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Adding fuel to the current "pipeline" controversy, comes this speculation from Scientific American magazine: transporting of oil by rail is likely to increase in the near future.

Despite the recent disaster in Quebec (which involved North Dakota oil) advocates note several advantages in transport by rail: in many cases, rail transport by rail is more flexible, and requires less stringent environmental reviews.

So just how much oil is currently transported by rail?  Researcher David Wogan writes: "Currently, half of all oil coming out of the Bakken shale is transported by railroad (more than the third by pipelines). In its Draft Assessment of the Keystone XL Pipeline, the U.S. State Department estimates that by the end of this year 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil will be carried out of the Bakken on rail cars."

Get more on the story here from Scientific American and feel free to comment.

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