Mulcair expresses misgivings about Keystone XL pipeline during U.S. visit

[Tinordi]

Rail moves a tonne of freight 1000 km on 6.5 liters of diesel or 18 kg of ghg.

Pipeline moves a time of oil using 50 kwh according to Transcanada, the US average for ghgs per kwh is 650 grams or 30 kg ghg.

[GP_Matt]

Can you elaborate more. 6.5 liters of diesel generates 18 kg of green house gas while 50 kwh of electricity results in 30 kg? That seems like an insane difference between electricity and diesel.
Burning $7 worth of diesel would have the same effect as using $0.50 worth of electricity.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Not necessarily, pipelines move oil with more ghg intensity than rail, yes bellies belief I know but it's true.

If rail would be converted to use NG you might have a point, but my guess is you will have a hard time backing up your numbers here.

[Hack&Lube]

Bear in mind, I usually read Tinordi's information with a grain of salt based on his postings in previous threads regarding environmental issues as he has a clear bias toward one side.

This spill was unfortunate but it will be interesting to see what the investigation uncovers as to the cause. I know of a handful of companies in Calgary that have back-up plans for shipping via rail if Keystone does not go through.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Bear in mind, I usually read Tinordi's information with a grain of salt based on his postings in previous threads regarding environmental issues as he has a clear bias toward one side.

This spill was unfortunate but it will be interesting to see what the investigation uncovers as to the cause. I know of a handful of companies in Calgary that have back-up plans for shipping via rail if Keystone does not go through.

Kill the messenger logical fallacy

[burn_this_city]

Using the same arguments as the enviro crowd, are you including the entire greenhouse gas emissions of well the wheel in that calculation?

[GP_Matt]

I think the take away from Tinordi's information is that coal is terrible for the environment while diesel is relatively better.

The proper solution then is not to shout down a pipeline that uses electricity to transport oil it is to protest the source of that electricity.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Rail moves a tonne of freight 1000 km on 6.5 liters of diesel or 18 kg of ghg.

Pipeline moves a time of oil using 50 kwh according to Transcanada, the US average for ghgs per kwh is 650 grams or 30 kg ghg.

Those numbers seem pretty out of whack. http://www.ec.gc.ca/ges-ghg/default....n&n=EAF0E96A-1 Canada in 2009 was 180g ghg/kwh average. That's 9 kg of ghg.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Actually the alternative is mostly to not ship it at all.

To replace Keystone you'd need 300,000 rail cars. In other words, never going to happen. Sure there will be some added rail shipments but the real outcome will be less oil sands production.

Rail cars, or rail car loads? 300k loads isn't a significant burden relative to the carload totals delivered on rail yearly in NA

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Those numbers seem pretty out of whack. http://www.ec.gc.ca/ges-ghg/default....n&n=EAF0E96A-1 Canada in 2009 was 180g ghg/kwh average. That's 9 kg of ghg.

Not when you account for the fact that Canada and the U.S. amazingly different electricity generation portfolios.

60% of Canada's electricity comes from hydro compared to 13% in the U.S.

Coal and gas take up 75% of generation in the U.S.

That number is about 20% in Canada.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Using the same arguments as the enviro crowd, are you including the entire greenhouse gas emissions of well the wheel in that calculation?

That's a good point, diesel fuel use adds about another 20% of GHGs from the upstream extraction and refining activities. Even accounting for that it's still a lower GHG intensity for rail than pipelines.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

That's a good point, diesel fuel use adds about another 20% of GHGs from the upstream extraction and refining activities. Even accounting for that it's still a lower GHG intensity for rail than pipelines.

Even taking your #'s at face value, how much is 60% more GHG worth economically?

Consider that some sources state that it costs about 2-3x the price to move oil via rail than pipelines, and failure rates of railcars are much higher than that of pipelines.

Consider also that we would need to build massive new infrastructure (probably many dedicated rail lines) in order to ship the amount of oil that pipelines ship a day.

If you're really talking about CO2 emissions with electricity, then GP_Matt makes a good point that your real enemy is coal power generation, not pipelines.

[burn_this_city]

It has always been coal, but somehow it's all about oil at the moment.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Not when you account for the fact that Canada and the U.S. amazingly different electricity generation portfolios.

60% of Canada's electricity comes from hydro compared to 13% in the U.S.

Coal and gas take up 75% of generation in the U.S.

That number is about 20% in Canada.

I know from your perspective, any pipeline is a bad pipeline. But with that said, according to these stats, can it be implied that simply on a transportation basis that Northern Gateway, TMX expansion, and TransCanada's conversion of their gas pipeline to an oil pipeline would therefore have a lower ghg emission profile intensity per km than Keystone?

[Azure]

I'm not totally against rail, especially if they can make it work with natural gas.

But I don't think you can successfully argue that it is more efficient or even safer.

Comparing rail to a pipeline built in 1940 isn't fair at all.

[Tinordi]

I'm not arguing anything, I'm just saying that it's a myth that pipelines emit less GHGs.

Carry on

[troutman]

David Suzuki FDN ‏@DavidSuzukiFDN
B.C. rejects Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal! http://ow.ly/lAFyl

[Bootsy]

Someone should really expose the BC government for the huge hypocrites that they are. The truth is if pipelines in Alberta were in the same shape and ran with the lack of mitigation that goes on in Northern BC, many producers would be shut in. The only condition that the BC government is truly worried about is the "Fair share of the fiscal and economic benefits for B.C."
The rest of the conditions Alberta pipeline standards are years ahead of BC. If anything they should adopt our pipeline regulations.

[CaptainCrunch]

Time to start charging a truck toll on B.C. registered vehicles crossing our province on the way to the rest of Canada.

Green text alert green text alert green tect alaert.

[SebC]

Invade BC!