Talk:Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

Latest comment: 1 year ago by '); DROP TABLE ARTICLES;-- in topic how many pump stations?
Good articleTrans-Alaska Pipeline System has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
On this day... Article milestones
DateProcessResult
April 30, 2006Good article nomineeListed
September 14, 2006Good article reassessmentDelisted
August 24, 2009Good article nomineeListed
On this day... Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on May 31, 2004, November 16, 2004, May 31, 2005, November 16, 2008, May 31, 2009, November 16, 2010, March 27, 2011, November 16, 2013, November 16, 2018, November 16, 2022, and November 16, 2023.
Current status: Good article

Alaska trip 2004

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Well, I just got back from Alaska a few days ago, and I learned quite a bit of things about the pipeline, so I thought I'd share the wealth! --Ixfd64 00:48, 2004 Aug 13 (UTC)

799 miles long

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  • I don't want to pee in anyones cereal, but is the following sentence really necessary? --Chairboy 18:01, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Although the pipeline is actually about 799 miles long, it is usually referred to as 800 miles long.
It reminds me of this excerpt from bash.org: http://www.bash.org/?2999
  • Yes, it is necessary. Even people who work for APSC usually refer to the pipeline as 800 miles long. The fact that it is only 799 comes as a surprise to most of them, and to other Alaskans who've been told numerous times that it's 800 miles long. Even during a chat with an Alyeska public affairs employee while on contract with APSC I was told it was 800 miles long. Encyclopedias should note these sorts of odd discrepancies between popular belief and reality. — Jéioosh 08:12, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • That's not really a discrepancy, though, is it? It's just a rounding-off. -- Nik42 29 June 2005 04:21 (UTC)
  • Except that people actually think it's exactly 800 miles long. I've heard claims like "they built a couple extra miles and moved PS1 further north to get it that way". Total BS of course, but encyclopedias are around to clarify such things. — Jéioosh 29 June 2005 19:37 (UTC)
Then to be consistent one must ask, Is it exactly 799 miles long? I'm inclined to doubt that it's 799 miles to a precision of arbitrarily many decimal places. All measurements have inherent limits to their precision. It's called measurement "error". There's also the question of defining absolutely where the Pipeline begins and ends. There is, of course, infrastructure attached to the North and South terminals of the route. Where does the infrastructure end and the Pipeline begin? Plus, the pipe is bound to change length by some amount as its temperature fluctuates. There's a lot of room for clarification in this if people intend to be jealous of the difference between 799 and 800. 800 is only larger than 799 by a factor of approximately 1.00125, a little more than one tenth of one percent. It could be more or less than that in reality depending on how close the true length is to 799 miles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.32 (talk) 01:38, 25 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

The straight line mileage from Pump Station #1 at Prudhoe Bay to the Valdez terminal is 798 miles. But the pipe is not a straight line. It does a considerable amount of zig-zagging between fixed points in the above ground sections to allow for lateral expansion caused by the warm (roughly 140 degree F) oil inside. The zig-zagging accounts for most of the extra 2 miles. Flying Crow, 5/22/06

Last sentence

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I don't think the Exxon Valdez should be mentioned as a Trans-Alaska Pipeline spill. Its accident occured away from the pipeline. --Kitch 11:24, 31 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

I don't think it should be either. I've noticed a tendency for anything related to oil in Alaska to have a link to the Exxon Valdez disaster, and for no good reason. Just because it's famous doesn't mean that it needs to be linked to everything peripherally related to it. Also, people seem to want to blame the pipeline for the Exxon Valdez, which is unfair. The Exxon Valdez was well outside of APSC's sphere of influence: it had left the terminal and piloted out of the Valdez Arm. Bligh Reef is on the opposite side of Bligh Island from Tatitlek, and the Valdez Arm is generally considered to end around Rocky Point which is well north of Bligh Island. I don't think that APSC pilots tankers even as far as Rocky Point, actually. And it's not APSC's job to make sure that tanker captains aren't drunk, it's the US Coast Guard's. — Jéioosh 08:12, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The tanker shipping in Alaskan waters is technically part of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, managed by Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. The Exxon Valdez spill happened on their watch, as they readily admit, and they report the spill as part of the total oil spilled on TAPS since 1977. Flying Crow, 5/22/06

Canadian portion?

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From somewhere in BC:

My concern with this page, is that it only shows PART of what many people concider to be the Alaska Pipeline. Namely, the people in NorthWestren Canada. [1]

But, again, it is the Alaska highway pipeline I'm thinking of... (As the link suggests)

There is no pipeline which runs from the Prudhoe Bay fields in Alaska through Canada. A natural gas pipeline has been proposed whose route would follow the Alcan Highway, but there no money has yet been dedicated to such a project, nor are the oil companies interested in transporting natural gas out of Prudhoe Bay at this time.
Historically you may be confusing the CANOL project with TAPS. The former was a WWII era pipeline from Haines to somewhere up in the Yukon or NWT, only a few inches in diameter (like six or ten I think) and designed to carry fuel not crude. The old fuel terminal still stands in Haines and is occupied by the US Army, I believe. The road built alongside still functions as the Haines Highway up to Haines Junction in YT. TAPS however was built in the 70s and is strictly within Alaska's boundaries, it doesn't come anywhere near the Canadian border at all. – Jéioosh 04:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Would more history in the article be appropriate?

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I was thinking in terms of the controversy involved. There seems to be similar controversy surrounding drilling at ANWAR, today.

Feel free to add anything you'd like, even just some bullet points. There are some similarities with the ANWR controversy, but there are some very significant differences too. – Jéioosh 04:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Pipeline Shooting

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For what it's worth, I know people who live in Livengood. It's a small town of fewer than 30 people. Daniel Carson Lewis, who shot the hole in the pipeline in 2001, is lucky that the state troopers caught him before his neighbors did. Lewis is currently in prison (and will be for many years to come), and if he ever gets out he'd be well-advised not to return to Livengood...

The text in this portion is worthwhile, however, it would be better suited in a article about Daniel Carson Lewis.

Alaskan Natural Gas Pipeline

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Why is there apparently no Wikipedia article about the proposed (or currently being built?) Alaskan Natural Gas Pipeline? It's a huge project that will deliver enormous amounts of natural gas to the lower 48 states, but I can't find any signifigant mentions of it in Wikipedia. It was even profiled on 60 Minutes. I wouldn't really know where to begin writing it myself, so could somebody more qualified start it?

IIRC it's still not past the stage where the state legislature argues about it incessantly and then decides that they'll leave it for the next batch of politicians to work out. That combined with the fact that BP doesn't want to sell its gas on the Slope, and... So it's all talk at this point, at least as far as I know (I've been away from AK for six months so I could be out of the loop.). Granted it would be nice to have an article that sums up all the issues, however. — Jéioosh 21:56, 30 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

Well, it looks like there is one now: Alaskan Natural Gas Pipeline

Delisted Ga

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I don't know how this article is still a GA, since it was reviewed by User:Worldtraveller who is ordinarily a fairly strict reviwer, but the only two notes refer to a current event, and the only two other refs don't exactly cover the entire article. This is not well-referenced. Homestarmy 19:25, 14 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

Life expectancy of pipe?

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I recall a news story about the leak which mentioned the life expectancy of the pipes. I don't remember what that was, and I didn't see a number for that in the article or in the links provided. It seems to me to be a relevant bit of information. Brian Pearson 06:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Conversion of 15 billion barrels of oil

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I wanted to get a sense of scale in regards to energy that 15 billion barrels yield. After performing some calculations, I found that for the entire life of the pipeline (30 years), all the oil produced could only supply 87% of the United States' energy demands in a year. This certainly demonstrates to me what a huge amount of energy the US (and the world) consumes and how little 15 billion barrels really is. If anyone else thinks this figure is useful, please add it to the article - I did not want to add it myself without discussing first.

How I came to these figures:
Constants
1 barrel of oil ~= 0.136 tonnes (Source: [2])
1 tonne of oil ~= 45.217GJ = 4.5217*1010J (Source: Ton_of_oil_equivalent)
1.05*1020 = The energy consumed by the United States in one year (2001) (Source: Orders_of_magnitude_(energy))

Conversions
15 billion barrels * 0.136 = 2.04 billion tonnes = 2.04*109 tonnes
2.04*109 tonnes of oil * 4.5217*1010J ~= 9.224268*1019J of energy in 15 billion barrels
9.224268*1019J / 1.05*1020 ~= 87.85% of the US energy demand in 2001

--75.177.155.101 00:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

By "energy", I assume you are defining it strictly as oil transformed into gasoline, deisal, and so forth? There are a number of other energy sources: gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and etc, that adds up to the true total energy consumption. Complicating the picture a bit are things made from oil such as plastics. Brian Pearson 03:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
Different forms of energy can't be compared merely based upon energy content. Energy in hydrocarbon form is much more portable than a nuclear or hydroelectric power plant, which have distinct advantages for fixed location uses. Energy from a Space Shuttle launch is not very useful for heating a house, but rockets do that job better than home heating fuel. (SEWilco 04:08, 18 July 2007 (UTC))Reply
And if you look more closely, you'll find the Alaska oil tends to not go to the USA anyway. As oil on the Pacific coastline it is more valuable in Asia. The Alaska oil can be sold to Asia and cheaper oil from closer locations can replace it. If non-USA oil prices rise too much, it might be cheaper for Alaska oil to go to the USA. (SEWilco 04:08, 18 July 2007 (UTC))Reply
Any source of oil would be considered to be a contribution to the entire supply, I think. If we used Alaska oil instead of Japan, they would get it somewhere else and we would use the Alaska oil, which would decrease our need, however small, of other sources.
BTW, I noticed from one of your sources [3] that there's a slight discrepancy. I'm not sure how that came about. Brian Pearson 01:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
It appears that the [4] tables has been updated. At the time I wrote this, 1.05*1020 was the energy consumed by the United States in one year. 75.177.181.191 (talk) 05:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

A net gain?

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If all the energy that has gone into construction and maintainance is fully added up, which includes the energy that has gone into the production of aluminum, steel etc used, and into refining and shipping the gasoline that has been burned etc, how does the total relate to the energy eventually obtained from the pipeline's production of crude oil? The corporations have enjoyed huge tax breaks, and it has all been immensely profitable in dollars, needless to say. The "cost" is reported as US$8bn here, but has the total energy budget broken even yet? This is the essential question, unaddressed by the somewhat corporatist and surficial report in this Wikipedia article. No doubt the question has been addressed in scientific literature: why isn't it here? --Wetman 02:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

"corporatist"? That's a new one. The article describes the Alaska pipeline perfectly. This isn't Mother Jones. Feel free write an article on the economics of the pipeline, if you have some facts with citations. --Bridgecross (talk) 14:04, 4 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Are you trying to say the pipeline consumed more energy to be built than the energy it "provides"? Well, how it can be lucrative, excluding the possibility that the energy consumed was free? I don´t think the steel producers have access to free energy, so the cost of the energy needed to produce it is part of the price. This is valid for all goods in the world. So, if the pipeline makes more money than was spent in the construction, then the net gain is obvious.Mcremp (talk) 17:23, 2 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Alaska article

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Saw this article in the Houston Chronicle today [5],figured there might be enough information to be incorporate and update the article by someone with more knowledge on the matter than I am. --Hourick (talk) 20:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Informal peer review

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This is an informal peer review and I recommend to list it also for a formal peer review. Please see WP:PR how to nominate it for the peer review.

following the check against FA criteria:

  • 1.(a) well-written   Agree
  • 1(b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context;  Possible The section about the operator and owners is neded. Although Alyeska Pipeline Service Company is mentioned in the history sections, information about its current composition, operations etc is needed. Ideally it should summarize the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company article, but this article seems to be little bit out of date and not in very good shape.
  • 1 (c) well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature on the topic. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported with citations; this requires a "References" section that lists these sources, complemented by inline citations where appropriate;  Possible Very well cited, but the Maintenance section does not have any reference. Also the last sentence in the Future of the pipeline section needs an inline reference.
  • 1(d) neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias;   Agree
  • 1(e) stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process.   Agree
  • 2(a) a lead—a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;   Agree
  • 2(b) appropriate structure—a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents;   Agree
  • 2(c) consistent citations—where required by Criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes ([1]) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1) (see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended).   Possible For formatting, I recommend to use {{cite news}}; {{cite paper}}; {{cite book}}; {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}} etc templates.
    • Just a note that cite templates are neither recommended nor discouraged; if an article has evolved with a particular format of citation (in this case without templates, then there is no real reason to change the format. See WP:CITE. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:07, 14 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
  • 3. Images. It has images that follow the image use policy and other media where appropriate, with succinct captions, brief and useful alt text when feasible, and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.  Agree
  • 4. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).  Disagree By my understanding, the current length of the article is the biggest problem. As most of the aarticle deals with historical aspects, I recommend do spin-off historical issues into the separate article (History of the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System or something like this) and to use in this article only summary of it. The history sections are so well written that this new article will achieve FA status quite easily. Also, Maintenance and Future of the pipeline are too short to be separate sections. They should be expanded or merge into other sections.

Beagel (talk) 16:33, 17 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

References

  1. ^ Smith 2007, p. 1.

Reverted edit

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This edit was reverted with the edit summary "Incorrect spelling." But there was a lot more content than just the change to the pipeline name. Please inspect it and be sure. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:06, 4 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Wow. I cant believe I actually missed those other edits. I wouldn't have bothered with reverting that revision if I had noticed those because I really don't know much about the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. Sorry about that. I guess im getting a bit rusty. =/ Creation7689 (talk) 16:15, 4 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Error in "Native Objections"

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The sentence Under the act, Native groups would renounce their land claims in exchange for $962.5 million and 148,500,000 million acres (6.01×1011 km2) in federal land needs correction - that is considerably larger than the total surface area of the Earth.BoulderDuck (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

"Economically feasible"

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"The pipeline was built between 1974 and 1977 after the 1973 oil crisis caused a sharp rise in oil prices in the United States. This rise made exploration of the Prudhoe Bay oil field economically feasible."

Feasible? May be justified? Or, at least, reasonable? Economically feasible is everything up to sending the whole Earth population to live on Moon. Economically reasonable or justified is another matter. 80.247.179.118 (talk)

New book by the former CEO of SOHIO, John R. Miller is first person description of pipeline finance, authoritatively feasible. Little Did We Know: The Financing the Trans Alaska Pipeline--107.9.254.129 (talk) 17:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

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Future of the pipeline

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This section is over 5 yrs. out of date, and thus presents erroneous info. Before 2015, oil reserves seemed to be nearly depleted, but more were found. Present volume in the pipeline is over half a million barrels a day. Source. YoPienso (talk) 15:18, 25 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

I am updating this now. I seem to have messed up the citations though on my first update, give me a second. Sorry! Leijurv (talk) 05:35, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

How to deal with "Facts" reference

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The "Facts" reference is the facts sheet released in 2007. I cannot just update it to the 2013 version since all the page numbers would be wrong. What is the best thing to do here? I cited the newer one where I needed it as "Facts2013" but this feels wrong. Any ideas? Leijurv (talk) 06:07, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Environmental impacts?

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Environmental Impacts? 2A00:23C8:8D82:5F01:A516:A715:921B:3EC5 (talk) 18:43, 5 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

how many pump stations?

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11 or 12? inconsistency in intro pargraph '); DROP TABLE ARTICLES;-- (talk) 05:49, 3 August 2023 (UTC)Reply