Keystone pipeline shut after 14,000-barrel oil spill in Kansas | Hacker News Reader

Keystone pipeline shut after 14,000-barrel oil spill in Kansas

reuters.com

42 pointsrntn21 comments

I can't help but laugh a little, tho it's definitely a bitter laugh. How many times will we continue to tolerate this largely unregulated infrastructure and be surprised when this happens? It's the definition of insanity.

Isn’t this highly regulated.

Also, the article reports that the pipeline sends 620k barrels a day so this is 2% of a days output spilled and the pipeline started in 2010.

Obviously this is bad, but I think the reason we tolerate it is because otherwise there would be greater environmental impact from shipping this oil some other way.

When we no longer need affordable energy, I think we’ll stop tolerating.

Pipelines are more ecofriendly than trucks, which is the alternative

For comparison, one supertanker holds 1-2 million barrels of oil. Relatively speaking this spill, though I'm sure very damaging (poisoning a creek), seems to have been stopped in time, indicating that the warning systems are at least functioning as intended.

The Exxon Valdez spill was 10.8M gallons or about 250,000 barrels. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill

I’m shocked that what everyone said would happen is happening. It’s insane that we aren’t shifting to EVs (which transmit energy by power line vs oil pipelines). It was one thing when we didn’t have the technology, but now we have the tech and the capital markets to make it a reality.

>I’m shocked that what everyone said would happen is happening.

What did "everyone say"? Are you confusing Keystone with Keystone XL?

Yeah burning the coal to power those EVs is really that much better.

It is. Even if it was exactly the same amount of CO2 (it’s not) it would eliminate much of the air pollution where people actually live. It gives you an handful of places to apply additional carbon capture versus trying to address it individually across millions of vehicles. And the grid is getting more and more renewables added to it every year so the coal that is used to power these vehicles is shrinking all the time.

Guys guys, hear me out. What if we took a nuke and instead of exploding it outside, explode it inside and capture the energy into electricity.

Let me know when you find someone to pay for it. Energy companies take one look at the ROI for nuclear and run the other way. What for-profit company is going to look at a multi-billion dollar capex project which will take at least a decade and may never be completed that will take another couple decades to recoup the cost and say "This looks like a smart investment!"? Wind turbines and grid scale solar are only controversial to weird fringe groups and have a safe ROI.

I suppose you could look at the list of nuke plant operators [0] who do not run the other way and instead choose to keep operating. Many of these are for profit.

This is easy to look up. Duke Energy is one of the biggest companies in the world and definitely for profit. What makes you think they don’t want to invest in new plants?

[0] https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/us-nuclear-plant-ow...

You've gotta learn to stop worrying and embrace the petro-dollar.

No nukes needed. Just tap into Yellowstone.

Wow, really? On HN? https://www.motortrend.com/features/truth-about-electric-car...

Whenever I make the mistake of discussing anything political on Hacker News, I remind myself after that I appreciate HN for its purely technical discussions.

I have no problem with political discussion, as long as it’s informed. Regurgitating nonsense from memes or lobbyist talking points is not that.

All sorts of conspiracy theorists on HN. We're not immune to Dunning Kruger.

Oil pipelines are the weak spots of the carbon fossil fuel system. Anyone can create a drone that hits these widely visible targets. And due to there size they can not be protected. I expect them to be the targets of militant global warming protestors drones soon.

Which is why this sytem will die with a whimper from being financially no longer viable in the short run in a deglobalizing world.

There's a book about this called "How to Blow up a Pipeline".

One interesting factoid in it was how much this tactic has already been used in the middle east.

Thanks. Are you by any chance a in a relation ship with a culture in special circumstances?

PS: Its not even something you have to be "active" or there to do. Park a explosive drone with a solar panel and starlink reception somewhere within reach, have software monitor the oil price dipping and the drone starts and attacks the pipeline if the mersenne twister gives in. One guy could do it and destroy a whole pipeline system.

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