Quote:
Originally Posted by M.D. Holloway
I remembering reading that the temperature of the crude is elevated to increase flow. Not sure if that is true or not - would seems that the pipe would need serious insulation over thousands of miles of crude. Plus the energy required to heat it would be high - then again the energy to pump it is high.
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The ground is the insulation for the most part. And most of the heating comes from the pumping equipment and pipeline friction. But, since this is very heavy crude, it will require some additional heating.
Specific heat is about 1/2 that of water, 0.51 BTU/lb-deg F