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What's the best solution to heat up a Train?

The North Dakota Industrial Commission issued a new requirement that crude by rail tanker cars be heated in order to degas potentially volatile materials that could cause an explosion if the train has an accident.  Such accidents have occurred several times over the past few years as the number of crude by rail trains has increased due to lack of pipeline capacity and the flexibility of short term contracts that crude by rail brings to the market.  A Wall Street Journal article published November 11, 2014 shows that dissension across the industry with the decision.   Regardless of the decision, heating up a train in a controlled manner can present some challenges.  Got a solution?  Please share it.

 

 

1 Reply

  • Wouldn't a better and more controllable solution be to stabilize the crude before its loaded into the rail cars?

    The loading facility could be a stabilizing facility as well, and would allow the transportation company to recover the flash gas from the oil as a potential savings. Environmentally it would be better as well, instead of flashing vapors to atmosphere while in transit.