[HN Gopher] US Pipeline Caused Biggest Spill in Decades, We're J...
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US Pipeline Caused Biggest Spill in Decades, We're Just Hearing
About It
Author : shalmanese
Score : 174 points
Date : 2021-03-07 15:26 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (earther.gizmodo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (earther.gizmodo.com)
| tbihl wrote:
| The maddening thing about these pipelines is that fixed
| infrastructure should have such high payoff for moving petroleum
| compared to roads or, when possible, trains. As long as
| politicians show such an unwavering commitment to neglecting old
| infrastructure in favor of building more, however, we would be
| crazy to support any more of it being built. But outside the NRC,
| I don't know of any US agency with sufficiently thorough cradle-
| to-grave scrutiny (which even they are denied by politicians,
| considering the disposal debacle that is Yucca Mountain).
| bpodgursky wrote:
| A lot of the time, the right solution IS to build new
| infrastructure to replace the old. You can only patch a bridge
| so long. New nuclear reactors are simply safer than old ones,
| no matter how much money you pump into maintenance.
|
| You're setting up a catch-22 here where increasingly decrepit
| infrastructure continues to fail despite being a money pit, but
| nobody has the agency to simply start over with a better
| design.
| tbihl wrote:
| Maybe I've misunderstood the issue, but I thought the new
| pipelines were for expanding capacity and service areas.
|
| It's also possible I wasn't very clear. When I rail against
| the new, it's not against replacement (e.g. complete overhaul
| of a road instead of patching potholes.) I get upset when my
| low density metro creates seemingly endless new highway lane
| miles at the same time that potholes in core areas reach ages
| and heights consistent with average toddlers.
| sitkack wrote:
| I think you overlooked the cradle-to-grave, whole system
| optimization aspect of the focus on the NRC. We don't apply
| the same systems thinking to the rest of our civilization. I
| think the parent is advocating for more systematic long term
| thinking.
| rurban wrote:
| What they didn't address was if Charlotte needs to get evacuated
| (ha!), how they get their water, how they plan to limit the
| damage. This is oil in the groundwater. Expect cancer cases
| rising in Charlotte by the thousands
| js2 wrote:
| > The 2016 back-to-back spill and explosion, for example caused
| gas shortages in six states.
|
| Resident of Raleigh, NC. That leak is part of why we own a Chevy
| Volt. I remember thinking: "I don't want to be beholden to
| gasoline." But I also remember thinking: "I don't want to be
| beholden to the electric grid."
|
| > Enbridge has estimated that properly deactivating its aging
| Line 3 pipeline and taking it out of the ground would cost more
| than $1.2 billion dollars. The company is currently considering
| simply abandoning it and paying off the landowners involved,
| which it says would cost a relatively paltry $85 million, but
| leave corrosive pipes littered underneath the landscape.
|
| Privatize the profits, socialize the costs. These companies
| should have been taxed for these costs, with the money going into
| a fund earmarked for cleanup.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| I fully agree with you but companies will just declare
| bankruptcy and the government will still be left holding the
| bag. Corporations will always find a way to worm themselves out
| of taking responsibility.
| katbyte wrote:
| You make cleanup costs part of the initial construction
| costs/operating costs.
| foerbert wrote:
| It's not like there's zero options here. There are lots of
| options. You seem to be implying we should just give up
| trying anything.
|
| Even the example provided doesn't seem to fall to your
| bankruptcy idea. If you collect the money for the cleanup on
| an on-going basis during operation, how does bankruptcy get
| them out of it?
|
| You can change bankruptcy rules. You can even make leadership
| personally liable. Hell, you could make shareholders liable
| if you really wanted.
|
| We're talking about legally created entities operating at a
| large scale, and the government. If the government gets
| around to making a serious stab at changing things, they
| absolutely can.
|
| Admittedly, that's a monstrous 'if' there. But it's not some
| foregone conclusion that we should just give up on even
| thinking about holding corporations accountable because it's
| not even possible.
| hedora wrote:
| Enbridge is simultaneously attempting to get permits to build
| more pipelines on Native American land.
|
| In this particular case, there's an obvious solution: Clean up
| all your messes, or no new permits for you.
| monadic8 wrote:
| ....only if you can tie this to enough politicians that they
| fear for reelection and fight for it. These events are barely
| covered by major newspapers; there's zero chance of the
| reasonable solution happening.
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| We had the same thought when we bought our Volt. Electricity is
| fine for 99% of our driving, but it's nice to have the fossil
| backup in case it's needed.
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| Also, I think the cleanup should be required when someone wants
| to build this sort of project. Absurd that they don't have to
| clean up the whole mess.
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _I remember thinking: "I don't want to be beholden to
| gasoline." But I also remember thinking: "I don't want to be
| beholden to the electric grid."_
|
| Then you'll need your own solar panels. Either on your roof or
| on your car or both:
|
| - Sono Motors Sion: https://sonomotors.com/
|
| - Lightyear One: https://lightyear.one/
|
| - Hyundai Ioniq 5 has a small panel as an option. Maybe useful
| if you live somewhere sunny: https://pvbuzz.com/hyundai-
| ioniq-5-solar-panels/
| sovreign wrote:
| One additional "car with solar panels" option is the upcoming
| Aptera car that can charge (ideally 40 miles per day).
| https://www.aptera.us
| zbrozek wrote:
| I used to captain a solar race car team. I don't really
| want solar panels on my car; I'd much rather have them
| installed as stationary infrastructure. On-vehicle there
| are pressures to stay compact and lightweight, which costs
| durability. Cars are also almost always more-shaded than
| rooftops.
|
| A super tiny panel to run a cabin fan is reasonable, but on
| an EV with an enormous battery pack it's unnecessary
| complexity.
| mjcohen wrote:
| Also, solar panels on a car are natural targets for
| idiots. Has to be protected against rocks and paint.
| quantified wrote:
| Yeah, I'd like to know why the payoffs are that much cheaper
| than the work. Just a question of relative negotiating power
| between the parties involved?
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Can pipeline owners be fined for leaks?
|
| Are pipeline owners obligated by law to rehabilitate spills?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| There are about 4,000,000 miles of road in the US, and about
| 2,500,000 miles of pipeline.
|
| Pipelines will be used for the next century as we transition over
| to clean energy. If pipelines are blocked, the fossil fuel gets
| transported on the road or by train and has a higher climate
| change impact, because friction forces that are seen inside of
| pipes are lower than the rolling friction of wheels. This is the
| transport energy barrier that has to be overcome by pumps.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| TFA says 190k miles of petroleum pipelines, 2.4m total with
| natural gas included
| thatcat wrote:
| Pipelines leak because they are pressurized pipes that are
| filled with oil. The amount they leak annually is comparable to
| large tanker spills, but since it occurs constantly at a low
| level in a way that is less visible this type of leak is under
| reported. This also has a carbon and environmental cost that
| must be weighed against alternatives.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| does no one in that place use the internet?
| 34245634634 wrote:
| The entire article reads like a classic PG "submarine article"
| from anti-pipeline activists, who use lawsuits, protests, and
| sabotage[1] to thwart the construction of new pipelines (even to
| replace old ones, like in the article) and upgrades or even
| necessary repairs to existing pipelines.
|
| It also hypocritically criticizes companies for considering
| abandoning aging pipelines, which these same activists fight to
| prevent them from upgrading or replacing.
|
| Clearly the goal is to make fossil fuels so expensive, to speed
| up adoption of renewables. But do these people not realize that
| these chemicals have other uses (e.g., plastics, rubbing
| alcohol), and that they need to be transported regardless, and
| pipelines are much safer (and cheaper) than rail or road
| transport?
|
| [1]https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/07/24/dako..
| .
| sokoloff wrote:
| > Margolis said that gasoline's physical composition--it sinks to
| the bottom of bodies of water, unlike oil, which stays slick on
| top
|
| This doesn't match my experience where water contamination in
| pure gasoline very quickly settles to the bottom of a test jar
| and where gasoline spilled while boat fueling clearly floats on
| water.
|
| Gasoline is around 6 lbs/gallon and water a bit over 8
| lbs/gallon. I don't see how gasoline could sink given those wide
| disparities in density.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Maybe the gasoline contains ethanol and it formed some
| compounds when exposed to the environmental moisture?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Ethanol doctoring of the fuel (whether E10 or E85) typically
| happens at the wholesale terminal, after the pipeline
| transportation.
| jackfoxy wrote:
| Without more clarification this appears to be nonsense. Do any
| search for _gasoline floats on water_ and every explanation
| says gasoline floats on water, not the other way around.
|
| If there is any hope in this disaster it is that interstate
| pipelines transport raw gasoline (more or less a natural
| fraction of petroleum) without the additives. It is the
| additives like MTBE (now I believe outlawed) that create the
| most lasting ground pollution. Light petroleum fractions
| naturally migrate towards the surface, where they are either
| consumed by microbes that eat the light fractions (and leave
| the heaviest fractions) or they evaporate.
| markbnj wrote:
| Agreed. The statement also caught my eye and the only thing I
| could find that seems even remotely relevant is
| http://www.earthdrx.org/specificgravitylesser.html. This is
| very specific to lighter fluids injected into a subsurface
| ground layer below a water layer, and theorizes as to why the
| lighter fluid may not percolate through the heavier fluid
| above.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Actually the MTBE was simply more easily detected by smell if
| the groundwater had come from a source where underground
| retail storage tanks had leaked MTBE-oxygenated gasoline.
|
| The portion of the fuel which does not evaporate can sink
| with gravity until it rests upon a water table within range.
|
| The vast majority of the wells contaminated by leaking
| gasoline went largely undetected until MTBE was widely
| introduced to gasoline according to the Clean Air Act of
| 1990. When compromised retail tanks in use started to recieve
| gas containing MTBE, it still took a while to seep down into
| some people's water just like the plain gasoline had been
| doing, before they started to notice since the MTBE has a
| characteristic non-hydrocarbon smell of an ether.
|
| MTBE itself is far less toxic than the hydrocarbons it had
| replaced in the fuel.
|
| Technically, by experts not considered dangerous to health in
| the trace amounts found in the contaminated water, just bad
| taste.
|
| Physicians have treated patients using pure MTBE with
| therapeutic effect, with side-effects that would be expected
| also from the more traditional USP Ethyl Ether.
|
| https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/MTBE
|
| The natural components of gasoline like the benzene are
| recognized as far worse but they are not so easy to taste.
| snicker7 wrote:
| It's easier to float in salt water.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Indeed and noticeably so. Salt water is 2-3% more dense than
| fresh water. That's all the more reason to think that ~28%
| less dense gasoline would float.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yup. It's actually opposite of what he (the attorney) said.
| Gasoline (with a density of 0.72kg per liter) floats, and in
| fact it also evaporates. Which makes it partially self-cleaning
| (although there always seems to be some residue...). Not that
| gasoline vapors are great, but the local environmental problem
| could in principle be less than for an oil spill as oil is
| almost identical in density with water (light crude oil floats
| on water and heavy crude oil, like tar sands oil, sinks in
| water... although both tend to have both lighter and heavier
| components so both things happen).
| Judgmentality wrote:
| But if the gasoline evaporates, doesn't it just rain down
| again later? It still has to go somewhere. Or do we just have
| ever-increasing gasoline clouds?
|
| EDIT: Thank you to everyone for the informative responses.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >do we just have ever-increasing gasoline clouds?
|
| Well, not quite.
|
| It does remain in the atmosphere as it dissipates and is
| diluted, but the whole time even at the source its
| concentration is usually too low to condense.
|
| It just becomes air pollution, categorized as Air Toxics
| although some of the same natural hydrocarbons are referred
| to as "Unburned Hydrocarbons" when they are emitted after
| incomplete automotive combustion.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| No, volatile organics are quickly degraded by sunlight and
| oxygen. The atmospheric half-life of mid-length aliphatic
| hydrocarbons such as octane is less than a week.
|
| I don't know for sure, but my guess is that only a small
| portion of evaporated volatiles is scrubbed out of the air
| by precipitation. The people living around that spill are
| going to be breathing some nasty shit for the foreseeable
| future.
| csours wrote:
| It turns into smog, partially. It will condense on
| surfaces, and some fungus and bacteria will consume it, or
| its products of decomposition eventually.
|
| Some of it goes into peoples and animal's lungs, etc
| robocat wrote:
| Evaporated gasoline would be classified as a VOC (Volatile
| Organic Compound) AFAIK - but certainly that is a good
| keyword to use to look for the environmental/atmospheric
| effects.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| That's right, gasoline has always floated on water.
|
| Mostly it evaporates but it still toxifies the water for a
| period of time.
|
| Gasoline is not the only thing going through Colonial:
|
| https://colpipe.s3-us-
| west-1.amazonaws.com/media/6.4.4-cpc-p...
|
| All are consumer products also preferred by military
| operators.
|
| It can be noted that the two cleanest fuels on the list,
| butane and R100 renewable diesel, are not like the others.
|
| Butane is never transported along any of the main lines, and
| at this time R100 still exists only on paperwork.
| spenrose wrote:
| "The Colonial pipeline is owned by a company of the same name,
| which is, in turn, controlled by companies including Koch
| Industries (its largest shareholder, which made $85 million in
| dividends from the pipeline in 2016) and Royal Dutch Shell. The
| pipeline was initially built in 1963, and stretches from Texas to
| New Jersey. According to the company, the pipeline transports
| around 2.5 million barrels of fuel per day, mostly underground,
| that supplies 45% of the entire East Coast's gasoline. In 2016,
| North Carolina alone got 70% of its gasoline from the pipeline.
| Its owners have said that technology can detect leaks as small as
| 3% of the pipeline's daily flow-which works out to around 1.8
| million gallons."
| mcguire wrote:
| " _Margolis pointed out that the Colonial pipeline is so old
| that its anti-corrosion mechanism is simply a coating of coal
| tar. "That's scary," he said, pointing out that newer pipelines
| with updated technology still have accidents._ "
| cromka wrote:
| "as small as 3%"
| whelming_wave wrote:
| imagining them spilling a million gallons a day undetected is
| so depressing
| kodah wrote:
| You should see how much water your local water utility
| loses on the way to deliver water to your house. They're
| fascinating numbers.
| [deleted]
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Then what are they?
| cromka wrote:
| I read that about NY, which used wooden water pipes made
| of hollowed-out tree trunks for its aqueduct:
| https://aqueduct.org/article/historic-wooden-water-pipes-
| une...
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| About ten years ago a contractor lowering the floor of a
| garage in San Francisco found a 6 foot diameter pipe made
| of redwood and iron bands.
|
| It was still in use.
| cromka wrote:
| Yes, NYC has an identical problem: most of those pipes
| were not documented or the documentation is lost. They're
| there, they know they are, they just don't know where.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Friend said the contractor called the city, who then
| accused him of working without a permit. And then after
| that was squared told him the pipe was abandoned. The
| contractor said okay I'm going to cut into it with a
| chainsaw. At which point they sent out an inspector and
| all hell broke loose.
|
| City's maps showed the pipe running in the middle of the
| street. But it was under a row of 12 houses.
| mcguire wrote:
| Losing water is one thing. Oil or gasoline, or other
| toxic liquids, are another.
| cibyr wrote:
| Gasoline also costs a lot more than water.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Spilled gasoline probably is tax free
| guerrilla wrote:
| I think they were commenting on the pollution, not the
| inefficiency.
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