Increased oil and gas production presents challenges for transportation infrastructure because some of this increase is in areas with limited transportation linkages. Technology advancements such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (pumping water, sand, and chemicals into wells to fracture underground rock formations and allow oil or gas to flow) have allowed companies to extract oil and gas from shale and other tight geological formations. This book examines overall challenges that increased oil and gas production may pose for transportation infrastructure; specific pipeline safety risks and how the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is addressing them; and specific rail safety risks and how DOT is addressing them.
In 2013 a runaway train loaded with crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken region derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec--destroying the downtown area and killing 47 people. This was the first of many oil trains that began derailing and exploding across North America as oil companies ramped up shipping a glut of fracked oil by train. Serving in lieu of pipelines, the trains carrying volatile oil soon gained the nickname "bomb trains" from rail operators. These trains continue to pass through small towns and major cities every day, putting an estimated 25 million people in North America at risk. The U.S. and Canadian regulatory systems, corrupted by industry influence, enabled a variety of risk factors that led to these "bomb trains." While the system was broken then, prospects for government oversight have gotten significantly worse in the Trump administration. Under President Trump, critical regulatory roles have been filled by former rail executives, and federal agencies have rolled back the few meaningful protections meant to avoid another oil spill or fatal disaster. Investigative journalist Justin Mikulka tells the story of how we got here, the communities fighting back, and where we could go next in an attempt to defuse the next "bomb train." "A richly researched, well-written, hugely important case study in the peril the public faces when federal agencies are captured by the industries they're supposed to regulate. Profits and body count go up while public safety and confidence in government go down." Marcus Stern, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist "Justin Mikulka at DeSmog has been the indispensable journalist for all wrestling with the crude oil train crisis in North America in the last five years. His new book Bomb Trains... outlines some needed concrete ways forward on rail safety, as well as valuable ammunition from a significant public safety sector for those who would insist on the need for fundamental political changes." Fred Millar, rail safety consultant "[Bomb Trains] is an invaluable resource for understanding how regulations get made; how they get blocked, delayed, diluted, reversed, etc. Its insights are a major contribution to understanding the power of the railroad and the petroleum industries, the acquiescence of the regulators, and the political accomplices. And how invariably profit trumps safety."Bruce Campbell, author of The Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal, Justice Denied
The Solutionary Rail vision draws unlikely allies together. It provides common cause to workers, farmers, tribes, urban and rural communities via the tracks and corridors that connect them. Part action plan and part manifesto, this book launches a new people-powered campaign to transform the way we use trains and the corridors they travel through.
Despite the many benefits of energy, most of which are reflected in energy market prices, the production, distribution, and use of energy causes negative effects. Many of these negative effects are not reflected in energy market prices. When market failures like this occur, there may be a case for government interventions in the form of regulations, taxes, fees, tradable permits, or other instruments that will motivate recognition of these external or hidden costs. The Hidden Costs of Energy defines and evaluates key external costs and benefits that are associated with the production, distribution, and use of energy, but are not reflected in market prices. The damage estimates presented are substantial and reflect damages from air pollution associated with electricity generation, motor vehicle transportation, and heat generation. The book also considers other effects not quantified in dollar amounts, such as damages from climate change, effects of some air pollutants such as mercury, and risks to national security. While not a comprehensive guide to policy, this analysis indicates that major initiatives to further reduce other emissions, improve energy efficiency, or shift to a cleaner electricity generating mix could substantially reduce the damages of external effects. A first step in minimizing the adverse consequences of new energy technologies is to better understand these external effects and damages. The Hidden Costs of Energy will therefore be a vital informational tool for government policy makers, scientists, and economists in even the earliest stages of research and development on energy technologies.
During the tumultuous year of 2008--when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California--journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, overregulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America--and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America.
Diluted bitumen has been transported by pipeline in the United States for more than 40 years, with the amount increasing recently as a result of improved extraction technologies and resulting increases in production and exportation of Canadian diluted bitumen. The increased importation of Canadian diluted bitumen to the United States has strained the existing pipeline capacity and contributed to the expansion of pipeline mileage over the past 5 years. Although rising North American crude oil production has resulted in greater transport of crude oil by rail or tanker, oil pipelines continue to deliver the vast majority of crude oil supplies to U.S. refineries. Spills of Diluted Bitumen from Pipelines examines the current state of knowledge and identifies the relevant properties and characteristics of the transport, fate, and effects of diluted bitumen and commonly transported crude oils when spilled in the environment. This report assesses whether the differences between properties of diluted bitumen and those of other commonly transported crude oils warrant modifications to the regulations governing spill response plans and cleanup. Given the nature of pipeline operations, response planning, and the oil industry, the recommendations outlined in this study are broadly applicable to other modes of transportation as well.
Mobility is fundamental to economic and social activities such as commuting, manufacturing, or supplying energy. Each movement has an origin, a potential set of intermediate locations, a destination, and a nature which is linked with geographical attributes. Transport systems composed of infrastructures, modes and terminals are so embedded in the socio-economic life of individuals, institutions and corporations that they are often invisible to the consumer. This is paradoxical as the perceived invisibility of transportation is derived from its efficiency. Understanding how mobility is linked with geography is main the purpose of this book. The third edition of The Geography of Transport Systems has been revised and updated to provide an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation. This text provides greater discussion of security, energy, green logistics, as well as new and updated case studies, a revised content structure, and new figures. Each chapter covers a specific conceptual dimension including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts. A final chapter contains core methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and Geographic Information Systems for transportation (GIS-T). This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field, with a broad overview of its concepts, methods, and areas of application. The accompanying website for this text contains a useful additional material, including digital maps, PowerPoint slides, databases, and links to further reading and websites. The website can be accessed at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans This text is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interest in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering.
