The Dakota Access Pipeline causes irreversible damage to the environment. The North Dakota Pipeline will be placed under Lake Oahe and if the pipeline spills it would contaminate Standing Rocks water supply. The pipeline is 1,172 miles long and it will transport approximately 470,00 barrels of oil per day. If anything were to happen to the pipeline, it will affect the water supply. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has reported more than 3,300 incidents of leaks ruptures at oil and gas pipeline since 2010 (Worland). On December 5, a spill occurred 150 miles from Cannon Ball, North Dakota. State officials estimate 4,200 barrels of crude oil have leaked from the Belle Fourche Pipeline in Billings County. The …show more content…
The total lifecycle emissions from producing, transporting, processing and burning the products derived from the oil would amount to 101.4 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. This is equivalent to 29.5 U.S. coal plants and the average emissions of 21.4 million U.S. passenger vehicles. Climate activist across the country are striving to block the further extraction of fossil fuels so as to prevent further carbon emissions …show more content…
The pipeline was designed with tremendous safety factors and state of the art construction techniques (¨Safe and Efficient¨). However, on April 4, 2017, the Dakota Access Pipeline leaked 84 gallons of crude oil, the equivalence of two barrels of oil, at a pump station in South Dakota one hundred miles east of Lake Oahe. Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault said, “This is what we have said all along: oil pipelines leak and spill.” After the spill was reported, recovered oil was put back into the system. Any gravel or soil that had oil was cleaned and disposed of. An Energy Transfer spokeswoman, Vicki Granado, said the spill occurred in a contained area, so there was no impact on the wider area. The company behind the construction of the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, received approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in early February after months of delays. It is currently line filling and will be in service on June 1, 2017 (Spilled
The Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline are two pipeline projects that were suspended in the past. These pipelines were stopped because they could have a big impact on people and the environment. The making of these pipelines would cause a great amount of carbon pollution. Recently, President Trump signed the order to approve the pipeline project. The projects have pros and cons, the people in favor of the pipelines think we would be able to rely less on foreign oil.
Stansbury, John. “Analysis of Frequency, Magnitude and Consequence of Worst-Case Spills From the Proposed Keystone XL Pipeline”. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Water Center. Web. 10 December 2015.
Also what safety nets do we have in place in case of environmental catastrophe. The only real way to look at how safe it is is to examine the Trans Mountain pipelines history. The pipeline has been in use for 51 years and in that 51 years there has been 78 spills, (Trans Mountain.com 2013) most of these
The Keystone XL Pipeline is a proposed pipeline project, by TransCanada Pipelines Limited, involving the transportation of up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico area in Texas. “The United States portion of the pipeline would begin near Morgan, Montana, at the international border of the United States and extend to delivery points in Nederland and Moore Junction, Texas. There would also be a delivery point at Cushing, Oklahoma” (Environmental 5). The delivery points would grant access to multiple other pipelines and refineries located all around the United States. “The Keystone XL pipeline would consist of approximately 1,711 miles of new 36-inch-diameter pipeline, with approximately 327 miles of pipeline
"In terms of the production outlook for the oil sands over the next 10 years, it doesn't seem like that extra capacity is actually needed. " Nothing is going to happen right away or very soon. So, in the instance that the pipeline doesn’t work, the other companies will still be running. This means both things will still be used. This will cause competition for attention and/or tasks between the pipeline and existing companies.
This paper will discuss the effects of Keystone XL Pipeline project and how the findings of the research might be beneficial to the United States. The first point of argument will be the negative impact of the Keystone Pipeline to America’s economy and the environment. The second point of view will be the positive impact of Keystone Pipeline to America’s economy. Keystone XL Pipeline is TransCanada’s tar-sand transportation project. The pipeline is supposed to cut across America to be linked with Canada’s tar-sand mines. It is aimed at increasing energy security in America. However, the project has received a lot of criticism from both the citizens and environmentalists for climate reasons (Mendelsohn and Dinar 154). To understand the implications of Keystone XL Pipeline, it is important to look at its environmental and economic impacts to the United States.
The Keystone XL pipeline continues dividing the opinion of the people and being a controversial issue. The precious “black gold”, represents one of the main factors that moves the economy, nationally and globally. This extra-long pipeline will transport oil all the way from Canada to Texas. Some experts and the private oil corporation, who is the one in charge of this project, point to the benefits of this project, for example, will make the USA more independent from foreign oil, will create thousands of jobs and improve the economy. Nevertheless, are experts revealing how the pipeline is an unnecessary risk and will be negative for the environment, dangerous for the population living close to the big pipes, and long-term negative for the
The Keystone Pipeline started construction in 2008 for the main purpose of connecting Canadian and American oil refineries to transport crude oil from the oil sands of Canada faster and more efficient. So far the first three phases of the pipeline have been completed but the proposed and most controversial is Phase IV. It connects Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City, Oklahoma which requires a presidential permit and it also connects the 485-mile southern leg known as the Gulf Coast Project between Steele City and Port Arthur, Texas, which is now operating (Eilperin). The benefits of the pipeline include an increase in jobs, contribute $3.4 billion to the U.S economy and also save time and money from transporting the oil by pipeline instead of tanks and rails. At the same time it would be a great harm to the environment, making the climate unstable, and could cause possible future oil spills. The articles covering the Keystone Pipeline generally list out the same points, covering the same benefits and consequences of building the pipeline. Sources like Fox News and CNS have more of an opposition towards the pipeline and narrow in on the risks and of the effects it would have on the people. Whereas news stations such as CNN and The Washington Post address both sides of the controversy but are subtle about being in favor of the pipeline. The international sources such as Al Jazeera and Reuters oppose the pipeline and are more open with supporting the environmentalists.
The pipeline carries three different kinds of oil which are synthetic crude and diluted bitumen, and also a light crude oil. The light crude oil comes from the Bakken formation located in North Dakota and Montana while the synthetic crude and diluted bitumen come from the oil sands in Canada. There are already three phases of the pipeline in operation and a fourth proposed phase which has yet to be built.
Fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, are Carbon rich compounds, the combustion of which produces Carbon Dioxide, a pollutant and a greenhouse gas. A large amount of energy is released during this process, which is why the pollutants off products are tolerated. This process occurs constantly throughout the world, in power stations, vehicles and cooking ovens, leading to an immense volume of CO2 being released every second, 50% of which is absorbed by oceans (Oce...
Before researching this topic I had not known what the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP) was about or where it was located. The pipeline is not directly being built on the Standing Rock Reservation; however, it will be located on the Missouri river that borders the reservation. The Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) approved the DAP and so the disapproval from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) didn’t stop The Corps from building the pipeline. This is why the topic has become a major controversy for those who favor and do not favor the building of the DAP. Researching the DAP it explains various pros and cons, here are a few of those facts from both sides of the issue.
First lets start with the basics. What is the Keystone Pipeline? The Keystone Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, commissioned since 2010. It runs from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta to refineries in Illinois and Texas, and also to oil tank farms and oil pipeline distribution center in Cushing, Oklahoma. Under the forest in northern Alberta, Canada lie the world’s largest deposits of tar sands, sand mixed with thick, tar-like oil. “To produce one barrel of heavy crude oil from tar sands requires strip mining the forest, extracting four tons of earth, contaminating two to four barrels of fresh water, burning large amounts of natural gas, and creating vast holding ponds of toxic sludge.
A little back ground about the Keystone XL Pipeline. TransCanada located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada is proposing to build the Keystone XL Pipeline to carry primarily oil extracted from tar sands. The pipeline is a 36” wide and will be approximately 1,661 miles in length (Palliser 8). The proposed pipeline “will run from Hardisty, Alberta, to Nederland, Texas, and traverse Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas” (Palliser 8). The Keystone XL pipeline will carry up to 900,000 barrels a day of synthetic crude oil or diluted bitumen (Palliser 8).
Dakota Access Pipeline - 1,172 mile underground oil pipeline that begins in the Bakken shale oil fields in North Dakota and ends at an oil tank farm in Patoka, IL.
The burning of fossil fuels has greatly harmed our environment and is a leading cause as to why climate change has become such a threat to our way of living. In May of 2013, the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million, an increase of more than 40 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This could cause the Arctic Ocean to be nearly ice-free during the summer by 2020(Overland and Wang, 2013).