There are reports that the federal government is thinking about allowing the export of American oil again. The U.S. used to be a large oil exporter, decades ago, but that stopped in 1973 as crude production on domestic soil reached a peak and an Arab oil embargo threatened our economy. But then came fracking, which has been a game changer for producing oil and natural gas, from Pennsylvania to...
The safest place for oil is still in the ground
There’s been a lot of talk recently on environmental websites and in the news media about which is a riskier way to transport oil and natural gas to market: Through pipelines or in rail tanker cars. Of course, that’s something of a trick question because the real answer is: Neither. On the pipeline front, there are many reasons to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry tar...
The time to get rid of unsafe oil tanker cars is right now
There’s a crisis going on right now in this country with oil transportation. It’s happening because of the oil-fracking boom in North Dakota, mainly, and also to some extent because of the exploitation of the Canadian tar sands. Fossil fuel production has boomed — but in a region with no pipeline to transport the oil to refineries or for shipment abroad. Since the region is...
Keystone XL setback isn’t end of the fight
I’m not going to write a long post on this because it was just two days ago that pointed out some of the reasons why the massive Keystone XL pipeline — which would take heavy tar sands oil from Canada and ship it across environmentally sensitive American prairie on its way to the Gulf Coast and then to foreign markets — is such a bad idea. The exploitation of the tar sands oil...
Near disaster in Philly highlights an oil-by-rail safety crisis
Philadelphia — the densely populated 5th-largest city in America — dodged a bullet this week…but just barely: IT COULD HAVE been worse – a lot worse. None of the seven CSX cars – six of them loaded with volatile crude oil – that derailed on the 128-year-old rail bridge over the Schuylkill between University City and Grays Ferry about 12:30 a.m. yesterday fell...