Rule Allows Natural Gas Transport by Rail in Dense Areas

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/29/950140412/that-terrifies-me-trump-rule-allows-natural-gas-transport-by-rail-in-dense-areas

by pseudolus • 6 years ago

45 61 6 years ago

npr.org

pseudolus• 6 years ago

Disasters involving the transportation of fuel are not merely hypothetical or historically remote. The 2013 Lac-Megantic rail disaster led to 47 deaths and destroyed a small town [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaste...

mimikatz• 6 years ago

This is why I never understood the intense Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Pipelines are much safer and better for the environment than shipping by rail. Shutting down the pipeline won't make the drilling stop, it will just make things worse for the environment and raise the cost of gas/oil

pluc• 6 years ago

The protest for Dakota isn't about the pipeline, it's about where the pipeline goes. Would you be okay with a pipeline going through your house?

Also pipelines are usually taking the human element out. When an oil train derails, you know about it. When there's a hole in a pipeline, it can take days for anyone to notice.

kevstev• 6 years ago

Yeah that was a bit of a head scratcher to me as well- I consider myself to be quite "green" in my political views, and I could not really grasp why this was picked up as an issue to champion for environmental rights- and why it even became such a political football. Pipelines are far superior in just about every way, and cheaper to boot- there isn't even a cost component like there is against the argument for nuclear (another head scratching issue to me).

It's one thing to make a case that this is infringing on their property rights, and that may have been a true and valid concern, but for it to get coopted as an environmental cause, was just strange and made environmental advocacy as a whole look bad IMHO.

jjk16610• 6 years ago

That was a runaway train that wound up going 105 kph around a turn rated for 16 kph and derailed on the main street of a town. It wasn't even carrying natural gas, just crude oil. This change to regulations would have no impact on such an event happening again.

Pfhreak2• 6 years ago

If that train had been carrying corn, would the result have been the same amount of damage?

What could have happened on the worst case if the train was carrying LNG?

JoBrad3• 6 years ago

The article says that trucks carrying LNG are already allowed in the area, though. Just considering the likelihood of damage to the container, it seems like pipelines > trains > trucks, no?

ceejayoz• 6 years ago

It's unlikely that a hundred trucks will all crash at the same time in the same place.

ch4s3• 6 years ago

The problem with pipelines for oil is that they tend to leak in isolated areas, where trains and truck can be maintained at their origin and destination.

tyingq• 6 years ago

The ammonia and chlorine tank cars would scare me more. I've seen these running close to residential areas before.

bumby• 6 years ago

Famous chlorine train incident:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graniteville_train_crash

MereInterest• 6 years ago

Non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graniteville_train_crash

AnimalMuppet• 6 years ago

And nitric and sulphuric acid. And calcium carbide (gives off acetylene if it gets wet). And toxic waste. And literal military bombs.

1cvmask• 6 years ago

Warren Buffet likes trains for oil transportation:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvamxw/warren-buffett-really...

jjk16610• 6 years ago

A random person being scared of something near their home does not make it actually dangerous. LNG doesn't explode like in the movies, it needs to vaporize and mix with oxygen to burn. A leak in an enclosed space can pose an explosion risk, but that's not an issue for a rail car sitting outside. Boiloff can potentially cause a tank to rupture, but this is easily prevented with a pressure release valve. If there is a leak, there is of course a fire hazard, but such a hazard is no worse than the leak of an oil tank. In fact, where an oil leak could potentially allow a large amount of fuel to pool up creating an explosive hazard prior to ignition, natural gas will mostly dissipate harmlessly prior to ignition. LNG transport is generally safer than crude oil transport, and a crude oil spill has much worse environmental effects. If you are comfortable with oil being transported through densely populated areas, you should be fine with this.

Pfhreak2• 6 years ago

Would a crash be sufficient to cause a sudden aerosolization of the lng?

It seems to me that it could, but I am not an expert. Natural gas has a smell added because it has historically exploded...

If you are comfortable with oil being transported through densely populated areas, you should be fine with this.

What if I'm not comfortable moving crude but train?

throwaway0a5e• 6 years ago

Would a crash be sufficient to cause a sudden aerosolization of the lng?

Well yes, but actually no.

You can't get a freight train up to the kind of speed you need to create an "instantly dump the contents of the pressure vessel" type crash without creating a "slowly vent the contents out" type crash first.

You would need to use a bomb to rupture a pressure vessel to get the kind of fuel/air mix you need for an explosion or fireball. Fuel-air explosives operate in this manner. But they are devices with countless engineering man-hours spent making them actually work and fairly precise manufacturing. Parking ye ol' Winnebago (or Penske, if you're a history buff) beside the tracks and waiting for the train to go by is not going to be a very productive approach. Look at people blowing up propane tanks on YouTube. At best they get a fireball.

I'd much rather have nat-gas wafting up and away rather than crude oil, propane, or some other volatile that sits at ground level.

ars4• 6 years ago

Natural gas is lighter than air.

Any such aerosolization would rapidly go up into the sky.

It would make a fire, but not a disaster.

Ottolay• 6 years ago

It could. But so could a crash of a truck or a train carrying any type of liquid/gaseous fuel (e.g. truck carrying the gas to your local gas station). The article talk about LNG requiring thicker tanks than ethylene and ethane, both of which could also 100% explode if in a wreck.

I think the worry is that the volume of shipments for LNG would be much higher, and hence the probability of something happening is higher. A singular shipment of LNG would be no worse than a single shipment of car gas.

jjk16610• 6 years ago

It's not enough to just aerosolize the LNG, it needs to mix with air in a rather narrow fuel-air ratio of 5-15% to burn. Further the flame front speed of methane in open air is only 4 mph - it won't explode, though as the flame front spreads it might kind of look like an explosion (think about what it looks like when you light a gas stove or grill). Such a fireball can potentially ignite things in close proximity, but there won't be a pressure wave that damages structures, so you can't have a situation where one tank 'exploding' causes other tanks to explode, though in a crash it's easily possible multiple tanks are damaged.

Natural gas is an explosion hazard in enclosed spaces. If you walk into your house and smell gas, that's very dangerous. Note also that even if there is no explosion hazard, fire is still dangerous.

If you are uncomfortable with rail transport of crude, that's a perfectly legitimate stance to take. Honestly, transporting any flammable substance (and many non-flammable ones as well) does pose risks. If you know the risks and benefits and think the former outweigh the latter, let people and especially your representatives in government know. However, society generally seems to accept rail transport of oil and similar chemicals, so outrage over the transport of a less dangerous substance seems like it would be more likely to come from a place of ignorance than rational analysis.

Retric8• 6 years ago

The problem isn’t a train with a single car of LNG, it’s a derailment of a train carrying mostly LNG. Trains of Oil, LNG, or other flammable liquid can become a major hazard in ways that a train full of say lumber isn’t.

Forty-two people were confirmed dead, with five more missing and presumed dead.[3] More than 30 buildings in the town's centre, roughly half of the downtown area, were destroyed,[2][4] and all but three of the thirty-nine remaining downtown buildings had to be demolished due to petroleum contamination of the townsite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster

ars4• 6 years ago

Exactly! And none of that would happen with LNG because natural gas is lighter than air, it would all rapidly rise into the sky and make a very pretty, and harmless, fire.

And speaking of lumber: https://bangordailynews.com/2020/07/29/news/a-scene-from-hel... (I need a better link, but basically the cars with hazardous material did not leak, and the fire was from lumber.)

Surprise surprise, Lumber is actually more dangerous than LNG! Because none of that would have happened with LNG. With LNG it all dissipates very fast.

jjk16610• 6 years ago

Yeah, but we already have trains of flammable liquid, and most are far more dangerous than LNG. Had a LNG train been involved in Lac-Mégantic there would have been no flaming tsunami of oil nor any petroleum contamination.

dghughes• 6 years ago

A Boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE) "blev-ee" is what I'd be worried about. Not for an explosion causing damage via shrapnel but from the radiant heat which can scorch things a kilometre away.

Here is a PDF with seems to have the longest url I've ever seen: https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/278653/1-s2.0-S187770581...

kevin_thibedeau2• 6 years ago

A large amount of oil comes into New Jersey on a single line near the Hudson river owned by Norfolk Southern. Every single crossing on the line is in a deplorable state of repair where rails are loose enough that they bounce around when cars and trains run over them. A highway grade crossing had collapsed in on itself and they ignored it for a year. They had to be forced kicking and screaming to start fixing them a couple years ago and the work is still ongoing. I wouldn't trust the assholes running these companies or the FRA to maintain safe infrastructure for dangerous cargo. Their current tactic is to punish the towns that complained loudly by ripping up the crossings and then not working on them for a month.

JoBrad3• 6 years ago

Not saying you are incorrect, but it’s hard to imagine a rail company intentionally leaving a productive line inoperable for a month just to punish a town. They had to have lost a ton of money because of that.

snarf21• 6 years ago

I think the implication of the parent was that the car part was ripped up not the rail part. The line works just fine, just f* the cars that need to cross it.

_jal• 6 years ago

Then perhaps you should consider the possibility that you're imagining the wrong thing. Greed is indeed a powerful motive, but insufficient as your only roadmap to the world.

kevin_thibedeau2• 6 years ago

The rails are still in place with the road blocked.

devb• 6 years ago

What towns has this occurred in?

mikewarot• 6 years ago

We already see the "Big Rolling Bombs" of crude oil rolling through Hammond, Indiana on their way across the country. I'm very glad I live miles away from those tracks.

jinkyu• 6 years ago

but a truck or tractor full of LNG can drive directly in front of your house. also some people, _gulp_ actually have a never ending supply piped into their houses directly!

yabones• 6 years ago

Time to air one of my most controversial opinions: I think transporting LNG by train is good. Hear me out.

When you build a pipeline, it's good for exactly one thing. An LNG pipeline won't do for anything else, not even other types of oil products. But building a railroad on the other hand, that's good for just about anything from transporting bulk grain to truck frames to solid rocket motors. Even though they built the original rail network 150+ years ago, that doesn't define the limits of what it can be used for today (other than the physical dimensions of the carriage etc). If we stop shipping oil by rail we can just build new rail cars and ship other stuff.

Obviously we have to consider safety. There are serious drawbacks of both ways to transport LNG, it's just inherently dangerous. Many people remember Lac Maganetic a few years ago, where a series of technical failures caused a high speed derailment that devastated a small town in rural Quebec. Many also remember the poorly maintained pipelines all over the world that dribble oil into the ground water 24 hours a day. The difference is that trains are comparatively very cheap and easy to inspect and retrofit with sensors. Rail transport is very visible when it goes wrong, but pipelines are far away and far under ground, most of the time buried beneath the 'under class'.

gruez2• 6 years ago

When you build a pipeline, it's good for exactly one thing. An LNG pipeline won't do for anything else, not even other types of oil products. But building a railroad on the other hand, that's good for just about anything from transporting bulk grain to truck frames to solid rocket motors.

But doesn't that only make sense if there's going to be demand in the near future? Unused rail lines get abandoned all the time because they have maintenance costs, so it's not like we can build it, stop using it, and then resume using it a few decades later when demand picks up.

Arnt5• 6 years ago

Those aren't the kind that are abandoned.

The kind to carry natural gas goes from A to B. The ones that are typically abandoned go from B to hamlet-near-B, or to factory-near-B, or were obsoleted due to a change in the network.

I see all three where I live. A new express route was built and bypasses some stations, so fewer trains stop at those stations, which makes local connections to those stations less valuable, and some X-to-hamlet tracks will probably be closed in the end. A new tunnel is being built and when it's done freight traffic will be routed differently than it is now, and it seems likely that one old route will be closed.

Rule Allows Natural Gas Transport by Rail in Dense Areas

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