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Originally Posted by mrkajz44
I was just thinking the same thing. All this "look at what happens when oil pipelines are built!" is just nonsense for not building new ones. If there are no new pipelines (Keystone XL), these old ones will continue to have issues. Some are 60 - 70 years old!
Seeing this spill should really be insentive to build new pipelines. All people see is "OIL = SPILLS = BAD!"
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Actually...Like everything in this world nothing is black and white. I worked closely with a PLM group last year and I was told that some of the 50's vintage in the US is more reliable than the 90's vintage. Not huge, but still would surprise you. Lots of factors, but the 50's stuff was built to last, and the new stuff with new grade materials wasn't holding up as well as thought. Still very safe in overall picture.
Now let's also get to the facts, that pipeline is the safest way to ship oil by a mile. I've seen the control and integrity systems in place, and they are quite impressive. I think the stat is something like 99.9999% of all oil gets from one end to the other.
Now lets talk about how blocking this pipeline will be all sunshine and rainbows for the environment. In fact, it will do completely the opposite. Not only will it cause our country to be economically weaker, but it will cause producers to start shipping by rail. Which in fact they already have, I encourage you to read up on how some of these guys are shipping to the Gulf using train and barge. Using rail is on the order of 30x more likely to spill than pipe. Then factor in the barge, rivers, the gulf, hurricanes..yikes. It is already happening as we speak and the Oil companies are lining up to get these barges built.
So hate on pipe all you want. Oil will be the main energy source for years to come, and pipe is proven safest by a mile for transport. If anyone saw what I have seen, there would be no question left, put in world class controls, but build the dang pipe.