Proposed Solutions Spark Debate
How to adequately maintain the diversity of pipelines has proved to be a divisive issue – critics arguing for more automatic tests and safety measures and companies pointing to the high cost of such additions.
One such measure is the widespread installation of automatic or remote-controlled shutoff valves, which can quickly stop the flow of gas or oil in an emergency. These valves could help avoid a situation like that after the Kalamazoo River spill, which took operators 17 hours from the initial rupture to find and manually shut off. Operators use these valves already on most new pipelines, but argue that replacing all valves would not be cost-effective and false alarms would unnecessarily shut down fuel supplies. The CRS estimates that even if automatic valves were only required on pipelines in highly populated areas, replacing manual valves with automatic ones could cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars.
A worker on the Kalamazoo river, helping to clean up an oil spill of almost a million gallons from a ruptured pipeline in July 2010
Other measures focus on preventing leaks and ruptures in the first place. The industry already uses robotic devices called "smart pigs" to crawl through a pipeline, clearing debris and taking measurements to detect any problems. But not all pipelines can accommodate smart pigs, and operators don't routinely run the devices through every line.
Just last month, a smart pig detected a "small anomaly" in the existing Keystone pipeline, prompting TransCanada to shut down the entire line. Environmentalists pointed out that this is not the first time TransCananda has called for a shut down, and won't be the last.
"The reason TransCanada needs to keep shutting down Keystone," the director of the National Wildlife Federation contended in a statement, "is because pipelines are inherently dangerous."
Last January, Obama signed a bill that commissioned several new studies to evaluate some of these proposed safety measures, although his decision on extending the Keystone pipeline may come long before those studies are completed.
From ProPublica.org (find the original story here); reprinted with permission.
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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.