In the early days of the petroleum industry, transporting oil meant horse-drawn wagons carrying leaky wooden barrels over bumpy dirt roads—and lots of accidents.
Things have changed a lot since then. But the accidents haven’t gone away. In some ways, they’ve gotten worse.
The boom in domestic production in recent years has brought an ugly side effect: mishaps when transporting the fuel to refineries. These accidents have led to fatalities—one train crash in Canada in 2013 killed 47 people—as well as vast environmental damage, such as the pipeline burst in California this May that spilled as much as 143,000 gallons of crude into the Pacific Ocean and onto pristine beaches.
The growing sense of potential danger has prompted critics and industry officials to ask: What is the safest way to transport oil? And are there ways to make the current methods safer? Among other things, they’re proposing tougher safety regulations, and using technological fixes like machines that travel along pipelines, looking for weak spots.
One thing is certain: None of the existing methods of transport—rail, boats, trucks and pipelines—is going away. The oil industry believes the best thing to do, in terms of safety, profits and efficiency, is to keep all options on the table and make sure they are as safe as possible. “All four modes have always and will always be with us,” says Kenneth Green, who has spent years researching crude-oil transportation safety for the Canada-based Fraser Institute. “What institutions must ensure is that the most oil moves by the safest way, with the caveat of ensuring we protect the health of humans and the environment.”
Here’s a look at the four methods, and what’s being done to shore them up.
PIPELINES
BARRELS DELIVERED (2014): 3.4 billion
SHARE OF TOTAL: 58%
Workers clean up a pipeline spill in Santa Barbara County, Calif. PHOTO: LUCY NICHOLSON/REUTERS