The efficiency of pipe lines has long been known. Read below for reenforcement:

KEYSTONE PIPELINE VS TRAIN VS SHIPS TO MOVE OIL

Some Canadian engineer spent serious time putting some numbers together:

1 Train has 100 cars, 2 engines and weighs 27,240,000 LBS.
1 Train carries 3,000,000 gallons of oil.
1 Train uses 55.5 gallons of diesel per mile. Thus it takes 119,000 gallons of diesel to go 2150 miles from Hardidsy, Alberta to Freeport, TX.

Keystone pipeline was to deliver 34,860,000 gallons of oil per day or 12.724 trillion gallons per year.

It would take 12 trains using 1,428,000 gallons of diesel per day to deliver that amount. That’s 521,220,000 gallons of diesel per year to power the trains. Refining a gallon of oil generally yields several valuable distillates with diesel being about 29% yield. So to move those trains you need to distill 1.824 trillion gallons of oil. That’s more than 14% of the oil moved.

The oil will still go to market with or without the pipeline. By stopping the pipeline billions of gallons of diesel will be wasted and pollute needlessly. Does that make you feel good? It makes Warren Buffet ,whose Berkshire Hathaway owns large rail holdings in the oil transport business, quite happy.

But wait! We can indenture ourselves to the Middle East again and ship in their product.

1 large oil tanker can haul 120,000,000 gallons of oil
1 boat takes 15 days to float across the Atlantic.
1 boat uses 63,000 gallons of fuel PER DAY, that is about 1 million gallons of the most polluting type fuel in the world PER TRIP.*(See below)

Or take 3.5 days of Keystone Pipeline to move the same amount of oil with a fraction of the pollution.

*In international waters ship emissions remains one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system. The fuel used in ships is waste oil, basically what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It is the same as asphalt and is so thick that when cold it can be walked upon . It's the cheapest and most polluting fuel available and the world's 90,000 ships chew through an astonishing 7.29 million barrels of it each day, or more than 84% of all exported oil production from Saudi Arabia.

Shipping is by far the biggest transport polluter in the world. There are 760 million cars in the world today emitting approx 78,599 tons of Sulphur Oxides (SOx) annually (That’s the prime ingredient of London Smog...LA smog is a different critter.) The world's 90,000 vessels burn approx 370 million tons of fuel per year emitting 20 million tons of Sulphur Oxides. That equates to 260 times more Sulphur Oxides being emitted by ships than the world's entire car fleet. One large ship alone can generate approx 5,200 tonnes of sulphur oxide pollution in a year, meaning that 15 of the largest ships now emit as much SOx as the world’s 760 million cars.

I’m betting there is not a ”Green Champion” in the world that understands this discussion. And, if they did, they would cover it up immediately.

Thanks for posting.

The green idiots understand just as little of this as they do about their coal burning electric cars. Throw some real figures at them and they end up in a temper tantrum and call you a racist as that is all they have these days.

so what form of power do they use to pump the oil thru the pipeline?Or is it all downhill,lol.

doesn't really matter whether it is coal, diesel, or any other source -- the pipeline is much more efficient. It will all be converted to electricity to run the pumps.

Mostly electric pumps.....

Much of the green movement is a scam, ie: own a company that dumps CO2 into the atmosphere, purchase carbon off sets from large timberland owners, ( mostly Insurance Companies) by paying them not to harvest timber, and now you are free to emit all the CO2 you can.

Must be downhill, I keep hearing your comments and you know what flows downhill.

My thoughts exactly on the article.

James hasn't done that yet, but I'm waiting.

Compressed NG looks a bit like this , did some work on a pipeline here.

We need the Keystone pipeline and we especially need the pipeline in Eastern NC that was approved to bring natural gas from West Virginia. Our Governor, who is from Eastern NC stopped ours. No natural gas means no new industry where is is sorely needed.

A nat gas pipeline has booster pumps that run on nat gas. Nothing else required and they are not loud, large, or unsightly.

I don't know where people come up with some of these numbers. There is no doubt pipelines are more efficient. Trains are more than 100 cars and 1 locomotive use 2 gals. of fuel per mile NOT 55.5.

I agree with you, hornytoad.

Google says 1.5 gallons per mile for a train.

Seems to me there would be a lot of variation depending on how many engines are being used, how many cars/how much weight they are pulling and the terrain. These engines use a lot more fuel going up hill. Could be anywhere from 1.5 gallons per engine to 10 times that much on some stretches of railway.

A friend of mine is a security guard at a pumping station of the new pipeline in Minnesota. Sits in a truck watching it for 12 hours a day.

Some environmentalists found a blind spot on one of the pumping stations and brought two ladders, a blanket and two battery powered reciprocal saws at night. They put up one ladder, put the blanket over the top of the fence, lowered the other ladder and then climbed in. They cut all the hydraulic hoses with the saws. Hydraulic fuel ran all over the ground and down into a creek.

That's a long ways from 55.5 gallons per mile. I was getting my fuel mileage from what I know after 20+ years of running freight trains.

Cool, hornytoad. Did your job pay decently?