DilBit pipelines are a bit more complicated than simple water or sewer lines that you may be picturing. They have a lot of safety features and coatings (often nano-ceramic) that make them a lot more durable, maintenance cycles that prevent breaches, and in the worst case scenario features like active shut-off systems and fail-safe “second pipe” shells and catch-basins that limit the chance of a breach entering the local environment, but that said, when they do rupture in a way that causes local contamination, it’s not pretty.
That said, it’s actually probably safer to build pipes to Ontario and say, Churchill Manitoba than to BC. It may be a longer distance, but at least the shield is tectonically stable. If we maintain the pipes well, the chances of it destroying a watershed or anything like that are minimal.
There are of course, other options. Bututainers are a Calgary based company that use specialized systems to move-semi-solid bitumen in Sea Cans to refining locations, making it much safer to move by rail and cargo ship than current methods. It’s more expensive to move by rail than by pipeline, but the advantage of rail lines is you can use them for things other than Oil. Quebec, from what I understand, is a little bit more hesitant about moving large containers of flammable substances by rail in recent years though… that’d potentially be a problem.
The picture of sand dragging at the insides of a metal pipe buried in the ground make me a bit uneasy.
DilBit pipelines are a bit more complicated than simple water or sewer lines that you may be picturing. They have a lot of safety features and coatings (often nano-ceramic) that make them a lot more durable, maintenance cycles that prevent breaches, and in the worst case scenario features like active shut-off systems and fail-safe “second pipe” shells and catch-basins that limit the chance of a breach entering the local environment, but that said, when they do rupture in a way that causes local contamination, it’s not pretty.
That said, it’s actually probably safer to build pipes to Ontario and say, Churchill Manitoba than to BC. It may be a longer distance, but at least the shield is tectonically stable. If we maintain the pipes well, the chances of it destroying a watershed or anything like that are minimal.
There are of course, other options. Bututainers are a Calgary based company that use specialized systems to move-semi-solid bitumen in Sea Cans to refining locations, making it much safer to move by rail and cargo ship than current methods. It’s more expensive to move by rail than by pipeline, but the advantage of rail lines is you can use them for things other than Oil. Quebec, from what I understand, is a little bit more hesitant about moving large containers of flammable substances by rail in recent years though… that’d potentially be a problem.
Re: ceramic - that makes sense.