The U.S. Federal Railroad Administration is investigating whether chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing are corroding rail tank cars and increasing risks. Separately, three pipeline companies including Enbridge Inc. warned regulators that North Dakota oil with too much hydrogen sulfide, which is toxic and flammable, was reaching terminals and putting workers at risk.
There are like 87 things wrong with that paragraph.
Wait, Oil contains things that are flammable?!?!
Well ####, there goes my new fire suppression system that I just got a patent for...
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Wow, talk about jaw dropping stupidity:
Until last month, safety advocates’ chief worry was spills in derailments. After tanker cars blew up July 6 on a train in Quebec, investigators in Canada are considering whether the composition of the crude, which normally doesn’t explode, may have played a role in the accident that killed 47 people. The oil was from North Dakota’s Bakken shale
Now I'm no doctor, but having spent my entire career in the oil/gas industry, I can assure you that yes, in fact, crude oil does explode. If it didn't it wouldn't really be of much use to us.
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Last edited by Bring_Back_Shantz; 08-13-2013 at 02:03 PM.
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This is an example of poor journalism just simply fataing up something so bad even though there might be a legitimate issue.
Actual questions the 'journo' should be raising
- Are trains accepting offspec sour oil?
- Have they considered this sour oil in their corrosion mitigation programs?
- Why are they accepting sour oil? Are the spec to low?
- Is there even sour oil on these trains, or is the reporter and dumb train CEO making up stuff.
- Does the incidence of oil by train accidents just as a result of way more oil going by train?
But no, they try to attach it to a red herring that has had HBO movies made about it.
Associating it with the flavor of the day just makes this terrible for all involved, including the public.
I'd take it a step further and ask "why is rail transport virtually unregulated?" as a starting point. I tried to look around for permits and regulatory requirements to ship some product on rail and literally couldn't find anything other than TDG.
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Until last month, safety advocates’ chief worry was spills in derailments. After tanker cars blew up July 6 on a train in Quebec, investigators in Canada are considering whether the composition of the crude, which normally doesn’t explode, may have played a role in the accident that killed 47 people. The oil was from North Dakota’s Bakken shale
Now I'm no doctor, but having spent my entire career in the oil/gas industry, I can assure you that yes, in fact, crude oil does explode. If it didn't it wouldn't really be of much use to us.
In most cases, if you have a container of crude oil it will certainly start on fire and burn quite vigorously but most wouldn't call it an explosion. If you took that same container, filled it with propane and lit it on fire an explosion you will most definitely get. In order to make crude oil "explode" you'd have to light a fine mist of the stuff (think fire eaters...light a bit of alcohol on fire in a shot glass for some party fun vs blowing a mist of alcohol into the flame for real party fun). Or have a significant amount of material in the vapor phase through heating in a confined or poorly ventilated space You could also have a closed system that pressurizes due to heat which ruptures, thus producing said fine mist and explodes (something a rail car might do in a fire situation). Not arguing that it was or wasn't the case but typically crude oil doesn't "explode". Flammable yes but not explosively so unless certain atypical conditions are met (a train wreck could meet said conditions I imagine). That doesn't get into Lower and upper flammability limits, burn rates, flame propogation which are also (I believe) taken into account when moving most everything.
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Originally Posted by ernie
In most cases, if you have a container of crude oil it will certainly start on fire and burn quite vigorously but most wouldn't call it an explosion. If you took that same container, filled it with propane and lit it on fire an explosion you will most definitely get. In order to make crude oil "explode" you'd have to light a fine mist of the stuff (think fire eaters...light a bit of alcohol on fire in a shot glass for some party fun vs blowing a mist of alcohol into the flame for real party fun). Or have a significant amount of material in the vapor phase through heating in a confined or poorly ventilated space You could also have a closed system that pressurizes due to heat which ruptures, thus producing said fine mist and explodes (something a rail car might do in a fire situation). Not arguing that it was or wasn't the case but typically crude oil doesn't "explode". Flammable yes but not explosively so unless certain atypical conditions are met (a train wreck could meet said conditions I imagine). That doesn't get into Lower and upper flammability limits, burn rates, flame propogation which are also (I believe) taken into account when moving most everything.
Gee, thanks for clearing that up. I totally didn't know any of that stuff, and have now been enlightened much more than more than a decade in operations, facilities/production/development engineering ever could have. That kind of seems like information I should have picked up along the way. Oh well, I guess you learn new things every day.
If only, instead of revealing my own ignorance, I had made a tongue in cheek remark meant to point out that yes, while technically crude oil doesn't "Normally explode" as it says in the article, the fact that a tanker full of crude oil did explode, isn't particularily shocking, because, you know, it's a very combustible liquid inside a contained space, and thus absolutely has the capacity to explode. And that portraying this as some way out of left field event that no one could have ever imagined, and thus should be linked to fracing, is some pretty flawed logic.
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So what, do they fracture and then gravity drain the oil?
Not really gravity drainage. The rock that they frack just tends to be really really tight, so by fraccing, you're opening that rock up and allowing for inflow into the wellbore.
Gee, thanks for clearing that up. I totally didn't know any of that stuff, and have now been enlightened much more than more than a decade in operations, facilities/production/development engineering ever could have. That kind of seems like information I should have picked up along the way. Oh well, I guess you learn new things every day.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz
Perhaps ernie can clear this up/enlighten us.
Don't be a dick, ernie doesn't know your education or background. Seems like 80% of the people in Calgary always say they work in oil/gas industry, knowing to what extent is impossible. It's likely he/she posted not to correct you, but to expand on the topic for others. Not sure why it seems you took offense to the post, perhaps only one expert is allowed in a thread?
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Originally Posted by BlackArcher101
Don't be a dick, ernie doesn't know your education or background. Seems like 80% of the people in Calgary always say they work in oil/gas industry, knowing to what extent is impossible. It's likely he/she posted not to correct you, but to expand on the topic for others. Not sure why it seems you took offense to the post, perhaps only one expert is allowed in a thread?
While I agree that I came off as a dick (mostly intentionally) it's mostly because ernie came off sounding like he was trying to be impressive with his don't even get me started about upper and lower explosive limits comment. It made me giggle that someone was trying to sound impressive using 1st year chemistry topics (or basic oil/gas safety training), to correct what was obviously a pretty sarcastic remark.
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