Let’s think about this.

On I-76 in the USA on Dec 6, 2014

Received this a few days ago from a valued friend. Had a look through some of the information it contains and it appears – through an hour’s research that the information is correct but then, I didn’t find the differences all that surprising but did find the volume astounding.

Found this very interesting. I’d never thought about ships hauling oil and every other item purchased from around the world.

This was fact checked —if you can count on Google accountability.

KEYSTONE PIPELINE VS TRAIN VS SHIP TO MOVE OIL

A little time was spent putting some numbers together:

1 Train has 100 cars, 2 engines and weighs 27,240,000 LBS.

1 Train carries 3,000,000 gallons of oil.

1 train uses 55.5 gallons of diesel per mile.

It takes 119,000 gallons of diesel to go 2150 miles from Hardisty, AB to Freeport, TX.

Aftermath of rail disaster at Lac-Mègantic, Que. July, 2013

42 confirmed dead, 5 missing and presumed dead

About half the town destroyed

Keystone pipeline was to deliver 34,860,000 gallons of oil per day.

It would take 12 trains and 1,428,000 gallons of diesel to deliver that amount. PER DAY!

521,220,000 gallons of diesel per year.

Hellesport Alhambra with 440,000 tons (yes, Tons) of crude oil

The oil will still go to market with or without the pipeline. By stopping the pipeline, billions of gallons of diesel will be wasted and pollute needlessly.

Does that make you feel good?

Stop the Tar Sands all together? Then we must ship the oil from the overseas sandbox.

1 large oil tanker can haul 120,000,000 gallons of oil

1 boat takes 15 days to float across the Atlantic.

1 boat uses 63,000 gallons of fuel PER DAY, that is about 1 million gallons of the most polluting type fuel in the world PER TRIP.*(See below)

Or take 3.5 days of Keystone Pipeline to move the same amount of oil with a fraction of the pollution.

*In international waters, ship emissions remain one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system. The fuel used in ships is waste oil, basically what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It is the same as asphalt and is so thick that when cold it can be walked upon. It's the cheapest and most polluting fuel available and the world's 90,000 ships chew through an astonishing 7.29 million barrels of it each day, or more than 84% of all exported oil production from Saudi Arabia.

Shipping is by far the biggest transport polluter in the world. There are 760 million cars in the world today, emitting approximately 78,599 tons of Sulphur Oxides (SOx) annually. The world's 90,000 vessels burn approximately 370 million tons of fuel per year, emitting 20 million tons of Sulphur Oxides. That equates to 260 times more Sulphur Oxides being emitted by ships than the world’s entire car fleet. One large ship alone can generate approximately 5,200 tonnes of sulphur oxide pollution in a year, meaning that 15 of the largest ships now emit as much SOx as the world’s 760 million cars.

Eliminate all gas consuming cars and diesel vehicles?

Worldwide car gas consumption is 403,583,712,000 gallons a year. That's billion.

Worldwide oil consumption is 1,500,000,000,000 gallons a year. That's trillion.

It takes 2.15 gallons of oil to make 1 gallon of car gas and .6 gal of diesel.

So it takes 867,704,980,800 gallons of oil to run the world’s cars, most diesel vehicles for a year, and some ships.

That leaves 632,295,019,200 gallons of oil for other uses.

Passenger vehicles are only a very small percentage of the problem. If emissions are the problem -- why not just capture them at the exhaust?

Create an industry to clean exhaust, instead of crushing an entire industry and building a complete untested, replacement industry?

So are we willing to dramatically increase mining to get all the minerals necessary to make all these batteries and electric engines?

Mining is way worse for the environment than oil extraction.

Is stopping the Keystone still making you feel good?

And before I forget again I need to mention something that has been bothering me. I keep hearing people talk about the end of the internal combustion engine and how they will ALL be replaced with electric vehicles.

That may be a good idea, time and experience will (I expect) prove that to be the case. But within the ‘working life’ of anyone in the workforce today? Absolutely not! In fifty years (50) perhaps but, at my age, nothing I’ll need to worry about.

There are many more pictures of trucks and trains overturned or burning or spilling or all of the above and of the aftermath than what I’ve posted here. But isn’t this enough?

This is NOT a list of all the train accidents in North America but a small list of the most serious ones.

Lac-Mègantic, Que. July, 2013

Nov. 8, 2013 near Aliceville, Alabama

Dec. 30, 2013 Casselton, North Dakota

Jan. 7, 2014 in New Brunswick

Jan. 20, 2014 Seven train cars, six of them containing oil derailed on a bridge over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.

April 30, 2014 Nearly 30,000 gallons of oil were spilled into the James River.

Feb. 14, 2015: A 100-car train derailed in a remote part of Ontario. The blaze it ignited burned for days.

Feb. 16, 2015 Derailment and fire near Mount Carbon, West Virginia. Oil leak into Kanawha River tributary.

March 10, 2015 Twenty-one cars derailed about 3 miles outside Galena, Illinois.

March 7, 2015 A 94-car Canadian National Railway crude oil train derailed about 3 miles outside the northern Ontario town of Gogama.

May 6, 2015 A 109-car crude oil train derails near Heimdal, North Dakota. Six cars exploded into flames and an estimated 60,000 gallons of oil spilled.

July 16, 2015: More than 20 cars of an oil train deraile east of Culbertson, Montana, spilling an estimated 35,000 gallons of oil.

Nov. 7, 2015: More than a dozen cars loaded with crude oil derail near Watertown, Wisconsin.

June 3, 2016: A train hauling crude oil derails in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge, sparking a large fire.