Map of major natural gas and oil pipelines in the U.S. Hazardous liquid lines in red, gas transmission lines in blue.
Image: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
At 6:11 p.m. on September 6, 2010, San Bruno, Calif. 911 received an urgent call. A gas station had just exploded and a fire with flames reaching 300 feet was raging through the neighborhood. The explosion was so large that residents suspected an airplane crash. But the real culprit was found underground: a ruptured pipeline spewing natural gas caused a blast that left behind a 72 foot long crater, killed eight people, and injured more than fifty.
Over 2,000 miles away in Michigan, workers were still cleaning up another pipeline accident, which spilled 840,000 gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River in 2010. Estimated to cost $800 million, the accident is the most expensive pipeline spill in U.S. history.
Over the last few years a series of incidents have brought pipeline safety to national – and presidential – attention. As Obama begins his second term he will likely make a key decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed pipeline extension to transport crude from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
The administration first delayed the permit for the pipeline on environmental grounds, but has left the door open to future proposals for Keystone's northern route. Construction on the southern route is already underway, sparking fierce opposition from some landowners and environmentalists.
The problem, protesters say, is that any route will pose hazards to the public. While pipeline operator TransCanada has declared that Keystone will be the safest pipeline ever built in North America, critics are skeptical.
"It's inevitable that as pipelines age, as they are exposed to the elements, eventually they are going to spill," said Tony Iallonardo of the National Wildlife Federation. "They're ticking time bombs."
Critics of the Keystone proposal point to the hundreds of pipeline accidents that occur every year. They charge that system wide, antiquated pipes, minimal oversight and inadequate precautions put the public and the environment at increasing risk. Pipeline operators point to billions of dollars spent on new technologies and a gradual improvement over the last two decades as proof of their commitment to safety.
Pipelines are generally regarded as a safe way to transport fuel, a far better alternative to tanker trucks or freight trains. The risks inherent in transporting fuel through pipelines are analogous to the risks inherent in traveling by airplane. Airplanes are safer than cars, which kill about 70 times as many people a year (highway accidents killed about 33,000 people in 2010, while aviation accidents killed 472). But when an airplane crashes, it is much more deadly than any single car accident, demands much more attention, and initiates large investigations to determine precisely what went wrong.
The same holds true for pipelines. Based on fatality statistics from 2005 through 2009, oil pipelines are roughly 70 times as safe as trucks, which killed four times as many people during those years, despite transporting only a tiny fraction of fuel shipments. But when a pipeline does fail, the consequences can be catastrophic (though typically less so than airplane accidents), with the very deadliest accidents garnering media attention and sometimes leading to a federal investigation.
See what we're tweeting about
9 Comments
Add CommentThere's an incomplete list of significant US pipeline accidents on Wikipedia:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents_in_the_United_States
I spent many hours this year cleaning a spill from an oil tank in my newly purchased home. I would rather heat with wood. Wood spills are easier to deal with. I can imagine what the previous owners had for health.Cars are leak prone. Asphalt roads and shingles emit oil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an engineer that designed and partially oversaw powerful crash test installations, I am well aware of the dangers over regulation can pose to complex, highly proprietary industries that carry significant intrinsic dangers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the one hand, underdeveloped countries with virtually no regulative culture usually yielded us customers that encouraged us to skimp on safety in order to enhance performance. (Which we constantly refused to do, btw. American culture may be focused on results and profits, but we DO still value human life!)
On the other hand, very heavily regulated countries (read: Europe) were extremely oppressive and forced us to change our products without really understanding the situation themselves. It's like they were used to making change for the sake of change itself, as if ordering companies around automatically made things safer.
In general, well-funded regulatory agencies *do* enhance a culture of extreme safety, but too much oversight from regulators who don't understand the product can (and does) lead to safety compromise. The fact that regulators can have so much unchecked power over companies is a dangerous thing in of itself.
We really should re-think the whole technological progress thing, though it might get a bit expensive to produce the helmets and kneepads we all need, without mass-production factories.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThreats, threats - always some threats.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBig friggin' deal.
Back in the day, like, 500 years ago, more people died and died more frequently. Horrible deaths, too.
Today's people are a bunch of mincing nancys benefiting from the sweat and toil of prior generations of real men and women.
I partially agree with you; I think that regulators should know what they are doing, but that's mostly because all government officials should be intelligent enough to tie their own shoes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, I am a socialist, and feel that market economies have a worrying track record (just check out any history book that covers the period from about 1880 to 1910). I feel that it is very hard to over-regulate corporations.
Anytime pipelines are used, above ground or buried, and the chief materials are iron and/or concrete, the degradation factors will play into the demise of said pipelines. If these pipes are carrying hazardous materials across this continent, as most of them do, there will be (accidents) and to be sure, those responsible know this to be true. The responsible action would be to make these lines impervious to conditions, but that would be too costly for them to carry, and reduce the profit margins to reasonable levels. The equation then becomes how much risk is it worth? and the answer usually is how much profit do we get if we do what is cheap... Business as usual, let everyone suffer our profit, because we dare to build with sub-standard materials.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with your iron and/or concrete comment. And your 'usual answer' comment. Problems with iron and concrete used as if eternal elements are also 'evolving' with abandoned oil/gas wells. Here in Alberta these are often sold and resold until they end up 'owned' by entities that have are in the ditch-then the taxpayer ends up paying for the fix.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDepleted fields ended up rich in H2S-hydrogen sulphide. H2S directly and indirectly attacks iron, concrete-just about everything. Also deadly naturally gaseous poison that easily plumes from a faulty abandoned well. Any state in the USA that is like Ab with its 70,000+ abandoned wells, you already know this costs. Never mind the 'mincing nancys' and their health. Maybe some of them have psychological problems, but the economic costs are tangible enough. Problems like this should be paid for at the front end-off of any potential profits. I got .1% confidence that the governing entities-at least here in Alberta-are not going to end up 'doing it wrong'
'A sad population of im*eciles would our schemers fill the world with, could their plans last. A sorry kind of human constitution would they make for us—a constitution lacking the power to uphold itself, and requiring to be kept alive by superintendence from without—a constitution continually going wrong, and needing to be set right again—a constitution even tending to self-destruction. Why the whole effort of nature is to get rid of such—to clear the world of them, and make room for better.'
Herbert Spencer
Enbridge, here in Michigan, failed to use their corrosion devices! That's bad enough, they TURNED OFF the alarms. Results are predictable: Largest land spill in history.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this18 hours of non-response.
Bastards -- Enbridge.