Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Stop the Oil Trains from Coming to San Jose
There is a plan in place to send mile-long trains carrying crude oil through San Jose. Over 500 trips would take place each year--and it will take about an hour for the train to pass through San Jose each time. Not only are they filled with carcinogens, but if there is an accident it will cause mass casualties and damage that San Joseans will be responsible for. I would highly encourage you to head over to this site and watch the 2 minute video with more information. We need to do everything possible to block this project from moving forward.
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Why wold my comment be deleted? I want an explanation... is this what you do to something you disagree?
ReplyDeleteYou sounded like a spammer hired by the oil company. If that is not the case then I apologize.
DeleteHey Josh, I'm not a spammer. I don't agree with this tho, currently our society needs oil unfortunately. The bay area uses a ton of it, which hopefully will change or we'll get better at carbon capture. Anyway, I don't think we can just be nimbys with issues like this. Some other community will have to take on the burden. The correct path is to use our influence to make this transport as safe as possible through regulations.
ReplyDeleteExcept that the Bay Area will not be getting the oil--it will just be passing through--and we will get zero monetary benefits for the oil. However, if there is an accident not only will it cause massive damage and likely dozens of casualties... but San Jose will be financially responsible for cleaning up the mess. It doesn't make sense to me.
DeleteThe end goal for our society should be to reduce our use of oil, not subsidize it like we are today. The oil can be transported another way (like it has been for a century). Even if the new route were to marginally reduces the cost of oil (it won't that money will go into the pockets of the oil companies), that is not the direction we should be focusing on.
My point was that we are consumers of oil, it doesn't have to be this oil in particular. I think the focus should be on the city mitigating risk and having a plan to deal with liability. I'm not sure I believe that San Jose isn't getting any monetary benefit or has to be responsible for potential accidents. We have dozens of pipelines for gas under our cities already. One of those pipelines blew up in San Bruno and pg&e had to pay for it. We definitely didn't turn off all the other pipelines after that, we just got tougher on enforcement. We can't just push these things on other communities. We have the resources and power to influence regulations for these kinds of things.
DeleteAlso, I don't believe oil itself is evil. Oil contributes more than energy in the forms of plastics and chemicals used in a shit load of electronics, etc. Oil will be in the energy mix for years to come, we just need to be able to use it in a cleaner way.
Anyway, I enjoy reading your blog. You probably don't care what I think, but these political posts are distracting. Your heart is in the right place, just my two cents.
Unless you can find an article proving otherwise, as far as I understand from multiple sources San Jose will not benefit and will be responsible for liabilities. To top it off, San Jose does not have an official say on whether or not this project moves forward since technically it involves interstate commerce. Even if there is no accident, it will add carcinogens into our environment.
DeleteThis isn't the same as NIMBY project to block a residential project from being built because of traffic or aesthetics. San Jose has ZERO to gain from this happening and eats the risk, costs of a disaster, and health consequences.
Also, oil is not sustainable. Again, it is highly subsidized (if it wasn't gas would be $6-8 per gallon like most of Europe), and we need to rely heavily on the middle east for our supply of oil. The oil that is used for non-transit purposes is a rounding error. I honestly wish it was more expensive because that would cause the market to move away from it faster. It is only a matter of time.
The first google hit for 'oil train insurance' has a very good wall street journal article that discusses the problems particular to train transport. I believe hypothetically we could get to a point where the regulations keep costs reasonably internalized. And I suspect its worthwhile for the country as a whole to pursue those sorts of wholesale regulatory revisions given the steep decline curves associated with fracking. But with the particularly high costs/risks and the particularly low benefits here and with this proposal, it just doesn't make any sense to pursue that.
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