiency. This includes building structures with smart materials and energy-efficient designs, and fueling vehicles with electricity generated from sources including wind, solar, or nuclear, as opposed to coal.
“One important conclusion is that investment opportunities in clean technologies will arise during the natural rollover and replacement of infrastructure,” said Williams. “The plan calls for non-disruptive, sustained infrastructure transitions that can deeply decarbonize the U.S. by 2050, and enhance its competitive position in the process.”
The U.S. DDPP Report is one of 15 DDPP country studies that are part of the global project. It aims to show practical pathways to deep decarbonization consistent with the globally agreed 2-degree Celsius upper limit on warming to reduce the likelihood of dangerous climate change.
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