November 02, 2011
Energy Infrastructure - The Evil Within
by Eve Hinman
On August 31 of this year there was an explosion and fire in an apartment two miles from the San Francisco International Airport, caused by a leak in a natural gas pipe. Thankfully, the residents were out at the time, and no one got hurt (which may be why there wasn’t much press about it). However, the event did attract the attention of the feds (i.e., NTSB) who were already investigating a prior explosion and fire in nearby San Bruno that occurred in 2010 and resulted in the death of 8 and the destruction of 35 homes. Ironically, the recent gas line explosion occurred the day after the San Bruno explosion investigation report was released.
What really fascinated me regarding the August 31 event was the difficulty stopping the gas leak. It turned out the piping had 7 separate leaks. Further complicating the problem was the inability to shut off the gas line by conventional means. In the end, a bull dozer had to be brought in to dig down to the piping and manually shut off the gas line. In total, this effort alone took 90 minutes.
Intrigued by efforts to respond to this crisis, I explored the matter a little further. It turns out that the pipe material used was a type of plastic used in the 1971-1973 time frame and has been implicated in other explosions within the US. Apparently, with age, this particular breed of plastic has been found to become brittle and be highly susceptible to cracking. Currently, there are over 1200 miles of piping that use this type of plastic in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are 6000 more miles of pipes circulating through the Bay Area that use the next generation of plastic piping, installed after 1973. It is not clear if this next generation material has a similar difficulty aging gracefully that will soon become apparent.
If this is the state of affairs due to normal aging , I wonder what would happen if there were a major earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area that further fatigued the piping material? We who live here all know we are supposed to shut off the gas in the event of an earthquake, but will that really prevent a problem if the pipes themselves are leaky? I doubt it. Given the age of the utility coupled with the difficulty maintaining the complex piping network, I foresee that there may well be explosions and fires when the "Big One" hits. Our buildings on firm ground will perform well structurally. But will be burned to a crisp in the aftermath, repeating the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire?
In total, roughly 42,000 miles of piping, which date back to the 1950’s, extend all over the Bay Area. Some of it runs directly under houses, put in place before the communities were developed. It is clear that it is difficult and expensive to perform in-field inspections. Additionally, the pipeline routes and locations have likely been poorly documented. For all I know, there is not even a clear knowledge of where all the piping is. The effort necessary to examine and repair/replace unsafe lengths of pipe will be costly, with the burden likely being shifted to customers. However, natural gas is plentiful and inexpensive. Increasing rates to maintain the piping may be a worthwhile expense in my opinion.
Bad economy or not, we need to maintain our infrastructure and develop better design strategies to reduce the vulnerability of the system. If we do not, our infrastructure will self-destruct in short order. The evil is within. We do not need terrorists to annihilate our way of life -- we are effectively destroying it ourselves.
November 21, 2011
I am glad I was able to convey this information in a way that made sense. Media and political focus on the wrong issue is something I have become more aware of in recent years. During the Cold War we had a similar theme happening with a focus on nuclear destruction by the Soviets.
November 11, 2011
Thanks for wirting such an easy-to-understand article on this topic.
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