Investor's Business Daily Editorial

An oil-laden train not unlike those rolling down American tracks derailed and exploded Saturday in a Canadian town, proving why pipelines are safer and environmentalist opposition to a pipeline from Canada is misguided.

At least 13 people were reported dead and 37 missing in the charred Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, 130 miles east of Montreal, after the accident created an inferno of burning crude. Some may never be found, likely vaporized by the sheer intensity of the blaze that burned for 36 hours.

Canada's oil boom, due largely to development of the oil sands in its western province of Alberta, confronts an inadequate oil transport infrastructure. Canada doesn't have nearly the pipeline network we do, and oil shipments by rail have soared 28,000% in the last five years.

The Canadian Railway Association recently estimated that as many as 140,000 carloads of crude are expected to rattle over the nation's tracks this year, up from just 500 in 2009.

Keystone Is The Key

The Canadian tragedy comes amid the controversy over the transport of Canadian crude through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to Gulf Coast refineries. Without Keystone, designed to carry 830,000 barrels a day of oil, shipments of Canadian crude by rail would rise an additional 42% by 2017, according to RBC Capital Markets.

Read the rest of the article here.

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