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What To Do With Aging Pipelines
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Unfortunately, as you point out, Robert: large fossil fuel companies are very adept at using the legal system to delay and deflect. Sigh.
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"Speaking of corruption: I did learn something upsetting about Chicago recently—especially since I thought it was "history." Back when I was in graduate school, every now and then I would read the CDC's Mortality and Morbidity Report, kind of a plague tally for the modern age, on some professor's bulletin board in the hallway. This was back when I still thought the CDC was a bastion of science. The report said that the highest levels of lead in drinking water in the country were in Cook county, the county where I grew up. I foolishly assumed this was in the old tenement areas on the south side, but no, turns out it is still the highest in the country, and it is everywhere. Because of the pipes.
There is a law in Cook county and others in Chicago, that everyone is *required* to have lead pipes connecting to the main lines. Which guarantees that you will have lead in your water, a lot of lead. Apparently this law was passed at the instigation of the plumbers union and is still on the books.
The municipal authorities tested everyone's water, once concerns were expressed about it. But they didn't report the results, so everyone assumed things were okay. Now journalists have forced the issue, the results were published, and now municipal authorities say they can't afford to replace the pipes. So there are no plans to fix this right away.
I think this is a new low. Another reason to pay attention to local politics.
Go vote! If you haven't already."
Shifting views on pipelines by former supporters."After Keystone oil spill, Kansas governor calls pipeline property tax exemption 'a big mistake'"
https://www.yahoo.com/news/keystone-o...
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https://www.ecowatch.com/russia-gas-p...
"Three repair workers were killed yesterday when a section of the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhhorod natural gas pipeline in western Russia exploded. One driver was also suffering from shock, Reuters reported. The pipeline transports gas from Siberia to central Europe via Ukraine and is currently the primary gas export route from Russia to Europe.
...
"According to a report from nonprofit Environment America, in the U.S. a gas pipeline incident happens about every 40 hours. Nearly 2,600 incidents involving the release of pipeline gas that were concerning enough to be reported to the federal government occurred between January of 2010 and October of 2021. Of these, 328 caused explosions and fires that killed 122 people and left hundreds injured.
The federally reported leaks have caused 26.6 billion cubic feet of methane gas to be spewed into the Earth’s atmosphere, which has the same effect on global warming as the annual emissions of more than 2.4 million cars.
Since 2010, the reported gas leaks have resulted in almost $4 billion in costs and damage.
“The amount of gas leaking to the environment is far greater than captured in federal leak reporting or emissions estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency,” the report said."
Report:
https://environmentamerica.org/wp-con...
The pipeline pressure from the big pipelines all the way to the small feeders that go to each house has been increased over the years. This allows the gas companies to deliver more gas without increasing the size of the pipelines. This is why there are catastrophic gas explosions at residential locations. The explosions have gone from damaging part of a building to blowing the entire building down to blowing up other structures around the location of the initial gas leak explosion.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Third Kind of Magic (other topics)The Cursed Amulet (other topics)
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When it is a fuel pipeline, the inclination is to let it continue to run because stopping it would have an economic effect. The bigger the pipe, the more impact it would have.
The switchover from petroleum to alternative energy is going slow. The cost of rebuilding a big pipeline has become excessively expensive. The bigger the pipeline, the bigger the economic impacts can be. The extra costs are usually passed along to the next entity in line. This is usually the consumer.
The other choice is to use whatever profits there are to pay for the operating costs. This can easily mean there would be no profits, only an operating expense. This isn't done because no company does anything that does not produce a profit. Using the profit to pay for the cleanup costs of handling the product from start to finish is good for the environment but it isn't "good" for the short term profit motivated economy.
When the pipeline crosses country borders, that make matters more difficult to sort out.
There is a pipeline built in 1953 that runs from Canada to The US, carrying half a million gallons of oil, plus a small amount of propane, from Canada to the US. It runs under the Great Lakes and crosses the Bad River Band Reservation, home to the Bad River Band Tribe. The land agreements between the tribe, the state, and the oil company have expired. The tribe wants the pipeline removed from their tribal lands because it poses an environmental risk that would be catastrophic if it experienced any kind of accident. The state has taken the same position in regards to the pipeline running under the Great Lakes.
The usual response to a spill or a bad leak is to collect what can be collected, do a superficial cleanup, and then wait a sufficient amount of time to go by so the polluted land is covered over by dirt, putting the polluted land below the surface and out of sight. It is completely understandable why the tribe no longer wants the pipeline, or any pipeline on their land.
The Canadian oil company is agreeable to what the tribe wants and is trying to find a land route that goes around the tribal lands. The state of Michigan also wants the pipeline shut down because it runs along the bottom of the Great Lakes and is not properly protected from natural or manmade hazards.
In the meantime Canada is using the US court system to provide delays to keep the pipeline open. Canada wants to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Closing the pipeline has a minimal impact on the state but the loss would be far greater for the energy companies at both ends of the pipeline.
The oil company wants to build a 500 million dollar tunnel under the Great Lakes to house the pipe lines. Facts are flying on all sides. It will take at least 4 years of construction time to build the tunnel. That plus the time to start construction which could be a year or two, maybe more.
The problem is that Enbridge Energy's Line 5 pipeline was built in 1953 and extends for 645 miles across the state of Michigan. Line 5, which is part of Enbridge's Lakehead System, begins in Superior, Wisconsin, and ends in Sarnia, Canada.
The 500 million dollar price tag is for constructing the tunnel, it does not cover the costs of replacing the existing pipeline that goes across the state.
Replacing aging pipelines is going to cost a lot of money. The alternative sources are not up to replacing the fossil fuels yet. The aging pipes have to be replaced which puts a big price tag on continuing the fossil fuel industry.
One question is, does the manufacturing uses of petroleum products outweigh the use of the products as a fuel. Right now, in the US, roughly 28 percent of petroleum goes towards manufacturing. 68 percent is for transportation fuel. The petroleum industry expects the use of petroleum products for all uses to increase by 14 percent through 2050. This explains why the petroleum industry thinks that investing in a tunnel that goes underneath the Great Lakes is a good idea.
It does not seem to support the idea that cutting emissions from the petroleum industry are going down anytime soon. This would be including plastic pollution as part of the emissions from the petroleum industry.
https://michiganlcv.org/line-5-faq
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/o...