Environmentalists Release Impact Statement for the Keystone XL

Updates

February 28, 2011: Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) has responded to the "Tar Sands Pipeline Safety Risks" discussed below. As expected, the response has data to question the conclusions drawn by the National Resources Defense Council, et al. But then, I doubt science has much to do with this.

Original Post

A few weeks ago I posted links to articles suggesting that Texas refiners and environmentalists have joined together to stop construction of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline.

We now see "tangible" evidence of how opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline will proceed.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, Pipeline Safety Trust, National Wildlife Federation, and Sierra Club, issued a report ‘Tar Sands Pipeline Safety Risks’ highlighting what the organizations call an increased risk of pipeline spills due to the elevated corrosivity of oil sands crude.

The report describes how oil sands crude differs in chemical composition from other petroleum and the difficulty that this poses both in transportation and in cleanup when spills occur. 

The article goes on to describe why heavy sands oil is more corrosive; to report that refiners are finding quartz sand particles in the oil; and, to state that the Canadian system has had more problems than the US pipeline system.

The crude pipeline system in Alberta, which is newer but carries more tar sands oil than that in the US, has experienced 16 times more safety incidences due to internal corrosion than the US system, which the report describes as a strong indicator of the corrosive nature of raw tar sands oil.

Before TransCanada can bring the Keystone XL pipeline into the US, the Secretary of State must sign off on it. Comments in the press suggests she leans toward supporting it, as does President Obama. This report will make it much more difficult, at least in my opinion, and will certainly result in delays.