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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (887479)	9/13/2015 4:18:38 PM
From: Bonefish	Respond to of 1575551

Get the EPA to build it. They know how to spill stuff.

To: combjelly who wrote (887479)	9/13/2015 4:24:59 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575551

Having oil seep into the aquifer at any point could damage the entire aquifer eventually. It isn't even oil.What is extracted from the sands is bitumen. Which is very thick and heavy. So thick and heavy that it needs to be diluted with something to pipeline it. That something is usually what they call "natural gas condensate". It is long enough chains where it can condense out from natural gas, but just barely. Think lighter fluid. The resulting mixture is called dilbit. This is important because it is much more penetrating than regular crude oil. Now regular crude oil contains lighter fractions too. It is just that it takes a lot more than what is usually in crude oil to get the bitumen to flow. So for a given volume of dilbit, it has, proportionately speaking, more light fractions than a typical crude. Which is a greater danger to the aquifer because that is what is more likely to get there in the first place. Important distinction. Thanks. There are other factors. Despite the diluent, the pipeline is operated at a higher temperature. This accelerates corrosion. And the pipeline is operated at a higher pressure. Which, well... If you have ever seen the result of a dilbit pipeline leak, it can be horrific. The pipeline tends to fail catastrophically. And the stuff is pretty noxious. The fact that there are already pipelines in the area doesn't mean much. They can be problematic. But dilbit is another thing altogether. Calling dilbit 'oil' smacks of propaganda. Because it presents a different class of problems. Hence the projected leaks: She cited University of Nebraska civil engineering professor John Stansbury, who drew on pipelines’ history and TransCanada regulatory filings to predict that during the projected 50-year life span of the pipeline, “there would be 91 leaks .?.?. that could potentially put 6.5 million gallons of tar sands oil in the Ogallala aquifer and essentially contaminate our drinking water.”