What do we learn from the oil spill disasters? Pipeline or trains?

What we learn is that transporting petrochemicals is very dangerous, and because of that it needs to be highly regulated. When the rules are relaxed or overlooked, disaster happens.

@zenvelo Yes but which one causes the most harm when accidents happen? It depends on the individual accident yes, but all in all?

Wasn’t the train incident a case of someone with their head up their ass? How can that be fixed?

Which one are you referring to @woodcutter
If you mean the most recent one (Lac-Megantic) do you mean the conductor? engineer? If so, please detail why you think so?

this one I think http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/10/quebec-train-crash-brakes_n_3574564.html

is this the wrong one?

Yes that is Lac_Mégantic, but it is only the CEO who said that employee failed to set brakes properly. And a few days before he had said the employee did set it properly, and that it is the firefighters who were responsible, when they were trying to extinguish a small fire earlier on in the day.

I don’t know how anyone can conclude anything. Isn’t all the evidence in the hands of the investigators?

Then it is curious how a fire started. When the cargo is flammable one would hope there are back up systems to prevent accidents . So many otherwise safe industries have had disasters because of maintenance problems or even human error. Unfortunately those are going to be impossible to completely stop.

They are not safe, we only hear about the spectacular accidents, according to people on the know.

I think that we learn that both are imperfect. Each is susceptible to leaks and explosions. There is no single way that is absolutely guaranteed to never break down, unless we quite using oil.

Pipelines, in general, are less susceptible to problems than trains or trucks.

@flo You didn’t ask about which one was most dangerous, but most spills don’t start a fire. So the train problem from a couple weeks ago was dangerous in the immediate sense, but pipeline spills make a bigger mess and have a greater impact on wild life and the environment. Exxon Valdez was worse than anything that has happened since except for the BP well blowout.

One thing we need to learn is that companies cannot be trusted to self regulate the safety features and regulations on their fuel transportation methods and that even with the “onerous” federal regulations accidents will happen. It could only be worse if these regulations were not in place.

Also, the companies will underestimate the possible negative effects of their pipelines. Here is a paper on worst-case spill study for the Keystone XL pipeline.

A sample quote:

“The expected frequency of spills from the Keystone XL pipeline reported by TransCanada (DNV, 2006) was evaluated. According to TransCanada, significant spills (i.e., greater than 50 barrels (Bbls)) are expected to be very rare (0.00013 spills per year per mile, which would equate to 11 significant spills for the pipeline over a 50 year design life). However, TransCanada made several assumptions that are highly questionable in the calculation of these frequencies. The primary questionable assumptions are: (1) TransCanada ignored historical data that represents 23 percent of historical pipeline spills, and (2) TransCanada assumed that its pipeline would be constructed so well that it would have only half as many spills as the other pipelines in service (on top of the 23 percent missing data), even though they will operate the pipeline at higher temperatures and pressures and the crude oil that will be transported through the Keystone XL pipeline will be more corrosive than the conventional crude oil transported in existing pipelines. All of these factors tend to increase spill frequency; therefore, a more realistic assessment of expected frequency of significant spills is 0.00109 spills per year per mile (from the historical data (PHMSA, 2009)) resulting in 91 major spills over a 50 year design life of the pipeline.”

The scary part of this is where the pipeline will be located and the watersheds, waterways and sensitive environments that will be devastated by these 91 “major” spills.
The brother of a friend of mine works out of Houston for an oil company and is involved with the operation of pipelines coming into the city; even he is appalled by the actual number of “minor” spills that occur yearly.

Amaziing, scary. Thank you both.

The San Bruno was pipeline, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone mention that from the interviews.