The Pros And Cons Of Pipelines

Since its discovery in 1859 what resource has been fought over most throughout history? It is actually crude oil, since it was discovered it has been one of the most controversial resources because of it's many properties and uses. Everyone uses it is some sort of way, either if it's filling your car up in the morning or using something made of plastic. Every country needs it although not all countries possess oil or have oil wells, oil is a finite resource which means the world will run out at some point, moreover we do not actually know when we will run out either also we have no idea if we have or when oil production will peak. Oil has caused several problems in the world there have been 19 wars and counting with oil prospects involved

While it's far more efficient to ship oil by pipeline it's also very dangerous and if one ruptures it can have terrible environmental damage that can last hundreds or even thousands of years before everything gets back to normal. Pipelines can be above land, in water and underground which also makes it the most expensive and can be very hard to fix if it does rupture. Pipelines have become one of the most controversial ways of transportation recently because of the ruptures, the Dakota Access and the Keystone XL. Pipelines can carry almost three times as much as trains can but ruptures have severely hurt them in the public eye because of the environmental damage they have caused. Some of the worst oil spills in American history have been because of oil pipelines, while most of them have been from ship one of the worst was from a pipeline. that being the Deepwater Horizon oil spill which happened because a high pressure methane gas bubble rose up from the well in the drill shaft and caused an explosion. This happened in Gulf of Mexico right of the shore of Louisiana on April 20th, 2010 and spilled into the ocean for an estimated 87 days but it has been reported that oil still leaks from it. There have been several oil spills from ruptures in

Recently the derailments of oil carrying trains has risen dramatically and some of that is attributed the rising amount of oil trains are asked to bring across the US to Canada, most of the cars asked to bring crude oil across the country are not specialty cars and it is suggested that they should be. Another reason that trains have been derailing is because the the railway infrastructure cannot handle the ever increasing loads that are asked upon it, guidelines were recently reviewed and adjusted to try and prevent future derailments, they reduced top speed allowed installed objects called “hotboxes” to detect faulty wheel bearings and also increased the frequency of track upkeep to try and reduce the amount that spills if it were to derail and also diminish the chance of an explosion(s). One of the biggest oil spills that have occurred from train transportation happened in 2013 when a train carrying 72 rail cars containing crude oil derailed and exploded and killed 47