[Plantagenet]

There's been some discussion about whether or not the oil train in Quebec was carrying oil from Canada to the US.

It wasn't. The WSJ this morning says the oil train in Quebec was carrying crude from the USA EXPORTED to Canada. The WSJ says "the crude—pumped from North Dakota's booming oil fields and headed for a refinery in New Brunswick"...

This surprised me, given the hullaboo over proposed export of US oil. I knew the USA exported refined gasoline etc., but I wasn't aware the Bakken is producing so much oil that the USA is already exporting crude to be refined in other countries.

[pasttense]

Instead of the crude oil exploding there is another theory: that the train hit 4 railroad cars carrying liquid propane and they exploded:
http://www.pressherald.com/news/propane ... 07-09.html

[ROCKMAN]

P – Then you’ll probably be surprised about the export of Eagle Ford Shale oil to Canada. From: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/eagle-ford ... to-canada/

“Valero’s refinery in Quebec started receiving Eagle Ford crude oil in April. San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp. has started shipping Eagle Ford crude oil to its refinery in Canada. The company’s Quebec refinery processed Eagle Ford crude oil for the first time in April, which was shipped on a cost advantage foreign-flagged ship.

Preliminary results indicate that the crude oil works very well in this refinery. The company said it has a license to export 90,000 barrels per day. The Quebec refinery, which can handle 265,000 barrels per day, is set up to process light, sweet crude that’s normally imported from Europe and Africa. The Quebec refinery will process exclusively North American crude within the year or so.

While companies can sell refined products abroad, the export of crude oil is banned and requires a government waiver. Valero isn’t the only company looking to move U.S. crude oil to Canada for processing. BP has received approval to send some oil to Canada, according to a source familiar with the permit. Shell Oil Co. also has renewed of its Canadian export license.”

As I understand it they get around the crude export ban (which isn’t really a ban IMHO if you can apply for and get an exception) by doing a light crack on the EFS production and are thus exporting product, which has no restrictions, and not oil.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', '
')
While companies can sell refined products abroad, the export of crude oil is banned and requires a government waiver. Valero isn’t the only company looking to move U.S. crude oil to Canada for processing. BP has received approval to send some oil to Canada, according to a source familiar with the permit. Shell Oil Co. also has renewed of its Canadian export license.”

[Graeme]

Yes. All the more reason to reject the Keystone XL pipeline construction. US already has enough oil - in fact it's exporting!

But this is not what this thread is about. Apparently, the engineer on board said he set 11 breaks but this is now disputed.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;We think he applied some hand brakes, but the question is, did he apply enough of them?" Burkhardt said. "He said he applied 11 hand brakes. We think that's not true. Initially we believed him, but now we don't."

Burkhardt encountered sharp criticism from Quebec politicians and jeers from Lac-Mégantic residents while making his first visit to the town.

Burkhardt did not name the engineer, though the company had previously identified the employee as Tom Harding of Quebec.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', ' ')All the more reason to reject the Keystone XL pipeline construction. US already has enough oil - in fact it's exporting!

[Graeme]

R, Never thought you would be a cheeky bugger. Do you relish putting a metaphorical boot in my face? Kinda sums up your (and industry) true attitude to anyone who disagrees with you.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��Is he just trying to fool all the environmentalists into thinking he is stopping oil from the tar sands from reaching the US?” If he is then he must have a very low opinion of the intelligence of most environmentalists. Do you know of one environmentalist incapable of understand the facts I just presented?

Except for Graeme, of course. LOL. Sorry buddy...a cheap shot but you do deserve it.

[Graeme]

Quebec's Lac-Mégantic oil train disaster not just tragedy, but corporate crime

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')ive days after a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, the rural town resembles a scene of desolation. Its downtown is a charred sacrifice zone. 50 people are likely dead, making the train's toll one of the worst disasters in recent Canadian history.

In the explosion's aftermath, politicians and media pundits have wagged their finger about the indecency of "politicising" the event, of grappling with deeper explanations. We can mourn, but not scrutinise. In April, prime minister Stephen Harper even coined an awkward expression – "committing sociology" – to deride the search for root causes about horrifying events, in the wake of an unrelated, alleged bombing attempt.

But to simply call the Lac-Mégantic explosion a "tragedy" and to stop there, is to make it seem like an accident that occurred solely because of human error or technical oversight. It risks missing how we might assign broader culpability. And we owe it to the people who died to understand the reasons why such a disaster occurred, and how it might be prevented in the future.

So here's my bit of unwelcome sociology: the explosion in Lac-Mégantic is not merely a tragedy. It is a corporate crime scene.

The deeper evidence about this event won't be found in the train's black box, or by questioning the one engineer who left the train before it loosened and careened unmanned into the heart of this tiny town. For that you'll have to look at how Lac-Mégantic was hit by a perfect storm of greed, deregulation and an extreme energy rush driving companies to ever greater gambles with the environment and human life.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Q')uebec police have launched a criminal investigation into the derailment of a runaway oil train that has killed at least 15 people and left about 60 still missing in Lac-Megantic.

While in its early stages, the criminal probe could result in a variety of charges against individuals and the Montreal, Main and Atlantic Railway Inc.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')urkhardt said he had delayed his visit in order to deal with the crisis from his office in Chicago.

"I understand the extreme anger," he said. "We owe an abject apology to the people in this town."

The words of remorse came too late for many locals, who accuse Burkhardt of shirking responsibility. A chaotic news conference he gave on Wednesday was interrupted by cries of "murderer" from angry residents.

"They still aren't taking the blame," said one resident, who would give only her first name, Christiane.

Burkhardt has blamed the engineer for failing to set the brakes properly before the unmanned train hurtled down a seven-mile incline, derailed and ignited in the center of Lac-Megantic early Saturday.

[Tanada]

Timeline of the crash from
http://www.railroadfan.com/phpbb/viewto ... 20#p280266
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '-')- 11 p.m. (per TSB) - Veteran engineer Tom Hayden, who has worked this job three times a week for a long time, ties down the eastbound train at the Nantes siding but on the main, which is adjacent to Rt 161 here. There are "five" locos, with 5017 in the lead. I say "five" because the second one is an RCO unit in a converted caboose. The others are all C30-7s. He shuts down all but 5017. Only he knows how many hand brakes he set and whether he performed a securement test. The siding has a 30-ft drop in elevation from west to east. There is no split rail derailer. Hayden takes his regular taxi to his regular motel in Lac-Megantic, L'Eau Berge. The motel is at the southeast end of downtown. The rail crossing is at the northwest end of downtown.

-- about 11:45 - a neighbor calls the FD reporting 5017 on fire. FD is there in under 10 minutes. They find this (video from a passing motorist): http://fr.video.canoe.tv/video/en-vedet ... 0685510001 The FD shuts down 5017 and spends about 45 minutes on scene, putting out the fire etc. They were trained in how to do this by MM&A and have responded to 4 previous loco fires in 8 years.

-- 11:50 p.m. (per TSB) - MM&A dispatcher is notified. At some point at least one MM&A 'representative' shows up--from engineering ("track man") not operations.

-- Midnight - 5017 is shut down.

-- 12:56 a.m. (per TSB) - train starts to move down the ~1% incline to Lac-Megantic. A witness said it started moving 'five minutes' after the fire department (and presumably the MM&A rep) left. He thinks its strange that it's completely dark. He does not report it. Other witnesses see the train along the winding 7.8 mile track to the 10mph Rue Frontenant crossing in town. They say there were sparks coming from the wheels. The final straightway before downtown runs through a grassy median in front of a row of houses. Witnesses here say they knew the train is going too fast and warned friends to run the other way.

-- 1:14 a.m. (per TSB) - Train is traveling 63mph. Somehow locos and buffer car make it through the crossing and the curve without derailing. Then ~60 tank cars derail, most bunching up like cordwood just past the crossing. Several cars end up scattered deep in the little railyard behind main street. There is fire by the time the cars come to rest; the first of several massive explosions (FAE or BLEVE) comes within a few minutes.

Sometime later a fire fighter uses a Trackmobile to pull 9 undamaged tank cars back west away from the fire. (The company claims it was their engineer who did this.)

The company says the locomotives come to a stop 800 meters past the accident. They do not appear in any photo I have seen.

[Subjectivist]

Sounds like SOP, if you can't fix the problem afix the blame quick!

[Serial_Worrier]

Why is the US exporting oil when it still needs to import 6 million barrels a day? Is the Obama admin deliberately trying to sabotage American energy independence?

This is more proof that we need to end fossil fuels NOW and go to green energy immediately like Germany. They are 100% on renewable energy!

[Graeme]

Whether By Train Or By Pipeline, Oil and Gas Transport Is Unsafe

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he deadly oil train disaster in Lac Megantic, Quebec on July 5, which (as of this writing) has left 33 people dead, with 17 still missing, and contaminated over 60 miles of local drinking water sources, has initiated a curious response across the media spectrum.

Some observers cite this accident as reason to consider pipelines, rather than trains, as the safer choice to transport oil and gas fossil fuels.

Two new major reports, however, reveal that this question misses a much larger point: oil, gas, and coal – the fossil fuel trio – indeed are inherently unsafe industries regardless of the mode of transport.

The first report, from Environment & Energy Publishing (E&E), an organization which focuses on energy policy and markets, examined on-shore oil and gas and documented over 6,000 spills and accidents at oil and gas sites in 2012 - an average of more than 16 spills a day. A total of 15.6 million gallons of oil, fracking fluid, wastewater and other liquids were reported spilled at production sites during 2012. That's more than the 11 million gallons of oil that leaked from the shattered hull of the Exxon Valdez in 1989.

This represents a significant increase in accidents since 2010 and parallels the dramatic rise in drilling activity across key oil and gas producing states, such as North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Wyoming.

The second report, as reported on June 7 in The Gaurdian, focuses on the off-shore oil industry in Britain. The report, compiled by Greenpeace, was based on ‘petroleum operations notices’ (PON1s) as reported to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, and documented more than 55 oil leaking accidents in the North Sea in June 2013 alone.

Greenpeace said the alarming statistics should act as a reality check for an industry that was trying to persuade the world it should be allowed to drill in the pristine waters of the Arctic.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', '[')b]Whether By Train Or By Pipeline, Oil and Gas Transport Is Unsafe

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'O')il Pipelines can be built to go around towns.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', ' ')There is a 36" gas line running right behind some homes (in a neighbourhood unofficially referred to as "Snob Hill" ).

One reason I live on the other side of the valley.

Quite a few tank cars go by on the railroad down the middle of the valley, anhydrous ammonia, various chemicals. No crude AFAIK.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'A') 36" diameter gas line? WOW that is huge. Hope your town doesn't have a shooting range over there.

[agramante]

Some commentary and background on Ed Burkhardt, owner of the MM&A railroad:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/1 ... a-Pipeline

[ROCKMAN]

Heard an very interesting update on NPR this morning. And not from some would-be expert but an official spokesman for the MM&A railroad.

First, about the regs requiring conductors/engineers to been on the train for a limited period of time: from now on no MM&A train will be left unmanned while it is parked. Thus apparently cost is no longer a factor in this aspect of their protocol. Second, there were mechanical hand breaks the engineer was required to set AS PER COMPANY POLICY. These hand breaks would have prevented it from rolling. Thus no chocks required. The engineer simple failed to follow proper company safety regs.

Sorta like the BP blow out: can't wait to see what testimonies actually come out in the various court actions...both criminal and civil.