Green news and more V14.35

I appreciate the irony and humor of a few climate protesters pissing off thousands:

The subsequent rainout of Burning Man did more than a fist full of rectums temporary blocking the highway:

I can only imagine the clean-up afterwards ... bring on the bulldozers.

Bob Wilson

 

It is reminiscent of the oil pipeline protest where the protestors caused massive environmental damage and posed a financial hardship on the state to clean up their mess

Massive cleanup underway after Dakota Access protesters leave behind environmental mess - Washington Times

Anti-Pipeline Protesters Literally Trash the Environment (standingrockfactchecker.org)
"On Monday, a local NBC affiliate reported that it will take an estimated 250 truckloads of trash to clear the camp which sits on a floodplain at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers. But it’s not just floodwaters that officials are worried about, they also fear warming springtime temperatures turn the currently frozen chunks of garbage into toxic waste.
Twenty-three loads equating to over 480,000 pounds of trash have been dumped in the Bismarck Landfill since cleanup started."

 

Burning Man Festival (BMF) has always been an odd thing - I think they cultivate that.

Floods in desert plays are unusual things but they are not odd. In fact they are necessary to form playas. In 2023, BMF lost their gamble. After something like 30 plays?

There are probably clever science ways to discern when this particular playa has flooded in the past. the sediments are 'stacked' and contain various geochronometers. Unappealing task for me, but who cares? It would not reveal when the next BMF mudout would occur. Which could be 2024 or 2124 (approx).

==
Trash heap mentioned above was from protest against Dakota Access Pipeline. I'm not a fan of such things and especially not of extra-forceful putdowns of them. Defending neither here.

A different question seems more interesting and remains vexing. North Dakota (and for that matter Alberta Canada) petroleum are in the wrong places. Rail transport and dedicated pipelines are used to correct that. One would wish to choose the safer mode, presuming agreement that petro is to be moved in the first place. That is the vexing part.

https://www.iaee.org/en/publications/newsletterdl.aspx?id=460

is the first useful source I found. There are years during which either mode looks better or worse. Vexed yet?

Figure 2 (there) is incident rate, not (gallon or barrel) spill rate. The few large incidents are rare for both modes, so it is beyond statistics to predict over time which mode is safer. Surely you must be vexed by now.

Another factor seems important but hard to include in analysis. Rail lines are multi purpose while petroleum pipelines can only do one thing.

==
Both of these stories come together by noticing that rare but highly damaging events are difficult to predict.

 

The Trans mountain expansion has been delayed until the 2nd Q. This will give you Midwesterners in the US a temporary reprieve. You may ask why or how? The heavy oil produced out of Canada has had a limited market in which it can be sold (i.e. Midwest US down to Texas, with very small output to the west coast). This limitation has allowed the oil to be bought cheaper because there really was only 1 customer (i.e. US). Once the pipeline expansion to the West Coast has been opened the market for Canadian oil will be significantly expanded which gives them better pricing power.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/trans-mountain-expansion-pipeline-further-delay-1.7098340