Tom Magness: Pipelines are the Superior Method of Transportation
In the GAIN Coalition’s second video with Tom Magness, former commander with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE), he discusses pipelines’ superiority when compared to other modes of transporting potentially hazardous materials. Without pipelines, the two other forms of transporting resources such as oil and gas are either by rail or by truck.
Magness says, “If not by pipeline, then how will you get it? Because you still need to heat your house,” noting that current renewable energy capacity is not at the level needed to supersede oil and gas. Pipelines should be the primary method of moving such necessary resources.
When compared to moving oil and gas by rail or truck, pipelines offer the safest, most efficient method. Magness notes that, until East Palestine, many people were not aware of just how disastrous rail accidents could be and just how much materials were moved by train. He says, “[there are] over a thousand rail accidents a year. I mean, that’s three a day!”
Instead of moving oil and gas by train, we should be moving them via pipelines, as they are “probably the cleanest alternative you could imagine, in terms of the environment,” Magness says. Comparatively, pipelines do not have great emissions or a high contamination rate.
The taxpayers funding energy projects just want to heat their homes at low costs, just as Magness notes. By disregarding pipelines as a safer and more reliable option for moving oil and gas, we are facilitating the risk that characterizes moving these products by rail to continue.
Watch the full video with Tom Magness here: GAIN NOW Twitter