Hasta La Gadget!

Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown won the Democratic nomination in the race to succeed Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), the Associated Press reports.

Brown emerged from a field of candidates that also included Attorney General Doug Gansler and state Del. Heather Mizeur. He had held a commanding lead in the polls throughout the race and had picked up endorsements from much of Maryland’s Democratic political establishment, including O’Malley, so his Tuesday evening win read as more of a coronation than a surprise.

Gansler had tried to tie Brown to the state’s troubled rollout of its online insurance exchange, since Brown oversaw the Affordable Care Act’s implementation. However, Gansler’s strategy proved unsuccessful, as the state’s voters ultimately didn’t blame Brown for the website’s structural problems. Gansler did get Brown to admit during a candidate debate that he should have taken a more active role in guiding the exchange’s development.

Brown is widely expected to be Maryland’s next governor, given the state’s strong Democratic tendencies. A November win would be a historic one: Brown would be the state’s first black governor.

Last December the first full train carrying tar-sands crude left the Canexus Bruderheim terminal outside Edmonton, Alberta, bound for an unloading terminal somewhere in the United States.

In previous years Canadian heavy crude, as the tar-sands crude is labeled for market purposes, had ridden the rails in very limited capacity, loaded into tank cars and bundled with other products as part of so-called “manifest” shipments. But to the best of industry analysts’ knowledge, never before had a full 100-plus-car train (called a “unit train”) been shipped entirely full of tar-sands crude.

Because unit trains travel more quickly, carry higher volumes of crude and cost the shipper less per barrel to operate than the manifest alternative, this first shipment from the Canexus Bruderheim terminal signaled the start of yet another crude-by-rail era — an echo of the sudden rise of oil train transport ushered in by the Bakken boom, on a much smaller scale (for now).

This overall spike in North American crude-by-rail over the past few years has been well documented, and last month Oil Change International released a comprehensive report on the trend. As explained in “Runaway Train: The Reckless Expansion of Crude-by-Rail in North America” (and in past coverage on DeSmogBlog), much of the oil-train growth has been driven by the boom in Bakken shale oil. Without sufficient pipeline capacity in the area, drillers have been loading up much more versatile trains to cart the light, sweet tight crude to refineries on the Gulf Coast, the East Coast, and the West Coast.

Unfortunately, some of these “bomb trains” never make it to their destination, derailing, spilling, exploding and taking lives.

While shale oil, predominantly from the Bakken, has driven the trend, Canadian tar-sands producers are increasingly turning their attention to rail. Hobbled by limited pipeline capacity out of Alberta and frustrated by their inability (so far) to ram the Keystone XL pipeline through the American heartland, tar-sands producers are signing contracts with Canadian rail operators. Canadian National Railway is getting the lion’s share of the business.

Canadian National not only has the infrastructure in place near Alberta’s tar-sands developments but operates 19 subsidiary railways in the United States under the Grand Trunk Corporation. Strung together, Canadian National’s network stretches 2,800 miles from Western Canada down to the Gulf Coast, making it the only company that can offer straight-through shipping from the tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries.

Of the upstream infrastructure — or the loading terminals up near the tar sands — the Oil Change International report explains:

At the time of writing there were 31 terminals in operation that load tar sands or heavy crude, with six of these expanding and an additional eight planned or under construction….

The first terminal designed to load unit trains with Canadian tar sands crude, the Canexus terminal in Bruderheim, northeast of Edmonton, Alberta, started operations in December 2013. It has a capacity of 70,000 bpd and loads tar sands bitumen from MEG’s Christina Lake SAGD project, among others.

Downstream, rail terminals are similarly adapting to handle shipments of tar-sands crude. From the “Runaway Train” report:

Terminals designed to unload tar sands crude are currently concentrated in the Gulf Coast region, where the biggest concentration of heavy oil refining capacity is located. …

The Gulf Coast terminals have about one million bpd of unloading capacity today, set to grow to over two million bpd in 2016. Some of this capacity is at refineries such as those operated by Valero in Port Arthur, Texas, and St. Charles, Louisiana. Valero has ordered 1,600 insulated and coiled tank cars specifically for hauling tar sands crude to its refineries.

The Gulf Coast also has significant midstream capacity on the Mississippi River, where crude oil, including tar sands crude, is unloaded from trains and pumped from storage tanks into local pipelines or loaded onto barges that deliver to coastal refineries via the Intracoastal Waterway.

Meanwhile, refineries on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts are angling to get in on the action, hoping that their advantages in shipping to Europe and Asia, respectively, will prove appealing to tar-sands producers.

As described in “Runaway Train,” terminals on the West Coast are particularly well positioned to serve as a “fast-track out of North America for Canada’s tar sands”:

There are currently 13 crude-by-rail unloading terminals in California, Oregon and Washington, of which four are currently expanding their capacity. There are also 11 terminals planned or under construction.

Many of these are at refineries that, like their counterparts on the East Coast, are looking to take advantage of discounted domestic or Canadian crudes that they have little hope of ever gaining access to via pipeline. With a larger proportion of refining capacity geared up for heavy tar sands processing than exists on the East Coast, West Coast refineries such as the Valero facility in Wilmington, Calif., and the Phillips 66 refineries in California and Washington, are keen to rail in tar sands crude.

Accessing these West Coast refineries by rail, as well as the prospect of export terminals in Washington and Oregon, are potentially the tar sands industry’s best bet for major market expansion in the face of delays and possible cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline and pipelines to the Canadian west coast such as the Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain expansion.

These latter projects, which are primarily focused on exporting tar sands crude to Asia, face particularly stiff opposition from coastal communities, which fear the destruction of fisheries and coastal environments from the increased tanker traffic that would ensue.

Given the relative proximity particularly of Washington State refineries and ports to Alberta’s tar sands fields, these terminals offer oil companies a potential solution to the transportation bottlenecks that are threatening the viability of tar sands production growth. At least three proposals in southern Washington State have the potential to unload tar sands crude from trains and load it onto tankers for export to Asia or transport to refineries along the California coast.

Tar-sands producers are particularly motivated to get their crude to coastal terminals and refineries for export. As we’ve covered in the past on DeSmogBlog, tar-sands companies want to export their product, because the low-grade crude is more easily refined into diesel, which has a much larger market in Europe and Asia. This is the core reason that the Keystone XL, if built, would be little more than an export pipeline and wouldn’t actually provide more oil to American markets or lower American gas and heating bills.

The Oil Change International report also shines a light on the fact that although crude exports are banned from the U.S., domestic refineries can legally export crude from Canada:

While crude oil of U.S. origin is subject to export restrictions, no such restriction applies to exports of Canadian oil through the U.S., as long as it can be shown that no U.S. oil was blended.

Shippers wishing to export Canadian oil from U.S. ports still have to apply for export licenses from the Department of Commerce, but these can and have been granted. Given the lack of pipeline capacity to Canadian ports, it is attractive for tar sands producers to find ways to get their product to a U.S. port where it can be exported. Crude-by-rail terminals on the West and East Coasts are strategically important as they are closer to Alberta than those on the Gulf Coast and it is therefore cheaper to reach these ports by rail.

Railbit vs. Dilbit

As this still-nascent segment of crude-by-rail develops, it’s worthwhile to take a moment to understand the distinction between a couple of different tar-sands products that are being shipped by train. Thus far, the vast majority of tar-sands crude-by-rail shipments have been diluted bitumen, or dilbit. Dilbit, which you have heard of as the tar-sands crude that is already funneling through North American pipelines, is composed of the sticky, viscous tar-sands bitumen, which is then mixed with about 30-percent diluent, allowing it to flow through pipelines. This mixture of dilbit is particularly volatile and abrasive, and reports have pointed to it being more likely to cause leaks, spills and explosions during transport.

Railbit is a relatively new designation for crude and is defined as bitumen that has been mixed with roughly 17-percent diluent. Moving railbit rather than dilbit saves tar-sands shippers about half of the so-called “diluent penalty,” or the cost of adding the diluent to the mix.

So why are most trains still loaded with dilbit? Because to this point, most loading terminals are still being fed by feeder pipelines or trucks that can only handle this more watered-down blend. That and the fact that special loading and unloading facilities are necessary to handle railbit, which is more viscous and needs to be heated in special tank cars to be unloaded. Some downstream terminals are making these investments, seeing railbit as a viable alternative going forward, but today dilbit is still dominant.

Either way, it’s dirty and dangerous, and tar-sands bitumen in any form does nothing to lower American energy bills. Bitumen, by rail or pipeline or barge, is bound to wind up on a tanker to Europe or Asia.

This post originally appeared on DeSmogBlog.

I don’t often agree with Senator Ted Cruz, but the Texas Republican has a point: The president has no authority to send military advisers to Iraq without the consent of Congress. Regardless of what you think are the merits of intervention, it’s simply a matter of law.

The text of the War Powers Act is explicit: “The president in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.” Further, it provides that unless Congress has authorized his actions, he must withdraw forces within sixty days.

The president can’t argue that military advisers are not “U.S. Armed Forces,” nor can he credibly claim that they are involved in a volatile situation in which hostilities are clearly indicated. Even if the advisers do not accompany Iraqi forces into the field, their mere presence in Iraq in U.S. uniforms under the present situation makes them targets for attack. Why else are they arriving armed and ready to defend themselves?

Nor can the president claim that he has “consulted” with Congress by chatting in the Oval Office with a few congressional leaders who reassured him he did not need to ask Congress for authorization. The whole purpose of the War Powers Resolution, enacted after the Vietnam War debacle, was to force Congress to take responsibility for the decision to involve U.S. forces overseas. Members of Congress may prefer not to commit themselves one way or the other, but they cannot shirk their duty to make a decision.

And the circumstances do not in any way prevent the president from seeking Congress’ consent, even now. This is not a secret operation or a lightning-fast deployment of forces. It is a commitment of 300 soldiers for an indeterminate period of time in the midst of a hot sectarian war.

The White House would argue that the president as commander-in-chief has all the constitutional authority he needs to go to war without Congress. That argument has been slapped down consistently by a long line of courts ever since 1800. In the Federalist Papers No. 69 Hamilton explained that under the Constitution the president’s powers as commander-in-chief “would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military,” while the power to make war and to raise an army are reserved to Congress. That’s what President Obama thought at least as a presidential candidate. Even both Presidents Bush sought congressional authority before they sent forces into Iraq.

Why should it matter whether Congress consents? History teaches us that when our soldiers are committed into battle their success depends on a genuine commitment of the national will. When bodies fly home in bags and the nightly news reports that things are going poorly on the ground, the public and Congress will turn against the war unless they have resolved from the beginning to prosecute the war to its conclusion.

If Congress does not authorize the president’s action, so be it. In a democracy the people govern. The important point is that we should never put America’s soldiers in harm’s way if we are not prepared to support them 100 percent.

It’s been 20 years since Forrest Gump was released and Tom Hanks has become the Internet’s friendly uncle, Jenny is the cold hearted wife of a politician and Bubba Gump is a seafood restaurant we all ate at because we remember lines like Run, Forrest, Run. But why did we ever like the movie? Screen Junkies lays the smack down on the movie that captured our hearts and in turn, makes fun of everyone who ever liked it.

Read more…

Today, we discuss tomorrow’s Google I/O conference, review the Galaxy Tab S, take a look at Misfit’s new Pebble fitness tracking app and explore the potential of Google’s Android Wear platform. Read on for Engadget’s news highlights from the last 24…