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Bob Bingham Blog page.

A series of opinion pieces on, mostly climate change and related subjects to do with New Zealand.

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Is the XLK pipeline heading for the sea?

11/4/2013

1 Comment

 
This web site is supposed to be about New Zealand but events in other countries have profound effects on us both economically and environmentally.

There is much debate on the environmental effect of pumping tar sands from Canada to be refined in Texas but so far I have not heard where this oil is to be processed.  The biggest oil refinery plant in the World is at Baytown, Houston and presumably it will handled there. This refinery, like many others, is very close to sea level and with one or two meters of sea level rise in the next ninety years and being in a hurricane area there must surely be some concern about its viability due to the high risk and short operational life.


Picture
This map is taken from http://flood.firetree.net/   and the dark blue squares shows where the refinery would be flooded at three meters. A bit more sea level rise and a storm surge and the refinery would be flooded. If the USA had to manage for any period of time without this refinery there would be a severe economic impact as well as the massive environmental mess.

If anybody was thinking clearly about this they would either not build it (favourite) or build a new refinery in Chicago.



1 Comment
Bob Bristow
22/2/2014 12:26:49 pm

https://class.coursera.org/energy-001/forum/thread?thread_id=14189

Question Just how dangerous will the Keystone XL pipeline be?
Great question. Not so great answer. There is a lot of carbon in the tar sands, and if we burn it all, it will be a real contributor to future warming. But, because there is much carbon elsewhere, the tar sands by themselves don't make or break the future; they contribute significantly. Perhaps more importantly, it appears that a lot of oil from the tar sands is getting out by rail or in other ways. Some commentators have argued that unless the pipeline is built, the tar sands won't be developed, and thus the pipeline is very important, but with the rail traffic, my suspicion is that lack of the pipeline may slow down the tar-sands development but will not stop it. Others may have other opinions, and they may be better than mine, but I think that Keystone XL matters, but is not the most important thing being discussed about energy and environment policies now. --Richard B Alley

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    Bob Bingham 

    Occasional blog posts on topical news items concerning the climate.  Please click the RSS feed to receive updates.

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