Tanker Ships or Oil Trains--Pick Your Poison

We continue to need oil to fuel the engines that power our modern society. How that oil moves and its criticality to our functioning is an important issue. Here in the Pacific Northwest, Alaskan crude oil has been a major source for our refineries. Now only about a quarter of the two million barrels of oil that used to come to the Northwest are shipped.

Last year 338 tankers arrived in Washington state. This is down from 462 tankers from five years ago. This supply of oil has been replaced by an oil by rail "pipeline" bringing Bakken Crude to our refineries. Building pipelines are costly and near impossible with all the protests and environmental challenges. This leaves rail as the only alternative since trying to haul quantities of oil via tanker truck would be impossibly expensive and much more risky.

All of the above is a fairly recent phenomenon, which shows how quickly a new hazard can pop-up.

Then, just yesterday I read where the Governor of Michigan declared an energy emergency due to a shortage of refined products. The combination of a pipeline and refinery being offline caused him to take action. I think this shows the fragility of the system that supports us. It does not take much to cause a blip in the system that can impact our "normal" functions. Think what this means for us when there is a disaster!