Thread: The Keystone XL Pipeline, which Trump just advanced, will carry the dirtiest fossil

The Keystone XL Pipeline, which Trump just advanced, will carry the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet

• Rafi Letzter Jan. 24, 2017, 2:31 PM

President Donald Trump signed a number of executive orders Tuesday to advance construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and Dakota Access Pipeline.

Activists had previously successfully fought both pipelines — the protest at Standing Rock, which was led by the Native American community,made headlines in 2016.

The Keystone XL Pipeline is slightly older news — Obama blocked its construction in 2015 — but it's worth remembering why it made environmentalists so worried.

What is the Keystone XL Pipeline?

The Keystone XL Pipeline would carry Canadian tar sand oil 875 miles from Morgan, Montana to Steele City, Nebraska.

Built by TransCanada, it would allow the company to move its raw product from tar sand extraction sites in Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas.

Tar sand oil is the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet

Tar sand oil does not sit in a cavern underground, waiting for someone to stick a long straw in and suck it up. Instead, the oil is mixed up with the dirt in Alberta's boreal forest (underneath a bunch of trees) which makes extracting it very difficult.

Mining trucks carry loads of oil laden sand at the Albian Sands oils sands project in Ft. McMurray, Alberta, Canada.AP Photo/Jeff McIntosh

There are two main methods for getting it.

First, there's mining. This covers all the oil sitting in sand near the surface Alberta's oil companies strip away the local forest then dig the sand out of the ground. But the clumpy, sandy mixture would constipate an 875-mile pipeline, so the companies mix it with water diverted from the Athabasca river. Each barrel of bitumen (that's the technical term for the tar sand) gets soaked in 2.4 barrels of water.

Once it's used in mining, much of that water is too poisonous to return to the river, so adds up to billions of gallons of waste. The contaminated liquid ends up sitting in "tailing ponds," where it leaks into the local environment and increases the rate of cancer among people who live nearby.
A second method, billed as greener by the Canadian government and oil interests, is "in-situ" extraction.

In situ extraction actually refers to any method that pulls up bitumen without digging up the earth around it. But the only approach currently in use is Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). SAGD drilling lets oil extractors get at the 80% of the bitumen that's too deep to mine. They pump steam underground through long pipes, which separates bitumen from its surrounding soil. Then they are able to suck it up to the surface through a deep well. Right now, the SAGD method accounts for 53% of production, according to the Canadian government.
SAGD extraction carves up less of the surface than mining, but it comes with its own problems. The biggest is greenhouse gas emissions; All that steam has to be heated, and oil companies do so by burning natural gas. That's burning one fossil fuel to access another.

Meanwhile, the Athabasca River only has so much water to offer, and there's a real threat that the oil sand mines will overuse it without monitoring.

The larger issue for environmentalists? SAGD opens up far more bitumen to extraction than even mining, meaning more carbon-emitting fossil fuel in the pipeline.

The climate risk is severe

This June 25, 2008 photo shows an aerial view of Alberta's Athabasca river running through the oil sands developments in Canada. Residents of Fort Chipewyan, 170 miles downstream of the projects, are worried that toxins from the ponds seep into the river and drift into their drinking water.AP Photo/Eamon Mac Mahon

The biggest problem with tar sand is also the reason people who make money from the fossil fuel industry love it: There's a lot it.

If companies extract all the oil that today's technology allows them to, burning it would add 22 billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere. If technology improves to the point where companies can extract every drop of oil bound up in bitumen, that total would increase to 240 billion. The Alberta tar sand project alone could lead to a global temperature increase of 0.4 degrees Celsius.


Tar sand spills are harder to clean up

Oil pipeline spills are bad, and they happen all the time. They poison drinking water, pollute farmland (which in turn kills farming jobs), and wreck local environments.
But tar sand pipeline spills are worse.

To pump tar sand crude along a pipeline, extractors mix in natural gas liquids to act as a kind of crude laxative.

In 2010, that bitumen-natural gas mixture spilled from a Canadian-owned pipeline into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The liquefied natural gas turned to gas and blew through nearby neighborhood, forcing residents to evacuate. The bitumen sank to the bottom of the river, poisoning 40 miles of water and 4,435 acres of coastline. Five years and $1.2 billion later, it still hadn't been cleaned up.

Even if everything goes as planned, there will still be environmental impacts

Tar sand extraction and refinement is a dirty process, even when there are no spills. In addition to the poisonous water sitting in Alberta, the refinement process produces a black dusty substance called "petcoke." That petcoke piles up in places like Southeast Chicago, waiting to be burned as a cheaper, less efficient coal substitute. And on windy days, those piles get blown around, coating anything nearby in black dust.

If the Keystone XL Pipeline does get built, it will fall to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect Americans from all of these risks. At the moment, however, the EPA isn't issuing any new grants or contracts, and is not responding to inquiries from the press.
Update Wednesday, January 25, 2017, 11:10 am: This article has been updated to include information on SAGD.

SEE ALSO: The EPA, which protects Americans from poison and pollution, has been frozen under Trump

​http://www.businessinsider.com/keystone-xl-pipeline-tar-sand-dirtiest-fossil-fuel-danger-2017-1?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=aol

Very disappointing move - who the hell wants that stuff running thru our lands? Short term employment to build the pipeline? Paleeze give us a break - speaking of "break", wait until a pipeline breaks and destroys our lands, our water supply. Then try and chase down all these big companies to clean up, pay for damage and lives. 20 years the Exxon Valdez spill was in litigation, still oil in Alaska from the spill. It is absolutely disgusting GREED FOR THE PROFITEERS and stock holders in which trump and many in congress are - so they are counting their dollars already. Wait until Americans are hit with EMINENT DOMAIN taking of their lands or loss of value as a pipeline is next door.

The Boreal forest is integral to the planet's health and more and more forest areas are being removed for industry around the globe. The creatures numbers are being diminished, forced into extinction, as they have no clean habitat. How extraordinarily selfish to eliminate species especially for greedy profiteers' coffers. Develop, expand new modern technolocy instead of clinging to yesterday.

The below article is from 2014 - so only more damage has occurred since then but the article explains "forests" and how important, unique the Boreal Forest is and what they are doiing to it and us all actually if they re going to run that crap thru our country and give them more reason to dig for more.

Tar Sands Threaten World’s Largest Boreal Forest

by Rachael Petersen, Nigel Sizer and Peter Lee - July 15, 2014






Canada’s boreal forests feature mountain ranges; forested plains, bogs, and peatlands; coniferous and mixed forests; and millions of waterways. Photo credit: Ken Owen, Flickr Peter Lee is the Executive Director of Global Forest Watch Canada, an independent organization that monitors the state of Canada’s forests and provides information on development activity and the resulting environmental impacts.
This is the first installment of WRI’s blog series, Zooming In. The series uses the Global Forest Watch platform to explore challenges and opportunities in forests throughout the world. This post examines how the boom in tar sands development is impacting Canada’s boreal forest.

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Canada’s boreal forest is one of Earth’s major ecological treasures.


Yet the region’s forests are under threat from logging, hydrodams and mining. Satellite data reveals a major new threat to Canada’s boreal forests—tar sands development.


According to data from Global Forest Watch, an online mapping platform that tracks tree cover loss and gain in near-real time, industrial development and forest fires in Canada’s tar sands region has cleared or degraded 775,500 hectares (almost two million acres) of boreal forest since the year 2000 (Map A). That’s an area more than six times the size of New York City. If the tar sands extraction boom continues, as many predict, we can expect forest loss to increase.
MAP A: Tree cover loss of 775,500 hectares in Canada’s Tar Sands region 2000-2012 ">MAP A: Tree cover loss of 775,500 hectares in Canada’s Tar Sands region 2000-2012

Mapping World’s Largest Boreal Forest

Only recently have we begun to understand how important boreal forests are to Canada — and to the world. WRI and partners — including Global Forest Watch Canada — began researching forest cover change in the boreal region in the late 1990s. We examined more than 1,000 satellite images of the forested area, mapping every road, oil and gas well site, mine, farm, and other operations. We found that Canada houses the world’s largest ecologically intact boreal forest, with 54 percent of world’s total. The region stretches more than 500 million hectares (1.24 billion acres) roughly 14 times the size of California.


Canada’s boreal forests are also incredibly diverse, featuring mountain ranges; forested plains, bogs, and peatlands; coniferous and mixed forests; and millions of waterways. They support wildlife ranging from gray wolves to black bears to the endangered woodland caribou. They are also home and vital sources of livelihoods and culture for hundreds of First Nations communities, such as the Cree Nation. And because boreal forests capture and store twice as much carbon dioxide as tropical forests, the area plays a critical, global role in curbing climate change.
A Region Under Threat

According to Global Forest Watch data, from 2000-2013, Canada lost more than 26 million hectares of forest, mainly in its boreal region. More than 20 percent of the boreal forest region (more than 150 million hectares) is now covered by industrial concessions for timber operations, hydrocarbon development, hydroelectric power reservoirs, and mineral extraction (Map B).
MAP B: Industrial Concessions Cover 150 million hectares of Canada’s Boreal Forest ">MAP B: Industrial Concessions Cover 150 million hectares of Canada’s Boreal Forest

Forest loss is particularly high in the Alberta tar sands region, an area covering about 14 million hectares. Between 2000 and 2012, forest loss in the tar sands region—which is caused by bitumen (oil) extraction as well as logging and other industrial development—amounted to 5.5 percent of total land area, surpassing loss in Russia (2.2 percent), the United States (2.9 percent), Brazil (4.3 percent) and Canada as a whole (3.1 percent). And in the surface mineable area of the tar sands region – a 475,000 hectare area within the tar sands region where developers clear all vegetation from the land in order to extract bitumen— forest loss reached 20 percent (Map C).
MAP C: Tree cover loss of 20 percent in tar sands surface mineable area, 2000-2012 ">MAP C: Tree cover loss of 20 percent in tar sands surface mineable area, 2000-2012

And it’s not just forests that suffer from surface mining. For example, studies indicate that woodland caribou avoid areas within 500 meters of industrial disturbances, and will not cross cleared areas as forest is fragmented, making the ecological footprint of tar sands disturbances much larger than the physical footprint. More than 12.5 million hectares of this region have experienced habitat disruption due mainly to tar sands development.
Eyes in the Sky for Boreal Forests

Many predict that Canada’s tar sands development will continue to accelerate. Direct forest loss caused by surface and sub-surface tar sands development is projected to exceed 1,150,000 hectares over the next few decades. Studies show that disrupted habitat for endangered species will be at least 10 times that amount.


But there is hope: Global Forest Watch provides a whole new level of transparency for Canada’s boreal forests. We can produce maps of where companies are operating throughout the boreal region. Regularly updated satellite imagery at medium and fine resolutions allows us to see how forests are changing, spot where forest loss is occurring, and identify potential culprits. This data provides a consistent basis on which to quantify threats to the boreal ecosystem.
In short, NGOs and other forest stakeholders can use tools like GFW to assess what’s going on in the boreal forest, hold companies and government agencies accountable, and encourage the government and other decision-makers to enact better forest protections.
It’s too late to prevent the damage that’s already been done to Canada’s boreal forest. But with “eyes in the sky,” we may be better able to help protect and properly manage this critical ecosystem for future generations.


http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/07/tar-...-boreal-forest

You and I are in agreeance on this future blight of America, artist. All pipelines eventually leak. Some leaks can actually go undetected for long periods of time. When you weigh the potential loss to gain, we're (American people) the overall losers in this deal.

The Canadians should require reclamation of the tar sands after the oil has been extracted and replant the vegetation. When I worked for a chemical company and we mined out ore, we reclaimed the land and usually sold the surface rights to a timber usage company who would replant and regrow the forests to restore the habitat. Involving a timber usage company ensures it's done right and grows the best forests. Then the timber is theirs, in 20 to 30 years, they'll cut the trees, sell them or make products from them and replant, and the whole process starts over again. I'm surprised the Canadians aren't doing that. Maybe they are and just haven't gotten to it yet because the oil extraction is still on-going.

If anyone from Canada is on the forum, call your government Monday and tell them to reclaim the oil lands and replant the trees like we do down here in America.

And no, no government agency made our company do it, we did it because it was the right thing to do and we made money selling the land to the timber users.

Originally Posted by Judy

The Canadians should require reclamation of the tar sands after the oil has been extracted and replant the vegetation. When I worked for a chemical company and we mined out ore, we reclaimed the land and usually sold the surface rights to a timber usage company who would replant and regrow the forests to restore the habitat. Involving a timber usage company ensures it's done right and grows the best forests. Then the timber is theirs, in 20 to 30 years, they'll cut the trees, sell them or make products from them and replant, and the whole process starts over again. I'm surprised the Canadians aren't doing that. Maybe they are and just haven't gotten to it yet because the oil extraction is still on-going.

If anyone from Canada is on the forum, call your government Monday and tell them to reclaim the oil lands and replant the trees like we do down here in America.

And no, no government agency made our company do it, we did it because it was the right thing to do and we made money selling the land to the timber users.

Sort of hard to replant and regrow in this:

That's strip coal mining. But yes, that can be reclaimed as well. It just takes knowledge and expertise like everything else.

How to Reclaim Land Damaged by Coal Mining
By Cassie Rodenberg
May 5, 2010

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that it will put more stringent restrictions on mountaintop-removal coal mining, capping the allowed salinity levels and metal and mineral content of waterways near mines. While the main environmental concern of mountaintop mining has been the aftereffects on the watershed and downstream runoff, there is a consequence that is often ignored: restoring mined lands left vulnerable to landslides, floods and growth dead zones. To bring back stable forests and traditional ecosystems that are safe for surrounding land and homes, scientists, environmental groups and coal companies are using software tools and simple gardening techniques that best fit a geographic region's troubled landscape.

During strip mining, one type of surface mining, workers remove the layer of topsoil along with excess soil and rock that overlies caches of minerals near the surface. Once workers finish mining, they usually lay down nutrient-poor soil, called overburden, instead of nutrient-rich topsoil that is more difficult to store during the lengthy mining process, according to Chris Barton of the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative. The overburden soil is also highly acidic, at a pH of 2 or 3, and so doesn't support many trees, bushes or other flora. Furthermore, dumping loose topsoil onto mountainous areas, such as in Appalachia, can cause landslides, and uncompacted soil can run off and clog waterways, setting the stage for flash floods.

To offset such difficulties, those involved in reclamation have a number of tricks in their arsenal. In Appalachia's steep, rugged terrain, crews pack down soil tightly, grating unstable land while leaving the 6 to 8 feet of earth closest to the surface loose, similar to planting a garden bed. This achieves a stable landscape without impeding forest succession: If workers pack the surface too tight, the lack of aeration further limits growth.

West of Appalachia, reclamation workers lay down topsoil in accordance with software that analyzes local geography, simulating pre-mining land contours. The software is able to generate specific hydrological runoff patterns for researchers to thread moisture paths in the region's dry-soil landscapes, as they would exist naturally before mining, says Henry Austin, a physical scientist and technology coordinator of the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation. Since most mines were built on flat grazing lands and not upon commercial forest lands, he says, reclaimers don't have to place as great an emphasis on achieving stability as they would on greatly sloped terrain.

"Our ultimate goal is to establish communities favorable for domestic grazing and wildlife. Our biggest challenge is re-establishing diverse vegetation," Austin says.

To find out how to more quickly develop stable lands with diverse vegetation, scientists test a number of different types of soil, such as sandstone and shale. They loosely lay the dirt down in different test areas, then plant trees and analyze their growth. In one instance, the team found that brown sandstone supports 65 native plant species in the Appalachian area, whereas grey sandstone supports seven. Once scientists learn which soil seems most conducive to natural species growth in which area, they team with coal companies to spread the newly approved topsoil layer. Several published studies show the initiative's success in restoring mine plots over the last 10 years across Appalachia, though research is continually conducted to optimize reclamation.

The results from their fieldwork show that coal mining doesn't spell permanent ruin of a landscape, Barton and Austin say. Barton and his team estimate that since 2005, 60 million trees have been planted and are thriving on a previously mined lands, a much more rapid recovery for coal-abused lands than had been expected. Though the forests haven't reached their full growth potential yet, some trees are already 30 feet tall after 10 years, similar to those growing in unmined forests.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...e-reclamation/

Originally Posted by MW

You and I are in agreeance on this future blight of America, artist. All pipelines eventually leak. Some leaks can actually go undetected for long periods of time. When you weigh the potential loss to gain, we're (American people) the overall losers in this deal.

What happens if the United States does not build the pipeline? Will the oil still be collected and transported? If so how? As I understand the issue, a pipeline is the safest way to transport oil, especially with newly developed safeguards which immediately detect significant leaks and shut the pipeline down. And who will be using the oil? It seems to me the extraction of the oil will happen, whether or not we like it. And who will do the refining?


Please note these questions are not an indication that I support the pipeline. At this time I have no opinion based upon facts.


JWK

We should not be encouraging further tar sands destruction in Canada. The truth is as I stated - it is all for the rich to become richer at our expense.

Let us MOVE ON into this 21st century and EXPAND CLEAN TECHNOLOGIES. The SUN RISES AND SETS every 24hrs, let's use that tremendous energy power. The WINDS HOWL, use that too.

Those that refuse to see that this is all to make the richer richer are allowing themselves to be fooled.

What should be released is how much land will be taken or value lessened from our citizens with eminent domain/nearby pipelines. How many creatures will be delisted so that their habitat can be open for business? Steve Bannon is quoted as saying "If I can't eat if, what good is it" or something to that effect. How extraordinarily selfish!

You can expect fracking in even more places. If you look at a map of Pennsylvania, red dots everywhere representing fracking wells, some compressor stations too. They actually want to frack in the Delaware River watershed - the main water source for millions. They are a reckless industry and need regulations!

There are countless reports of the health dangers to those near or downstream of wells. Out in the middle of what once was pristine streams and forests areas, they dump that wastewater anywhere, along the roads, evaporate with football field leaking ponds into our ground. DEP inspectors where ordered not to go near the fracking areas. Isn't there something horribly WRONG with that!

WELLS - 50% of cement casings have FAILED globally so far - THEY ALL WILL FAIL EVENTUALLY and our aquifers inundated with cancerous chemicals - the frackers will be done with that well and have no obligation to restore anything, in fact they can't, the damage already done by allowing their methods to expand and continue. There will be many more "races for the cures"down the road as cancers will only rise and the sufferings continue.

Big gas and oil have done everything they could to suppress the progress of new energy forms till they make their billions destroying our health and environment with what they have set up so far. They will come up with something years down the road after they make sure they and no one else has the rights to it ensuring their more billions in profits.

"Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense."
-- Ronald Reagan

"No man may poison the people for his private profit."
—Theodore Roosevelt

"The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of our planet."
President John F. Kennedy

“When a man must be afraid to drink freely from his country's river and streams that country is no longer fit to live in. ”― Edward Abbey

Government investigation provides damning picture of the Kalamazoo tar sands spill

July 10, 2012 Anthony Swift

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) heard the major findings of its two year investigation of the Enbridge tar sands pipeline spill, which released over a million gallons of corrosive tar sands into the Kalamazoo River watershed in July 2010. The Kalamazoo spill has clearly demonstrated how dirty and dangerous tar sands pipelines are, even more dangerous than conventional oil pipelines. Nearly two years after what has become the most expensive pipeline disaster in U.S. history, emergency responders are still struggling to clean up the Kalamazoo River. The government's investigation raises serious questions about whether corrosive tar sands can be safely moved on the U.S. pipeline system, especially when they cross farms and waters in the U.S. heartland as the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would do. In particular, the NTSB provides a damning picture of Enbridge’s pipeline safety measures. As one NTSB board member put it, this investigation did not only show corrosion of Enbridge’s tar sands pipeline, but also demonstrates systemic corrosion of Enbridge’s pipeline safety program.

"Delegating too much authority to the regulated is tantamount to letting the fox guard the hen house." Deborah Hersman, Chair of NTSB

NTSB’s report shows in glaring detail that the $807 million tar sands spill was the result of Enbridge taking advantage of weak pipeline safety regulations and poor oversight by federal pipeline safety regulators at the Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Materials Administration (PHMSA). Enbridge failed to identify multiple risks to pipeline safety, failed to properly identify the spill, and lacked the resources or planning to mitigate the spill. NTSB staff found that the Kalamazoo spill could and should have addressed the causes of the Kalamazoo spill proactively.
NTSB made several major findings:

• The cause of the rupture of Enbridge’s Line 6B pipeline was caused by the interaction of stress cracking and corrosion.
• Enbridge had been aware of both the corrosion and cracking on line 6B for five year, but the Canadian tar sands company failed to consider how the combination of corrosion and cracking would interact to lead to a pipeline rupture.
• Enbridge continued to operate the pipeline for 17 hours after the spill despite warnings from the leak detection system. The operator took no steps to investigate the potential leak, did not respond to 911 calls reporting the smell of oil, and only shutdown the pipeline after third-parties located the spill.
• Enbridge’s spill response plan was grossly inadequate for addressing a spill of this magnitude. The company’s closest responder was 10 hours away. Only a small trailer of equipment had been prepositioned to respond to a spill.
• Federal pipeline regulators at PHMSA permitted the series of mistakes by a combination of ambiguous regulations and poor pipeline safety oversight.

Perhaps of greatest concern is the causes of the Kalamazoo tar sands spill point to a systemic lack of a culture of safety in the pipeline industry and a failure of safety oversight by regulators at PHMSA. NTSB’s findings highlight the urgency to address the general failures in the nation’s pipeline safety system and to proactively address the risks of tar sands pipelines.
While NTSB did not specifically address ways in which the unique risks of tar sands contributed to the spill and the severity of its impact, the panel presented several conclusions which implicated tar sands:

• The pipeline’s failure was in part due external corrosion which combined with stress corrosion cracking, led to a pipeline failure. We’ve discussed for some time how the higher temperatures of tar sands can speed corrosion while pressure variations that can occur in viscous, or thick, tar sands can contribute to cyclic pipeline stress.
• Enbridge’s failure to identify the spill was in a large part due to a leak detection system prone to false alarms. We have discussed in some detail that more viscous, or thicker, tar sands leads to far more “noise” for pipeline leak detection systems which may trigger false alarms – meaning that a real spill is not identified.
• Enbridge was not prepared for a spill involving oil which did not float on the top of a river body. As we've seen, a large percentage of tar sands diluted bitumen sinks in waterbodies soon after a spill. The company not only lacked sufficient quantities of spill response equipment, but they had the wrong type of spill response equipment which only contained oil floating on the water's surface. PHMSA’s oversight in this area was found to be extremely lacking. The NTSB found that federal regulators are not taking their obligation to approve spill response plans seriously. This may explain why PHMSA has excluded the question of how to respond to tar sands spills from the scope of their study on the safety of tar sands pipelines. Without specific knowledge of how tar sands behaves when spilled, it will be impossible to correct the deficiencies in spill response planning which increased the cost and damage of the Kalamazoo tar sands spill.

NTSB made 19 recommendations for DOT, PHMSA, Enrbidge and spill responders. As the agency concluded, pipeline safety should be more than a slogan. The Kalamazoo tar sands spill was the result of multiple mistakes made by Enbridge but federal regulators are also culpable. Both federal regulators and the pipeline industry have too often treated this issue as a public relations issue prior to spills and disaster management afterward. There is a better way - one that requires strong, clearly outlined regulations and a pipeline safety agency focused on preventing spills rather than responding to them.

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anthony...ar-sands-spill

Originally Posted by artist

We should not be encouraging further tar sands destruction in Canada. The truth is as I stated - it is all for the rich to become richer at our expense.

......

And how do you respond to the questions I posted?

Just looking for some answers.


JWK

Originally Posted by johnwk

What happens if the United States does not build the pipeline? Will the oil still be collected and transported? If so how? . . .

Canadian oil rides south even without Keystone pipeline - CNBC.com

www.cnbc.com/2013/.../canadian-oil-rides-south-even-without-keystone-pipeline.htm...
Nov 4, 2013 - Analysts say oil sands production has been slowed by the lack of transport but rail is helping to change that. "The pipelines that are out there ...

Canadian oil trains to US to reach "staggering" levels | National ...
www.nationalobserver.com/2015/11/.../canadian-oil-trains-us-reach-staggering-levels
Nov 12, 2015 - Oil trains — loaded with explosive Canadian and Bakken fuels — are ... "sole driver" of new growth in Alberta's oil sands exports, says the Sightline study. ... Even with this slower pace, additional transportation capacity will be ...