“You have to understand: there are no wounded. They’re all dead.”
Lac Megantic: Hospital eerily quiet after Quebec explosion
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But then nothing happened. The wind blew the smoke in the opposite direction and no patients with any of the serious burns and other injuries that might have been expected arrived at the emergency room.
Bernard Théberge received second-degree burns on his right arm while fleeing from the patio of the downtown Musi-Café, where many are thought to have died, but he said he hadn’t seen any other burn victims when he went to the hospital Saturday.
One Red Cross volunteer who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media put it bluntly: “You have to understand: there are no wounded. They’re all dead.”
That absence of injured is one of the most haunting signals to have emerged from the train explosion, which police says has left five people confirmed dead and about 40 people unaccounted for nearly two full days after the first blast.
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the rest:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/07/07/lac_megantic_hospital_eerily_quiet_after_quebec_explosion.html
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Quebec disaster: Oil shipments by rail have increased 28,000 per cent since 2009
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/quebec-disaster-oil-shipments-by-rail-have-increased-28-000-per-cent-since-2009-1.1357356#ixzz2YQA9IpsN
= new reply since forum marked as read
rail oil transport leaks than pipeline leaks, though pipeline leaks have spilled more oil than pipeline leaks. the operative word is have, because that's changing with the growth of rail transport, which has increased x20 over the past 5 years. Rail transport has also, even prior to this, caused more deaths, but that number was low. It is no longer. This isn't advocacy for either keystone or the even worse Exxon Enbright Northeast pipeline that passes through the most pristine parts of Northern New England and would make use of a 60 year oil pipe now used to pipe light crude to Canada from Portland. There's no argument or debate that rail transport is far more expensive pipeline or that the former causes greater loss of life. I guarantee you that you won't be able to find as much as one source saying that rail is cheaper than pipeline.
The tragic catastrophe in Lac Megantic could happen just about anywhere on the east coast- including CT. Huge amounts of oil are now traveling on a decayed infrastructure through towns and cities. Making matters even more dire, only one company in Dallas manufactures the specialized tanker cars for transport and they have a two year wait.
I've posted extensively- with lots of links about all this over the past couple of days. Here are just a couple
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10023191053
http://election.democraticunderground.com/10023184414
In Alberta Canada, an estimated 120,000 barrels of oil per day are shipped out by train to the U.S. east coast and Gulf coast region.
By the end of the year – when several terminals are completed – that number could reach 200,000 barrels a day.
Despite rail costs doubling pipeline tariffs, the logistics have often been worth the time for producers – those that have been able to get a better price railing it past the mid-continent refineries all the way to the US East Coast and Gulf Coast.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0427/Oil-by-train-runs-out-of-track
A group of oil and natural gas pipeline operators are planning to spend about $1 billion on rail depot projects to move crude oil from land-locked inland fields to refineries on the U.S. coasts. For the first time, oil and gas companies that have traditionally rented rail capacity are buying those assets to move oil from oil sands fields in Alberta, the shale oil fields in the Bakken region of North Dakota, and the Eagle Ford in Texas. Moving oil by rail costs about 3 times as much as moving it by pipeline, but moving oil by rail is profitable because oil from these areas is priced about 20 percent less than imported crude because of the lack of pipeline takeaway capacity.
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http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2013/01/18/oil-industry-investing-in-rail-depots-an-alternative-to-keystone/
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Environmentalists have criticized the fracking technology that has brought the boom to North Dakota, citing potential groundwater pollution and other concerns. They also look warily at oil traveling on railroads. Pipelines can be built to avoid population centers and fragile ecosystems, while trains travel over routes where such concerns were not weighed, said Wayde Schafer, a North Dakota-based spokesman for the Sierra Club
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But train accidents often do more than puncture a tank car. Ethanol train accidents, for example, have resulted in multiple car derailments that have sparked massive fireballs. In one of the worst cases, in Cherry Valley, Illinois, in 2009, a derailment of 13 ethanol cars and resulting fire killed one person at a rail crossing and injured seven others, led to the evacuation of 600 homes, and caused $8 million in damages.
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But for the oil shippers, the benefits of railroads may outweigh any of the added costs. Some thicker oils, such as those from the Canadian tar sands, require diluting agents to keep moving through pipelines. There's no need for that when such oils are transported by train. So even while controversy continues to rage over the Keystone XL pipeline that would transport oil from Alberta through the United States to Texas, Canadian producers are boosting their oil shipments by train. (Related Photos: "Animals That Blocked The Path of the Keystone Pipeline"
Canadian National's Mongeau predicts railroads will remain competitors even if new pipelines are built.
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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/11/121130-north-dakota-oil-trains/
http://www.thefinancialist.com/the-pipeline-alternative-shale-by-rail/
