Walker Orenstein: Status of Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline→

Minnpost:

“Calgary-based Enbridge is close to building a crude oil pipeline through northern Minnesota’s lake country after its plans received key approval from state energy regulators this year. But despite the green light from the Public Utilities Commission, Enbridge has yet to break ground for its $2.6 billion, 337-mile Minnesota portion of the Line 3 project. That’s because the company still faces several government hurdles and legal challenges to moving the pipeline ahead...

Environmentalists opposed to the route worry a spill could pollute the Mississippi River’s headwaters or other nearby lakes and waterways in the region. The pipeline is also expected to run through some remote territory, increasing concern that it would be difficult to quickly catch and fix a spill.

In an email, Juli Kellner, a spokeswoman for Enbridge, said the final route through Minnesota “reflects years of environmental and cultural studies, plus extensive engagement efforts with Tribes, individual landowners and local communities resulting in more than 50 route changes of the line.””

Another Enbridge Oil Pipeline Of Concern→

Great Lakes Echo

“The Enbridge pipelines beneath the Straits of Mackinac have been in the crosshairs of environmental groups for years. Concerns about the pipelines in the wake of the 2011 Kalamazoo River spill prompted Governor Rick Snyder to create the Michigan Pipeline Safety Advisory Board. This summer, Attorney General Bill Schuette said that the pipelines’ days were numbered.

But some environmentalists are now worried about another pair of pipelines a little farther south.

Two pipelines laid in 1918 currently run underneath the St. Clair River in Southeast Michigan. The Texas based company that owns them applied in 2012 for a permit that allows liquid hydrocarbons including crude oil to flow through the pipelines. The company says it has no intention of shipping crude oil through the pipes, but environmentalists say they want more information.

Current State discusses the concerns of environmentalists with Liz Kirkwood, an attorney with the advocacy group For Love of Water (FLOW).”

Bobby Magill: Alternatives to Keystone XL are Moving Forward→

Quartz:

“There are myriad other projects on the table designed to do exactly what Keystone XL was designed to do: transport Canadian tar sands oil to refineries. Those pipelines, both in the US and Canada, are being designed to move the oily bitumen produced from the tar sands to refineries in Texas and eastern Canada, and to ports on the Pacific Coast where the oil could be shipped to Asia.

Combined, the pipelines would be able to carry more than three million barrels of oil per day, far in excess of the 800,000 barrels per day that TransCanada’s Keystone XL is designed to carry.
Canada is sitting on about 168 billion barrels of crude oil locked up in the Alberta tar sands northeast of Edmonton—a trove of carbon-heavy fossil fuels bested in size only by oil reserves in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Today, the roughly two million barrels of tar sands oil produced each day in Alberta is sent to refineries in the US and Canada via rail or small pipelines, none of which are adequate to carry the 3.8 million barrels of oil per day expected to be produced in the oil sands by 2022.”

Also from Quartz: 

Matt Phillips: The simple GIF that explains a giant shift in the global economy

Bigger than Keystone XL: Enbridge Sandpiper→

 Ron Meador, writing for MinnPost:

“Enbridge will proceed to carry, on average, 880,000 barrels of heavy crude oil per day — and potentially higher volumes of lighter grades — from the tar-sands mines of Alberta to the docks and pipeline interconnections at Superior, Wisconsin.

That’s actually a bit more than the design capacity of 830,000 barrels per day for Keystone XL, which would carry oil from the Alberta tar sands and the Bakken oil patch in North Dakota to refineries mostly in the Gulf Coast region.”

Dave Shaffer, Star Tribune, Enbridge Files to Replace Problem Pipeline in Minnesota:

“Enbridge decided to replace Line 3 rather than repair the 34-inch-diameter pipe because that would require digging in about 900 places where tests revealed problems. The pipeline suffers from corrosion because the protective tape on the steel has not held up, Little said.

The project is expected to face opposition from environmental groups, including climate activists who are fighting pipelines like TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL in western states as a way to slow development of Alberta’s tar sands.

“It traverses some of the most important lake country, aquifers and water resources in Minnesota,” said Richard Smith, president of the Friends of the Headwaters, an environmental group based in Park Rapids that wants the Sandpiper and Line 3 to avoid the headwaters of the Mississippi River. “That is why we have advocated a different route.””

Adding capacity. Walking away from the existing Line 3. Matters are worse.

Straits of Mackinac Oil Pipeline Failure Would be Disastrous→

Keith Matheny, reporting for Detroit Free Press: 

ThiloG: Flickr.com

“A rupture of 61-year-old, underwater oil pipelines running through the Straits of Mackinac would be “the worst possible place” for a spill on the Great Lakes, with catastrophic results, according to a University of Michigan researcher studying potential impacts of a spill.

David Schwab, a research scientist at the U-M Water Center, retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where he studied Great Lakes water flows and dynamics for more than 30 years. He’s the author of a new study done in collaboration with the National Wildlife Federation looking at different scenarios for potential oil spills in the Straits from Canadian oil transport giant Enbridge’s Line 5.

“I can’t think — in my experience — of another place on the Great Lakes where an oil spill would have as wide an area of impact, in as short of time, as at the Straits of Mackinac,” Schwab said.

Line 5 is a set of two oil pipelines that runs from Superior, Wis., through the Upper Peninsula, underwater through the Straits and then down through the Lower Peninsula before connecting to a hub in Sarnia, Ontario. The lines transport about 23 million gallons of oil and other petroleum products, such as natural gas liquids, through the Straits daily.”

Pain, suffering, death I feel would happen. Something terrible may happen. Terrible pain for this Black Swan.