Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumVideo: Tar sands oil flows through Arkansas neighborhood’s streets
So that is a pipeline that has busted and has flooded the neighborhood, and is going all the way to a drain at the end of the street, the cameraman explains as he drives down a neighborhood street coated on one side with a thick stream of black liquid.
The smell is unbelievable, he says. Incredible. That is oil.
Its not just any oil, either: its tar sands, a heavy, gritty and more toxic type of oil that is particularly difficult to transport and even more difficult to clean out of water sources.
An Exxon-Mobil pipeline rupture that affected Montana in 2011 also happened along a line that ran tar sands, which experts say can corrode the inside of pipelines because of its heavy grit and harsh chemical additives that keeps the oil viscus enough to flow.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/31/shocking-tar-sands-oil-flows-throw-arkansas-neighborhoods-streets/
BillyRibs
(787 posts)And pumping it through a pipe of any kind is asking for trouble. As a Stationary engineering student i would use a compound like it to grind metal valve seats.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)The oil is going to a Koch owned refinery in Houston before being shipped to China. The Koch brothers are involved in ALEC and that is their representative standing there. The owners' property may be unlivable and they'll offer them very little and maybe just take it.
wtmusic
(39,166 posts)It has to be pumped at "much higher pressure" than light crude, according to Sierra Club. This line is 70 years old.
Sure they can fix the break...where will the next one be?
(welcome to DU Billy)
freshwest
(53,661 posts)The Canadian tar sands oil is already in the existing pipelines controlled by the energy giants without being approved from the big shiny thing? Or is this oil coming from the Dakotas? Or is this being misreported by the media for more drama?
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)The pipeline in Arkansas is called the Pegasus, I believe and it was transporting tar sands from Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Thanks for the information.