Moving Shale Oil Across Melting Tundra: Potentially Risky Business

"When the sun shines directly on the Hudson Bay Railway (HBR), the tracks can expand, warp and buckle. Trains have to slow down to 9 miles an hour or even stop. Journeys can be delayed for hours."



"At the northern end of the rail line sits the Port of Churchill. It has been barely used over the years and is accumulating rust and leaking oil from its tank farm while the vast, icy expanse of Hudson Bay slowly melts in the background.

Denver-based railway company OmniTRAX Inc. is planning to ship more than 330,000 barrels of light crude oil along the railway to the port for shipment to Europe. The venture is designed to be a test run to attract investment for regular rail shipments of oil from the Bakken Shale formation in the United States and from Alberta's bottlenecked oil sands facilities to Churchill, Manitoba."

Henry Gass reports for ClimateWire October 16, 2013.

Source: ClimateWire, 10/17/2013