Study
| EST. READ TIME 2 MIN.Intermodal safety in the transport of oil
In the face of expanding production and pipeline bottlenecks, more oil is moving by rail in both Canada and the United States, but transport of oil by rail (or other non-pipeline transportation modes) carries its own set of risks. While pipelines may leak, trains and trucks can crash, hurting individuals. There is no perfectly risk-free way to transport oil, or anything else for that matter.
Rising oil and natural gas production in North America is outpacing the transportation capacity of our pipeline infrastructure. As one of us (Green) discussed in a previous study in this series, The Canadian Oil Transport Conundrum, Canada is poised to dramatically increase production of bitumen from oil sand deposits in Western Canada. In the face of expanding production and pipeline bottlenecks, more oil is moving by rail in both Canada and the United States, but transport of oil by rail (or other non-pipeline transportation modes) carries its own set of risks. While pipelines may leak, trains and trucks can crash, hurting individuals, as we saw in Lac-Mégantic in July 2013, and barges can sink. There is no perfectly risk-free way to transport oil, or anything else for that matter.
Although North America is home to 825,000 kilometres of pipeline in Canada and 4.2 million kilometres in the US, US government authorities still insist on blocking additional pipeline construction.
After reviewing available data on the safety of different oil-transport modes, we conclude that the evidence is clear: transporting oil by pipeline is safe and environmentally friendly. Furthermore, pipeline transportation is safer than transportation by road, rail, or barge, as measured by incidents, injuries, and fatalities.
For North America to realize the massive economic benefits from the development of those oil sands, the transport conundrum must be solved. At present, resistance to pipeline transport is sending oil to market by modes of transport that pose higher risks of spills and personal injuries such as rail and road transport.
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Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor, is director of Economics21 and Senior Fellow at theManhattan Institute for Policy Research. She is a contributing editor of RealClearMarkets.com, and a columnist for the Washington Examiner, MarketWatch.com, and Tax Notes. From 2003 to 2005, Ms. Furchtgott-Roth was chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor. From 2001 to 2002 she served as chief of staff of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. Ms. Furchtgott-Roth served as deputy executive director of the Domestic Policy Council and associate director of the Office of Policy Planning in the White House under President George H.W. Bush from 1991 to 1993, and she was an economist on the staff of President Reagans Council of Economic Advisers from 1986 to 1987.Ms. Furchtgott-Roth is the author of Regulating to Disaster: How Green Jobs Policies are Damaging America's Economy (Encounter Books, 2012) and Women's Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America (AEI Press, 2012). She is the editor of Overcoming Barriers to Entrepreneurship in the United States (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008). Her articles have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, the Los Angeles Times, and Le Figaro, among others. She is a frequent guest on FOX Business News, and she has appeared on numerous other TV and radio shows, including CNBC's Larry Kudlow Show, C-SPANs Washington Journal, and PBSs The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. She received her B.A. in economics from Swarthmore College and her M.Phil. in economics from Oxford University.… Read more -
Kenneth P. Green
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
Kenneth P. Green is a Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of over 800 essays and articles on public policy,published by think tanks, major newspapers, and technical and trade journals in North America. Mr. Green holds a doctoral degree in environmental science and engineering from UCLA, a master’s degree in molecular genetics from San Diego State University, and a bachelors degree in general biology from UCLA.Mr. Green’s policy analysis has centered on evaluating the pros and cons of government management of environmental, health, and safety risk. More often than not, his research has shown that governments are poor managers of risk, promulgating policies that often do more harm than good both socially and individually, are wasteful of limited regulatory resources, often benefit special interests (in government and industry) at the expense of the general public, and are almost universally violative of individual rights and personal autonomy. Mr. Green has also focused on government’s misuse of probabilistic risk models in the defining and regulating of EHS risks, ranging from air pollution to chemical exposure, to climate change, and most recently, to biological threats such as COVID-19.Mr. Green's longer publications include two supplementary text books on environmental science issues, numerous studies of environment, health, and safety policies and regulations across North America, as well as a broad range of derivative articles and opinion columns. Mr. Green has appeared frequently in major media and has testified before legislative bodies in both the United States and Canada.… Read more