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Friday, January 30, 2015
Crude Oil "Rail or Pipeline"
Over
the last few years crude oil shipment within the United States has been sky
rocketing. With rail and pipeline among the largest transportation avenues. The
reason for this market uptick is to do with the innovation of hydraulic
fracturing or better known as "fracking". With the discovery of the
Bakken shale fields in North Dakota and Montana, and the Barnett fields in
Texas just to name two. The United States is approaching the record high for
crude oil extracted per day that we set back in the 1970's of 9.6 million
barrels per day. In 2013 we were at 7.5 million barrels per day, a massive
increase from the 2008 level of 5 million barrels per day. This upward trend is
still going on. Currently the United States is in a reverse bidding trend with Saudi Arabia and Russia. Each country is trying to drive the price lower in an
effort to force their competition out of business by out lasting them. As of
2013 Russia sat at the top of the list for crude oil production with 10.05 million
barrels per day. Where Saudi Arabia was around the 9.8 million barrels per day
mark, in 2014 how ever Saudi Arabia took a downward trend with production at
9.6 million barrels per day. A difference of around 200,000 barrels per day.
With
production on the rise, the question now becomes how to transport it? Currently
many of the refineries are located along the coast, or in major city centers
with the large industry areas. The drilling areas where the crude oil
originates in many cases is on the other side of the country. So the only
viable ways to get the oil to the refineries is either by truck, rail or
pipeline. There are pros and cons to each method. Looking at trucking; While it
is the most flexible amongst the three, it is also the most expensive for the
least amount moved. Pipeline is the most widely used, it is the cheapest method
for transporting, but is ridged. With the pipeline it is impossible to change
which market you are sending the oil to, also pipelines are notoriously
dangerous and involve a lot to maintain and construct. In areas like North
Dakota the current pipelines lack the capacity to keep up with crude oil
production. The last option for cross country shipping is rail. Rail has become
a very popular choice in the last few years. With originating carloads in 2012
at 152,676, compared to the number of originating car loads in 2013 being
299,652. That's an increase of almost 96 percent. These numbers were looking at
the first 9 months of the year, the expected year end totals for 2013 are
projected to be around 400,000 originating carloads. While rail is a great
choice for the oil companies, it may not be the best choice for us. There is an
ongoing debate on just how safe crude oil shipped over rail is. While pipelines
have more accidents and spills compared to rail, that does not necessarily mean
that rail in inherently safer. by just looking at the numbers pipelines spilled
almost 20 million gallons of oil from 2002 - 2012. while rail spilled just
95,000 gallons over the same time frame. While these numbers are vastly in
favor of rail, we must take into account the volume of oil transported by each.
During these years pipelines were transporting billions of gallons of crude
oil, where rail was only at a fraction of that amount. As it stands rail is
much more dangerous not only to the environment, but also to population
centers. Much of the pipelines in the United States travel through unpopulated
areas, through no man's lands as it were. However rail passes through almost
every major city, including Athens Ohio. The rail line Norfolk Southern transports
Bakken crude oil through Ohio enroot to the east coast refineries. One of the
things that makes Bakken crude oil so desirable is how easy it is to refine. Unfortunately
the reason that it is so easy to refine is also what makes it so volatile and explosive.
Millions upon millions of gallons of this hazardous material passes through urban
centers on a daily basis. Rail companies are attempting to ease the public mind
by trying to either phase out or upgrade the existing tanker cars, and adding
new cars that have more advanced safety systems. They are also pushing for
stricter guidelines for the transportation of crude oil. But these policies
only are put in place after an incident has happened. For example, when the
Lac-Megantic rail disaster happened the a new guideline prohibiting leaving a
train unattended was implemented. This guideline could have saved lives had it
been implemented before the accident. But with the current regulations and
secrecy on the part of the railway companies the next Lac-Megantic disaster
could happen anywhere, even in rural Athens Ohio.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Risk vs. Risk Perception
Risk is a vital aspect of human life
dating back to when humans were on the African plain. Back then our risk assessment
was a little different though. Was that a lion, or just some grass blowing in the
wind: what was that sound? Maybe just the creak of a tree, or maybe something
that wants to make us dinner? Nowadays our risk assessment is not quite as
severe, but still vitally important to our existence. Through the eons we have
been evolving, bettering our risk assessing skills through the development of
our amygdala and the fight or flight response. The amygdala (Greek for
"almond" because of its shape) is at the heart of where the fear response
and symptoms come from, when someone is in a state of fear this is where the
instinctive subconscious reactions originate. Whether or not that
"risk" or "fear" is real or perceived the same instinctual
reactions occur none the less. An example of risk assessment would be; when a
close friend jumps out in order to scare someone, at first the body identifies
that something is not right about the situation. This is where the flight or
fight response kicks in, will you stay your ground, or try for a tactical
retreat? Since the signals from the bodies senses reach the amygdala first,
then are relayed to the rest of the brain at this point you have very little
control over what your reaction will be. Only after the signals are sent to the
hippocampus (where rational thought and conscious thought happens) do you get a
choice in how you react.
There are ways to "train"
the responses from the amygdala, however they require rather extreme
conditioning. Now risk assessing and risk perception happen on a conscious
level. Let's first look at risk itself. What do we consider to be risky
behavior? Anything that looks like it could pose a risk to either our health, financial well-being, or taking our lives into our own hands. Now there are many other potential
risky behaviors, but these are too numeral to list. If we look at examples of
risky behavior, some that stand out amongst the rest would be riding carnival
rides, walking in traffic, tight rope walking without safety nets, etc. These
are all activities that we can unilaterally call risky behaviors, or situations
that have the potential to cause bodily harm. Conversely we can look at risk perception. These are those situations where they actually are quite
dangerous. But do to either becoming numb to them, damage, or by convincing our brains
that its fine we over ride the fear response.
A good example of this would be driving down our home street: most car
accidents happen less than a mile from home. Driving is a very dangerous
activity, yet as a whole we take just how dangerous it is for granted. Thus assigning
it a lower risk perception level, making it seem safer than it actually is. A
good contrast to this but still falling under risk perception would be the
feeling we get when standing on the observation deck of a very tall building.
Even though there is either glass or at least a railing, most people have the
same instinctive reaction. This reaction is to press our backs up against the
wall, or to slowly inch towards the edge and grip the hand rail in a white
knuckle death grip. In this situation our senses are in conflict with each
other, consciously we know that we are safe, that we can't possible fall. Yet
our brains, and more so our amygdala are quite certain that we are entirely too
high and would feel much better back on ground level. In this instance our conscious
risk perception is conflicting with our subconscious risk perception.
There are people who crave the exhilaration
of fear though: these people are so called "adrenaline junkies". They
are always looking for situations with which to feel the rush from living on
the edge. That's where roller coasters, skydiving, and other such activities come
into play. These recreational activities are fueled by our concept of risk
perception. By tricking the mind into thinking that the activity is risky we
can replicate the fear response. In so doing, we can release adrenaline into
the body, raising the heart rate and blood pressure. This gives us the
"high" of fear in a relatively safe environment. In most cases we are
in more danger and should be more concerned about the risk of driving to the activity
area.
By using heuristic models (as seen below) we can
more accurately see how risk vs. risk perception takes place.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Week One Blog (Marijuana)
Currently twenty three US states have legalized the use of
medical marijuana; of those, four have legalized marijuana for recreational
use. Adding the District of Columbia, the total is brought to twenty four. This
number is subject to change as states vote to legalize marijuana to varying
degrees over the next year or so. Looking at Timothy Leary's dream of the legalization
of mind altering drugs, these last few years have seen the first steps towards
his goal. His original goal was to have thirty million users of LSD: in the
1960's that would be approximately 16% of the population of the United States.
Today with our current population these figures would be slightly higher:
staying at 16% there would need to be a little over fifty eight million users. Where
LSD and marijuana are vastly different drugs, the recent legislation has opened
a proverbial Pandora's box where other drug legalization is concerned. This
might not be as bad as it sounds however, looking at Tax figures from Colorado
over the last year marijuana sales are adding a steady stream of revenue to the
state. This revenue can then be used for public works projects such as
repairing roads, funding school programs, and many more applications. In
essence Timothy Leary's original goal is the caterpillar and our current situation
would be the moth. No one is quite sure what to do about it, yet it is still fascinating
to watch nonetheless. In the words of Ram Dass ( formerly Richard Alpert) “It
is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the
negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
If we use Colorado as a base line of what to expect were marijuana
use was legalized in Ohio, then taking a look at one month, say November of
2014, we can see just how much marijuana tax, licenses, and fees would bring to
Ohio. In November of 2014 Colorado had a net gain of almost seven and a half
million dollars in taxes alone. Another five and a half million dollars came
from cash fund transfers, making the grand total for one month of sales to be approximately
thirteen million dollars. While on state level this may not seem like too much
money, that's thirteen million dollars taken out of the pockets of drug
dealers. If the trend in Colorado continues, then we can expect a large
increase from this year to next year. If we were to compare 2013 marijuana taxes,
licenses and fees to 2014 during November, then we would see an increase of
almost twelve hundred percent. Looking at the arrests since marijuana became legal
in Colorado we can see a steady trend downward. This does not mean however that
the police have stopped arresting people with possession of marijuana, for
example, between January and September of 2013 almost twelve hundred people
were charged with possession of less than two ounces. It is safe to say that in
Ohio we could expect to see similar numbers. The police would still have an
important role to play in the legalization of marijuana here in Ohio as well,
for instance it would still be illegal to grow and distribute marijuana without
a license and the penalty would be severe.
If marijuana were to be legalized in Ohio it would make the
local smoking spots obsolete, however if someone chose to smoke in public they
would have to obey the No-Smoking signs.
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