About 30 buildings were destroyed and 60 people are believed to be missing, but the force of the fire has prevented rescue workers from searching for survivors.
Sixty missing and scores feared dead as runaway train carrying hundreds of tons of oil derails and explodes in fireball in Canadian town center
By JESSICA JERREAT
PUBLISHED: 09:40 EST, 6 July 2013
There are shocking photos and video at the link. It’s way past time to put fossil fuels behind us. Remember, industry will continually try to “lower the bar.”
This might be a good time to mention another item from the industry PSYOPS conference.
Moderator Michael J. Basilesound bite: How can we lower the bar of the public’s expectations associated with the reality of mistakes LISTEN
My notes from the PSYOPS conference:
43:43 Question from moderator: Bar is set so high by the public. “Energy production is a contact sport. It’s like going to a football game and not expecting–ever–a player to be left on the field, pardon me, but a graphic hit. Add to that, it’s a combustible sport, that’s why we want the energy–because it catches fire—and I’m wondering if there’s anything we can do with that context, any way to draw analogy of it so as to lower the bar and associate it with mistakes. It’s a physics based reality that mistakes happen and … be able to hear that. So any thoughts on context in providing the realities associated with human error and other forces that cause mistakes and getting the facts out there almost lessening the demoninator.”
Translation: How can we lower the bar and make it okay that we blow people up sometimes?
How much lower can the bar go?
Update: This is hard to watch.
Some additional information to answer a few of the questions in the comments.
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Petroleum & Other Liquids, Exports by destination.
We are exporting crude to Canada and our export regulations allow this. Refineries in Quebec City and New Brunswick are running both Bakken and Eagle Ford crude as it is cheaper than light crudes from the Middle East and Africa.
From Bloomberg: Tanker Carrying Bakken Oil to Canadian Refinery Runs Aground
By Dan Murtaugh & Eliot Caroom – Dec 21, 2012
Also see:
The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway train derailed early Saturday morning, causing explosions and a fire that officials say killed at least 13 people, forced the evacuation of 2,000 residents and destroyed about 30 buildings. In addition, about 50 people remain unaccounted for. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/lac-megantic-residents-to-be-allowed-to-return-home-tuesday/article13086475/
Update 2: Might have been propane, not crude oil. Now they are saying is was not propane.
Update 3: Could be years before missing 40 are identified.
Given the intensity of the fire and the heat — which razed 30 buildings and, according to some witnesses, could be felt kilometres away — it’s possible people were completely vapourized in the explosions, said Geneviève Guilbault, a spokesperson for the Quebec coroner’s office who was on site Sunday.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
- Web |
- More Posts(5121)
sounds like a good reason for building more pipelines, don’t cha think?
No, not really.
“Between 2002 and 2012, there were a total of 129 reported incidents of crude oil spills on U.S. railroads compared with a total of 1,849 reported pipeline incidents in the same period. On average a railroad oil spill dumps 738 gallons of the black stuff compared with an average pipeline spill of 10,777 gallons per spill. Total gallons spilled from rail cars was 95,256 compared with 19,926,540 gallons spilled as a result of pipeline ruptures.
For every million barrels moved by rail an estimated 0.38 gallons were spilled, compared an estimated spill rate of 0.88 gallons were spilled for every million barrels moved.
… As more and more carloads of crude oil travel on the nation’s railroads, the number of spills is likely to rise, but it is very unlikely that a single rail accident could dump over 800,000 gallons of crude, as did the 2010 spill following a pipeline rupture near the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.”
http://247wallst.com/2013/04/23/railroads-may-be-safer-than-pipelines-for-transporting-crude-oil/
“Alberta’s had an average of two crude oil spills a day, every day for the past 37 years.
That makes 28,666 crude oil spills in total, plus another 31,453 spills of just about any other substance you can think of putting in a pipeline – from salt water to liquid petroleum.
… The database provides a granular portrait of mishaps involving the oil in oil country.
But maybe more telling is what it doesn’t include: The regulatory body’s database is messy and missing data in many places; it doesn’t include any spills from some of the biggest pipelines – those crossing provincial or national borders.”
http://globalnews.ca/news/571494/introduction-37-years-of-oil-spills-in-alberta/
From the PHMSA statistics, over 2/3rds of pipeline accidents are from issues that pipeline are supposed to be on top of:
http://primis.phmsa.dot.gov/comm/reports/safety/AllPSIDet_1993_2012_US.html?nocache=2752
There’s gas producing companies in PA & WV that won’t participate in 811, since there’s no law to force such in their states. Yet, the same companies will likely whine, when their pipelines a dented by diggers.
Our WONDERFUL fracking fossil fuel at work!!!!
You guys do drive gas powered cars right? Even though electric cars are available….We are all part of the problem.
To Anonemiss above—-love your logic! Kind of like saying since I rouitinely take a sh**, then it’s perfectly OK for you to sh** on me. I know your GasHole logic very well–been there, done that.
Anymous. Your reply is to attack me rather than the problem. The problem is that all of us, you and I demand this product. We all choose to use it to enable our lifestyles. To get that product to us it needs to be transported. And tragically there are spills and accidents as a result. To solve this we need to stop the demand for the product. Bewailing the people feeding our demand is misguided. We need to address the demand, not the suppliers (war on drugs?). One start is to conciously make a consum choice and buy an electric car. Where is the supposed “Gashole logic” in that?
What we need is a real free market instead of a market that caters to the dirty, rotten fossil fuel mafia.
What we need is the political will that will enable the free market and help us to stop the demand. Polls show that Americans want clean, renewable energy but the incentives go to dirty fossil fuels instead–some free market that is–because the fossil fuel mafia fracks our Democracy with huge quantities of cash.
I love it when Gasholes play the innocent victim of the free market that is not a free market.
So you are against subsidies for wind energy?
Anymous. Your reply is to attack me rather than the problem. The problem is that all of us, you and I demand this product. We all choose to use it to enable our lifestyles. To get that product to us it needs to be transported. And tragically there are spills and accidents as a result. To solve this we need to stop the demand for the product. Bewailing the people feeding our demand is misguided. We need to address the demand, not the suppliers (war on drugs?). One start is to conciously make a consum choice and buy an electric car. Where is the supposed “Gashole logic” in that?
There seem to be conflicting accounts of just when the trouble started for the doomed locomotive. It will be interesting to see how the story unfolds. My heart goes out to the families of the missing and dead of course.
The rail cars carrying the “crude” from the Bakken, and which exploded violently, were pressurized tank cars. That doesn’t sound like crude oil to me. And headed to New Brunswick? I think this was condensate. – NGLs in raw form – being sold as diluent or something to this effect. ..continued…
We need the truth about these shipments. Whether by pipeline, rail, barge, tanker, or truck ….. product specifications matter.
I mean; since when is crude oil – of any type – transported in pressurized rail cars? And since when does it explode like that? What is that stuff? How does it compare to the Eagle Ford “crude”? and etc. The public and public agencies are truly being left in the dark in these matters.
Remember back a month or so when they had dangerous levels of H2s in the railcars in the Bakken. Maybe it was something to do with that. http://www.texassharon.com/2013/06/01/what-to-do-with-all-the-h2s-in-bakken-crude/
Yes. But if I’m reading things correctly, those earlier rail cars were conventional tank cars which fill with a hose through a hatch on top. Also, that product was headed to a pipeline -as is – destined for some domestic refiner.
This product headed to New Brunswick was something different. But what was it? Why did it explode like that? How much pressure are we talking about? Referring to this as a spill of crude oil; is misleading and disingenuous in my view. full disclosure: I drive a 3/4 ton GMC.
I hope you will keep us updated on this as information develops.
Sharon. Saddened you have jumped on the attack too. I posed my question to all of us as citizens and consumers .. If we want change, why not be the change? The response, as with anymous, is to call me a “gashole” ..and claim big money is the fault. Come on…do YOU drive an electric vehicle or a fossil fuel powered vehicle? My carriage is purely electric. I conciously chose to buy one. I conciously chose to change my lifestyle and put my money where my mouth is. What about y’all? Does this still make me a “gashole”?
I’m not attacking you or calling you a gashole. I’m attacking the industry and their minions. I know nothing about you. You, on the other hand, know plenty about me because I am an open book on the internet.
Putting your money where your mouth is is a good thing. If you spend a little time on this site, you might learn that I have done just that as have many others here.
I’m glad you like your electric car—-just know that that electricity didn’t come free over the airways—-it came from a fracking power plant–many powered by natural gas–and we know all the damage being done in the GasPatch by GasHoles!!! Plug it in and continue to think you are clean–what BS you have–even fooling yourself.
My electricity comes from the solar panels on my roof and from wind. When I get an electric car, I will have a solar panel installed to charge it.
Not everyone can do these things. But everyone can make some of the small changes I’ve talked about here. We can’t all buy an electric car but we can conserve and we can continue to educate people about fracking which might help create the political will.
At this point; the big question seems to be: who shut down that locomotive?
We know there was a fire onboard, Firefighters put it out. This was after the engineer had left to find a motel. Firefighters went home to bed. They left the train with a track worker, then he went home to bed also. At some point, somebody shut down the engine – thus disabling the air brakes – maybe. The fire chief reported that the fire was caused by a leak in a fuel line.
But there is apparently home video of that same locomotive having problems earlier – before the engineer stopped the train and left the scene. I don’t think this was any kind of scheduled stop. The maker of the video complained about extreme noxious odors.
I thought the train derailed and the explosion was from that. Seriously? Everybody went home and left a derailed train?
No. The fire was on board the lead locomotive. The engineer had already left for the night. Firefighters put out a fire on the lead engine. Everybody went home round-about. Somebody shut down the locomotive emgine. That lead engine was supplying power to the air brakes that were holding the rest of that train that hill above the town. At some point; the doomed train, minus that lead engine, and with no crew aboard, free-wheeled down into the town (where it had passed through the night before, causing a b.ig stink) and crashed.
Wow! That is what I call a bumblef**k which is a clusterf**k that has become mobile.
Nobody seems surprised to he ar that a trainload of “crude” was being shipped from North Dakota to New Brunswick. Does it strike anybody else that such a shipment might be quite illegal?
Export of domestically produced crudes – to include raw condensate – are prohibited by the US State dept. Right? Something about energy independence; Right?
I updated the post because I learned that, yes, we are exporting our energy independence. I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you.
The only exceptions to this that I am aware of have involved the sale of raw condensate – for use as tar sands diluent. These exceptions were supposedly on a limited case-by-case basis; and were allowed ONLY for CANADA. (sorry China)
What I am asking for is some semblance of truth here: Was that condensate, or was it crude?
I did read a report last night that referred to “light crude” seeping into local waterways. But now I’m confused. The Bakken is producing Light Crude? For Export
pak 152: Can you straighten me away on any of this?
Lac-Megantic, Quebec (CNN) — Canadian authorities have found evidence that a criminal act may have led to a train crash in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed at least 15 people, provincial police Capt. Michel Forget said Tuesday.
There have been many questions about the crash and explosion that wiped out a swath of the town 130 miles east of Montreal. As of Tuesday evening, 35 people were still missing, Forget said.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/09/world/americas/canada-runaway-train/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Criminal negligence, you mean?
If I remember correctly, this is the same country that framed a man who was trying to defend his family against H2S.
andy are you asking about exporting us crude?
The U.S. sends about 120,000 barrels of crude a day to Canada under a Commerce Department license. Congress allows exports from Alaska’s Cook Inlet and for consumption in Canada, along with sales determined by the president to be in the national interest.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-18/americans-exporting-more-oil-first-time-since-70s.html
oil like coal is fungible there are refineries that are set up to handle the crued from Alberta and the Bakken. if they don’t use that oil they have to import from places like Venezuela which have a similar type of crude
“What I am asking for is some semblance of truth here: Was that condensate, or was it crude?” crude since there are no pipelines that are available from the Bakken so crude oil trains are used just like there are coal trains. besides you need only look at the cars in the image to realize they are not condensate cars
Pak. Thanks. Yes that’s what I was asking. I had been under the impression that US crudes were staying home.
I see that Bakken crudes are often referred to as Light Sweet. I guess in the light of recent developments; its that “sweet” designation I would tend to question. Wouldnt it be nice though; if we actually had some type of specification here – instead of this nonsense.
Light Sweet Crude? I say BULL SHIT.
What say ye?
Andy,
“The rail tankers involved in the derailment are known as DOT-111 and have a history of puncturing during accidents, the lead Transportation Safety Board investigator told The Associated Press in a telephone interview late Monday.
TSB investigator Donald Ross said Canada’s TSB has gone on record saying that it would like to see improvements on these tankers, though he acknowledged it’s too early to say whether a different or modified tanker would have avoided this weekend’s tragedy.
The DOT-111 is a staple of the American freight rail fleet. But its flaws have been noted as far back as a 1991 safety study. Among other things, its steel shell is too thin to resist puncture in accidents, which almost guarantees the car will tear open in an accident, potentially spilling cargo that could catch fire, explode or contaminate the environment.”
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/267910/
And it doesn’t say “sweet” on the MSDS. This stuff is nasty.
http://www.cenovus.com/contractor/docs/CenovusMSDS_BakkenOil.pdf
Thank you for the update. It is hard to make sense out of the news we are getting. With this new information, it makes perfect sense that the Canadian government would need to deflect attention and anger to some kind of criminal plot.
It will be several generations before that town can recover.
Alberta Neighbor:
Thanks. especially for that MSDS. You are right. That is nasty. Several specs jump off that page: 1st; H2S content listed at <.1%. That is 1000ppm. This disclosure is accompanied by a note that H2S conentratioms may be higher in the "headspace" above the liquid.
And look at those figures for explosiveness. LEL (lower explosive limit) is listed at a scant 0.8%. Wow! The MSDS also indicates that Bakken Light crude will ignite from simple static discharge – at ambient temperatures.
I saw another new story this morning about increasing rail transportation of Bakken crude. I’ll try to find it and add an update. NUTZ
No, it’s the Permian Basin. YIKES! http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/07/09/crude-by-rail-gets-a-boost-in-the-permian-basin/
Hi Andy,
Yes, and it’s absolutely ridiculous, and I think criminal, that they would knowingly transport that stuff in such flawed containers.
Hi Sharon,
Here’s an article on the increasing rail transport of crude, including Bakken.
“While moving crude by pipeline still costs about half to one-third what it does to move it by rail, trains don’t require long-term contracts or need to wait for pipelines to be built. And while pipes stretch only from point A to point B, refiners can access nearly any market in the U.S. by rail.
That flexibility to target the most lucrative markets has been particularly useful over the past few years as regional prices have varied substantially. Oil sold on the Gulf Coast fetches about $9 more per barrel than the same grade of crude sold in Cushing, Okla. Three months ago it fetched $23 more. The ability to easily shift delivery markets to maximize revenue is why “oil companies are leasing rail cars like drunken sailors,” says Oppenheimer energy analyst Fadel Gheit.
Union Pacific, the nation’s largest railroad, tripled the amount of crude it moved last year, helping boost its profits to a record $3.9 billion for fiscal year 2012. BNSF, the No. 2 rail company, which Warren Buffett bought in 2010, is now transporting about 650,000 barrels of crude per day, vs. almost none five years ago. Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) expects to haul 70,000 carloads of crude in 2013, up from 500 in 2009.
Much of this increase has come from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota, where crude production has jumped about 250 percent since 2009. BNSF and Canadian Pacific have invested heavily there over the past few years. Together they carry about 400,000 barrels out of the Bakken each day. According to a June report by Bloomberg Industries, 71 percent of all Bakken crude now leaves the region by train, compared with 25 percent in January 2012. Only 20 percent travels by pipeline, down from 61 percent in 2011.”
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-13/amid-u-dot-s-dot-oil-boom-railroads-are-beating-pipelines-in-crude-transport#p1
Alberta Neighbor.
The more I look at that MSDS; the scarier it looks.
The combination of low LEL, ultra low flash point, low auto ignition temperature, and susceptibility to ignition from static discharge at ambient temps, combine to make this one very dangerous substance.
NFPA flammability rating is 4; their highest rating. By comparison, gasoline and diesel recieve either a 2 or a 3 on that same scale.
I wish you could write a blog post about this, Andy.
Seems the unconventionals are a whole new scary animal, as we’re finding out in the most horrific ways.
Pak 152: also, I forgot to ask, could you send us along a link to images of what a condensate rail car looks like? thanks in advance.
Wasn’t I just saying living next to train tracks was worrisome? Didn’t & you & Texas Widow claim I was wrong to compare it to natural gas drilling?
Context counts, Ben.