Tar Sands Pipelines Should Get Special Treatment, EPA Says

[G_j]

Last edited Wed Apr 24, 2013, 11:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: NPR

Tar Sands Pipelines Should Get Special Treatment, EPA Says
by ELIZABETH SHOGREN
April 24, 2013 3:21 PM



Up until now, pipelines that carry tar sands oil have been treated just like pipelines that carry any other oil. But the Environmental Protection Agency now says that should change. That's because when tar sands oil spills, it can be next to impossible to clean up.

The agency made this argument in its evaluation of the State Department's environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline project which, if approved, would carry heavy crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in the United States.

The EPA's letter urges the State Department to set special standards to prevent Keystone from spilling, and make sure any spills that happen are rapidly contained.

The EPA says it has learned about the additional risks of tar sands spills from a cleanup of a 2010 tar sands spill into Michigan's Kalamazoo River that has dragged out nearly three years and cost more than $1 billion. A lot of the heavy crude sank to the bottom and hasn't biodegraded.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/2013/04/24/178844620/tar-sands-pipelines-should-get-special-treatment-epa-says

---

Even rocks that have been contaminated must be disposed of....

[dpbrown]

1. It's a mistake to call what they carry "heavy crude"

This isn't oil. It's liquified bituminous tar injected with loads of toxic gases to get it to flow. This is a Frankenstein mix, and if NPR would have done its homework, it would have explained why it's so hard to clean up.

[watoos]

2. I never saw the stuff

but a friend of mine who did, says it looks like blacktop. He said he couldn't imagine how it could get through a pipeline.

[ReRe]

19. Simple logic should tell one that....

... if the tar sands "mixture" is so viscous/thick, then that might be the very reason for the pipes bursting. When it gets so thick, and the pressure builds up behind the "clump", the pipe blows. Either they are not adding enough of the dilutent, or the pipeline itself is not strong enough for the process, and since this is big oil, it's probably both. Substance too thick and cheap pipe.

[daleo]

41. No doubt corrosive chemical reactions are also happening inside the pipe

Over time, the pipe walls thin and break.

[arikara]

42. It's not only corrosive from the toxins added to make it flow

It's abrasive as well. And it's impossible to clean when it inevitably escapes.

[daleo]

43. Here's a description from an oil sands scientist

Dr Steven Kuznicki said:

"ugliest stuff you ever saw...contaminated, non-homogeneous and ill-defined...Bitumen is five percent sulphur, half a percent nitrogen and 1000 parts per million heavy metals. Its viscosity is like tar on a cold day. That's ugly."

From the book Tar Sands by Andrew Nikiforuk.

[daleo]

22. They heat it and mix it with diluting chemicals

The mixture is an unknown witch's brew of toxic chemicals. How could it not be?

[laundry_queen]

44. Yep, lots of chemicals

they have to pump down tons of chemicals just to keep the pipeline from disintegrating from the sludge inside. And they don't always get it right.

[GitRDun]

3. I wonder why

They have not considered putting some refining capacity up there with a partner..maybe the climate is an obstacle.

Just seems like it would take a lot of risk out of the transport piece. You still have the climate issue, but the business folks don't care much about that.

[Trajan]

5. Exactly ... build refinery capacity up there

run short pipelines through Canada, reduce transportation costs, and avoid unnecessary risks inherent with a long long lonely pipeline ...

What is the problem with co-locating the refinery with the source?

[daleo]

23. Labor is cheaper in Texas than in Alberta

That's all it comes down to.

[Vincardog]

6. If they refined it in place they would still have to transport it to be shipped. Their ports freeze

up and the First People are not going to allow them to ship the toxic crap over their land.

[GitRDun]

11. I don't understand your answer

If they refined the tar sands up there, they can pipe large volume refined products out (safer) and truck or rail smaller volume refined product. My point was not that there would be no transport needs, just that you are transferring relatively safer refined products.

The First People reference was also puzzling. They are already piping dilbit around out there. I am merely suggesting connecting the existing pipe to some refining capacity.

[another_liberal]

12. If they built refineries in Canada . . .

If they built refineries in Canada, how would the Koch brothers make any money off the tar sands? Who do you think is pushing this thing anyway?

[GitRDun]

15. You guys are right on I think

I've done a little research and it seems American refiners have been adding tar sands capability and capacity for years to handle more of it.

So basically, the US government is partnering with Canadian miners and American refiners, to bring massive risk to the US environment when there is a perfectly logical business alternative...not surprising.

Money is our god now...tell the pope to stand down

[wandy]

13. Like so many other things, the current plan serves Charles and David Koch..........

Here’s where a little lesson in oil chemistry comes in. You can’t just throw any old crude oil into an oil refinery. These giant filth factories are actually quite sensitive. The refineries of the Texas Gulf Coast are optimized for heavy crude.

It would cost billions of dollars to rebuild the giant Flint Hills Corpus Christi Refinery, owned by Koch Industries, to use the less-polluting Texas oil drilled nearby.

http://www.gregpalast.com/the-koch-brothers-hugo-chavez-and-the-xl-pipeline/

[ReRe]

20. You mentioned climate...

... a month or so ago, one of these kinds of pipelines burst up in Canada. And you can imagine the climate in Canada in early to mid-March. It was cold as bajeebus up there. I didn't see a picture of it, but can you imagine what it would look like on a bed of snow/ice? Might be easier to clean up though..?

[FogerRox]

25. The largest selling product from the Tar Sands is syncrude

[kentauros]

32. I can tell you why.

As a designer (drafter) I know firsthand about the process involved in getting a plant built.

First off, they'll need to acquire the land for the plant. That's not likely a problem, though it will be a lengthy process (regulations, surveying, purchasing.) However, while that's in the works, they'll start to engineer and design the plant.

Design alone takes at least a year and a half, depending on what's being processed and what the capacity will be. As this pipeline is proposed to deliver something like 590,000 barrels (24,780,000 gal.) of oil per day, they'll need a high-capacity plant. So, there's 1.5 years at the minimum, just to design it.

Once the plant has been designed, now they can start to order materials, parts, and get the people together to build it. Building a plant takes at least a year, sometimes two. As this is a large plant, expect another 18 months to completion. Now, we're up to three years, at the least, to design and build a processing facility from scratch.

I've read that petro-chemical plants can cost a billion dollars to design and build. Of course, that cost would depend on its size and what's it's designed to do. So, as this would be a large plant, the owners would be looking at another billion added onto their already $7-billion pipeline project.

And that's why they want to use existing plants, plus the fact that shipping refined products out of their ports won't work in the winter months.

[laundry_queen]

45. The citizens in Alberta want that too. The climate there is not an issue

There are already refineries here in Alberta. Just not the 'right kind' or 'big enough' ones.

There are always letters to the editor in the local papers about how come Alberta is pumping this stuff out to get refined elsewhere, when we should be refining it here and keeping the jobs here...there hasn't been much for answers from the oil companies about that one - save the 'there aren't enough workers in Alberta' refrain (partially true, they just mean at THEIR price I guess...). My GUESS is that wages in the US are lower, and environmental laws are a bit more lax so the companies prefer the US for refining - it's likely cheaper.

Here's an article I found on the subject:
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/09/22/Refine-Oil-In-Canada/

Another one that talks about how new refineries with bitumen capabilities won't be built because of all the environmental regulations here in Canada, as well as other issues:

http://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/the-ottawa-citizen-why-we-dont-just-refine-the-bitumen-in-canada/

And no, businesses don't give a shit about the environment....they don't concern themselves with externalities - if they had their way every expense would be externalized. They aren't going to take on any more 'environmental' expenses unless they are required to, which is why lobbying the government is so important for environmental laws.

[GitRDun]

47. Sheesh!

Unbelievable! Thanks for your post...I had a feeling it was something along these lines.

[Nite Owl]

4. Who is paying for the

cleanup? It should be solely the responsibility of the oil companies. No more 'privatize the profits, socialize the cleanups'.

[Vincardog]

8. They do not pay into the clean up fund because their sludge is not oil.

[EC]

9. And they should pay rent

for the use of the land it's on.

[Bannakaffalatta]

7. I hope the EPA has some clout.

If transporting the crap is made too expensive, they might shut a lot of it down. That operation has already trashed a very large part of a once-beautiful province, destroyed irreplaceable ecosystems and already killed the first several of many natives with cancer... And they're just getting started. If they can't sell this horrible stuff, they might consider leaving it underground where it does no harm.

[olddad56]

10. I don't think any agency with the word 'environmental' in it has any clout these days.

[madrchsod]

14. what`s needed is higher strength seamless corrosive proof steel .

the only steel that could be used would be stainless steel or sleeved steel pipe and that ain't going to happen. it would at least double the cost of the pipe and welding procedures. finding a supplier that will guarantee the specs for the pipe will be another huge problem.

[eridani]

16. Charles Pierce: Coming Down The Pipeline

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/17106-focus-coming-down-the-pipeline

Yesterday, the 45-day "public comment" period on our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline, ended, with over 800,000 comments weighing in on the elongated death-funnel designed to transport the world's dirtiest fossil-fuel from the ecological moonscape they've created in Alberta to refineries on the Gulf coast in Texas, and thence to the world, or what's left of it after we burn a good piece of it down. There is starting to be a stirring in the elite press that the White House may be preparing to quietly endorse this bag job. (My man Chuck Todd opined yesterday that he expects the administration to approve the completion of the pipeline some Friday afternoon, maybe at the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend.) The State Department's only public hearing on the project - conducted a week ago in Nebraska - turned out to be something of a pep rally for pipeline opponents.

It really is remarkable at this point how completely tattered the case for building the pipeline actually is. The jobs claims have been debunked time and again as inflated. The public-safety promises from TransCanada, the corporation seeking to completely the pipeline, have collapsed as badly as that pipeline in Arkansas did. And, in a country that prizes bipartisanship as much as this one allegedly does, the coalition against the pipeline is as diverse as could ever be expected - ranchers and tree-huggers, scientists and Native American activists. On the other side is money and power, and a simple brute desire not to be frustrated by the lines of ranchers, tree-huggers, scientists, and Native American activists. That's the whole fight now. One side wants what it wants because it wants it. Period. The president has to decide where he's lining up.

[G_j]

24. guess I'm not the only with that horrible foreboding

that Obama once again will go back on his words.

[Sunlei]

28. only 45 days for public comment and they will trashcan those comments anyway.

Our Federal Gov will not do anything with public comments if one is not what they call a 'stakeholder'. At least they didn't do what the DOI did to those who made 'public comments' on BLM dealings.

Demanded snail mail letters only, no emails allowed.

[Sunlei]

17. I have said it 100 times for years. build refinaries right on the tar sands.

[FogerRox]

26. They have. #1 product from Tar Sands is syncrude, not bitumen.

[Sunlei]

27. good and I wish China and the Corp. investors would build their bitumen refinary there too.

[Bannakaffalatta]

39. Well, i wish you'd stop saying it then,

because the dirty oil situation is quite bad enough already. What we don't need is another shitload of private and public investment making the whole horrible project that much harder for anybody to oppose, any future administration to back away from.

[byeya]

18. It's easy for the EPA to talk tough now that they know the fix is in

[G_j]

21. what fix

is that?

[byeya]

29. My guess is that the XL pipeline has already been approved and the EPA can seem to be

"environmental" while knowing this agency won't change the result.

[G_j]

31. unfortunately

I think you are right.

[PDJane]

30. Tar sands are toxic, abrasive and corrosive.

The stuff is washed off sand, and some sand always remains. There is a difference between synthetic crude and diluted bitumen; it has to do with the amount of natural gas condensate added to the mix. It sinks instead of floats because the condensates are volatile; they evaporate, and bitumen sinks. It has to be physically removed, or it sits where it is and leaches poisons; cyanide, arsenic, mercury, lead, polyaromatic hydrocarbons. Between the condensates and the polyaromitic hydrocarbons, tar sands make the air almost impossible to breathe, and lead to rashes, nausea, and cancers. There is a problem with sulphur, too, although most of that is screened out on site.

As for refining here, there is a refinery in Québec that will take the tar sands. To get it there, the PTB are planning to run it through 40 year old pipes meant for natural gas (repurposed to sweet crude) that will put at risk the entire Lake Ontario catchment area....and which runs underneath the subway lines. That puts at risk the drinking water for millions of people, and we're trying to stop it.

Frankly, I don't want it to run through the USA, I don't want it to put First Nations land at risk, and tankers are out. It is better off staying where it is, instead of being fully exploited. Just getting at it raises global warming.

The faster we move to renewables the better.

[Bannakaffalatta]

40. Who's going to convince the Harpoons?

They're committed to the hilt and have another four years - maybe more, if enough of my compatriots don't pull their heads out of their asses - to kill millions more hectares and poison all the water fracking and mining haven't already.

[riverbendviewgal]

33. Tar Sands kill, Oil pipelines spill

Did you know that the tar sands cover the same area as England and Wales combined?
Did you know that the tar sands are the worst polluter on Earth?
Did you know due to pollution and over fshing there will be no live in Earth's oceans in 20 - 30 years?

I saw this documentary in the theatre Saturday...It won't be showing in the USA until the fall. Wish it would not be so long...

It is a beautiful factual movie...See it when it comes your way.

http://www.therevolutionmovie.com/

[PDJane]

34. Yes, I did know.

[riverbendviewgal]

35. Did you see the movie?

Revolution is the best movie I have seen this year, even if it is a documentary....

It makes all the other movies so not as important.

[PDJane]

36. No, I haven't.

I found it all out the hard way; reading, reading and more reading. I will see if I can get to the movie, though!

[riverbendviewgal]

37. It is playing in the empire theatres

take your friends.

It got everyone excited where I went in Whitby....One guy shouted at the end "Don't vote for Harper".

[G_j]

38. wish it came out sooner in the US

The comment period is over already I believe.

[laundry_queen]

46. That's playing right near my place

I'll have to go see it, maybe I can bring my teen.