The Associated Press reports:
Gas line explodes in Panhandle
Nov. 5, 2009, 9:29AM
AP
Flames blazed more than 400 feet high above a natural gas line explosion that rocked Bushland, Texas about 1 a.m. today.
BUSHLAND — A natural gas pipeline exploded in the Texas Panhandle on Thursday, shaking homes, melting window blinds and shooting flames hundreds of feet into the air, authorities said. Three people were injured in the blast, which occurred at 1 a.m. near Amarillo, and they were taken to an area hospital with burns, said Potter County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Roger Short. “My home is about 20 miles something away and I could see the flames from my home,” Short said. “You could hear the roar of the flames 20 miles away.” Firefighters were able to contain most of the flames by 5:30 a.m. though small grass fires continued to burn, Short said. Nearby residents were evacuated, and the pipeline’s gas was shut off, Short said. One house was destroyed, and several others were damaged in Bushland, about 15 miles west of Amarillo, he said. “The heat onto the homes, it did a lot of damage. You could see blinds inside the homes that were melted … it was very hot,” Short said. Bushland Middle School principal, Mark Reasor, said about 60 people who were evacuated took shelter at the school for a few hours before returning home before dawn. Gas service had been cut off to nearby homes and Bushland’s schools, officials said. Messages left with the hospital for conditions of those injured were not immediately returned Thursday. A team of investigators was heading to the pipeline, said Robert Newberry, a spokesman for El Paso Natural Gas. El Paso Natural Gas is a subsidiary of Houston-based El Paso Corporation.
Tags: pipelines
Unnatural Gas: The Inflated Promise of a Not-So-Clean Fuel
Meanwhile, in competing with Big Coal for the affections of Congress, the newly formed America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) launched an $80 million advertising and lobbying campaign earlier this year to promote its “clean, abundant, American, reliable, and versatile” product. As climate bills work their way through Congress, ANGA’s efforts appear to be paying off.
Risking our water so we can burn more natural gas will not be the planet’s miracle climate cure. For the United States to achieve necessary reductions in greenhouse emissions – estimated at more than 80 percent – will require not more energy production, even if somewhat cleaner, but deep cuts in energy consumption.
Coal must be phased out as quickly as possible, but more gas won’t accomplish that. While electric utilities’ gas consumption doubled from 1996 to 2007, coal use continued its steady climb.
What if, with shale drilling, we could achieve another doubling of gas-fired electricity generation, but this time eliminate an equivalent amount of coal-fired generation? Even that steep escalation of gas drilling would cut the utility industry’s carbon emissions by only 12 percent and the nation’s total carbon emissions by just 5 percent, based on Energy Department figures.
Financier T. Boone Pickens recommends running our vehicles on natural gas. But substituting natural gas for gasoline in all vehicles would reduce the nation’s total carbon emissions by less than 9 percent. Converting all gasoline-powered vehicles would consume more natural gas than electric utilities, homes and businesses combined. Consequences for the nation’s water would be disastrous.
Natural gas is being hailed by some, including Pickens, as a high-energy “bridge” to a renewable future, and by others as sufficiently climate-friendly to be a “destination” fuel. But as gas’ environmental drawbacks become more evident, it’s looking more like a bridge to nowhere.
Read the entire piece at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/04-5
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20091031/NEWS01/91031008
Two teens killed in gas pipeline explosion
Two teenagers died in an early morning explosion at a gas pipeline in Carnes.
Wade White, 18, and Devon Byrd, 16, died at site of the explosion, which happened around 4 a.m. today near White’s home on Phillip White Road.
Byrd was a sophomore at Forrest County Agricultural High School and White had just graduated.
“They were two wonderful kids,” said Wanda White, Wade’s mother. “We just can’t understand what happened. My babies are gone.”
White said she and her husband were awakened by a noise early in the morning. After discovering the boys weren’t in the house, they discovered the fire just a stone’s throw from their home.
“Pretty much in the middle of nowhere” describes a lot of places in upstate New York. What natural gas has done to DISH, Texas, it will do to us too.
"DISH is located just off FM 156, a few miles west of I-35 and Denton. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere, which, from the drillers' point of view, made it the perfect place for gathering, compressing, and transmitting natural gas to and from all directions." - Fort Worth Weekly, 10/14/09
And what has the natural gas industry done to DISH, Texas, that it will also do here? Here’s an excerpt from an October 14 article:
The wind blows through pretty freely now, however, since most of the trees have recently died.
“After the explosion and what happened to my horses, all my boarders took their horses out of there,” said Burgess, now 56. “Who could blame them? This was going to be my retirement, but now it’s valueless.”
The words “valueless” and “worthless” come up a lot in conversation with people from DISH.
Read the entire article:
Sacrificed to Shale
More from DISH’s mayor:
The news that I continually get makes this nightmare worse and worse. I have yet another twenty something young lady who has undiagnosed neurological problems that started when she moved here. She has been shipped out of state for testing on a number of occasions, and they have been unable to diagnose the problems she is having. I am having difficult time in know what the next move should be. I wonder if there is a medical doctor out there who may come to help us here? Maybe there would be someone who could perform toxicology tests on the citizens. Please give me any input you may have, and if you know of anyone who may be willing to help, please let us know. Maybe you could post something on your websites or blogs soliciting help. Together I know you reach thousands of people. Thanks.
Calvin Tillman
Mayor, DISH, TX
(940) 453-3640
Tags: air emissions, air pollution, deaths, DISH, livestock, pipelines, TX
http://www.weny.com/News-Local.asp?ARTICLE3864=9148471
| Corning Gas Pipeline Leaking for 2 Years | |
| Patrick Card | |
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| October 13, 2009
Caton, NY — A Caton man says a gas pipeline running through his property has been leaking for almost two years. Gary Jellifs told WENY-TV News that the pipe was fixed once but started leaking again just a few months later. Now he says Corning Gas Company is unwilling to fix the pipe because the company has bigger problems to deal with. “You guys are our last option. We called everybody. We went through the proper channels. We called the gas company. We called the fire department. We called the state organizations and you guys are our last chance,” Jellifs said. “People need to know these gas lines are dangerous. Somebody needs to do something,” he added. The pipe can be heard bubbling underneath the surface and natural gas is visibly escaping from the hole in the ground. Corning Gas Vice President of Operations Matt Cook admitted it has known about the leak for years and have largely ignored it because of more pressing concerns. But he also claimed they are among the best in New York State at replacing old pipeline. “We’re replacing pipes with new more modern material in order to prevent leaks from occuring and to eliminate any existing leaks that are out there.”  |
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Residents returning home after gas pipeline catches fire in Marrero
By Times-Picayune Staff
October 03, 2009, 1:44PM
A giant ball of fire covers most of 4th Street near the intersection of Ames Boulevard on Saturday.
About 40 apartments at the St. Bakhita complex were evacuated as a precautionary measure after a fire in a gas pipeline in the 4000 block of Fourth Street at Ames Boulevard, authorities said. The $22 million apartment complex opened in April.
No one was injured in the incident that was reported around 10:25 a.m. Chief Rickie Eslick of the Marrero-Ragusa Volunteer Fire Department said that residents were allowed to return aroiund 12:30 p.m.
Eslick said the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Atmos Energy officials said they received a report shortly after 10:30 a.m. of a fire near an 18-inch main gas line that runs long Fourth Street. Company officials said they believe that a gas leak from the pipe was ignited by overhanging Entergy powerlines, causing the explosion and fire.
Entergy officials could not be reached for comment.
Complete story at: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/post_41.html
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Tags: explosion, fire, Louisiana, pipelines
NewsAdvance.com, Lynchburg, VA reports:
Appomattox heals, one year after pipeline blast
Published: September 12, 2009
APPOMATTOX — Deputy John Mattox still patrols the stretch of Virginia 26 that’s just north of town.
He passes the spot daily — right there, at the crest of the hill — where a year ago he stopped, stepped out of his cruiser and snapped a photo.
He knew what he had to do early that Sunday morning, and he thought it would kill him. The photo, he reasoned, would help investigators piece together how he died.
As he felt the air sucking away from him and into an expanding fireball just down the hill, Mattox tucked the camera under the driver’s seat. Then he ran toward the inferno fueled by a ruptured natural gas line, going door to door to move residents from their homes to safety.
A year later, new grass and weeds cover the scorched earth. The wreckage of two homes blown apart in the explosion is gone. Except for melted siding on a few homes up the road and some boarded-up windows, there is little physical evidence of the blast that rocked this tight-knit community on Sept. 14, 2008.
Even Mattox’s photo is gone. He deleted it from his camera a few months later.Details of that day, though, are seared in his memory. It is the same for many Appomattox residents who lived through the crisis — similar to the way that history-changing events are etched in the minds of those who experienced them, like President John F. Kennedy’s assassination or the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Greg Heath still remembers his panicked realization that morning that the pipeline he helped maintain had ruptured.
The Williams Gas Company employee was awake in his bed when the phone rang. As he answered the call, his wife went to the window. She yelled for him to come look.
“I looked at the fireball and I knew we started it,” he said. “The only thing that can burn like that is a ruptured pipeline. I thought, `Good God, we’ve set the world on fire.”
Heath has worked for Williams for 24 years and is trained in what to do in an emergency. He hopped into his truck and drove to the compressor station, a tenth of a mile from his home. The control panel there showed dangerously low pressure in one of the lines. He pushed a button to shut down the pumps that moved gas through the lines.
As he tried to report the rupture to the company’s control office, other local Williams employees called from valve locations along the pipeline demanding to know which line to shut down completely. They didn’t need to be called. They had seen, and heard, the rupture.
Heath didn’t go out to the site of the blast until four days later.
“I was devastated,” he said. “Everything was just blackened and awful. It was like a piece of hell.” Heath still doesn’t like to ride past the site, about three miles from his home, even though most evidence of the damage has been erased.
“It was hard for me to see what we had done,” he said. “Those people lost everything they own. … I felt like we did a good job of taking care of what needed to be done.”
Mattox, the deputy, was called a hero for his actions getting residents to safety. He knows it is a miracle, really, that no one died in the blast.
“This caught me off guard by its magnitude,” he said recently. “I will always remember the size of that fireball. That fireball was massive. … I believed that it would spread to adjacent residences.”
Just before Mattox took the photograph, he met Junior and Dorothy Bryant on the road as they fled from the cloud of dust and the rocks that punctured their roof and landed in their living room.
A year later, Bryant’s home — located a few hundred yards from the blast site — sits empty with a for sale sign in the front yard. Sometimes, he drives to his home of six years and sits in the driveway just to think. The Bryants never really returned to that house except to gather their belongings.
The couple lived with family members for a few months before settling with Williams. The company bought their old house and their new one, just down the street from the company’s compressor station. Some people joke about their new address, but Dorothy loves the house, Junior Bryant said.
“People look at us like, `Didn’t you get enough?’” he said. “I don’t find no fear in it. This thing was not supposed to happen.”
He’s hiked and hunted along those pipelines for most of his life. The Bryants looked at other places after the blast, but fell in love with the spacious house on Pumping Station Road.
It took a while, though, for Junior and Dorothy to be comfortable in their new home. Sounds of maintenance on the compressor station startled them. And once in a restaurant when a balloon popped, Junior almost hit the bottom of the table.
He thanks God that he and his wife are still alive.
“If it had been at night, I’m not sure we would have gotten out,” Bryant said. “If we hadn’t gotten out before the fireball, we wouldn’t have made it.”
He remembers sitting in the emergency shelter eating dinner with Dorothy that night a year ago.
“I would have thought it would never happen to me, where we live,” Bryant said. “We were sitting there eating dinner and thinking, `Wow, this is real.’ One morning things are normal and the next, the world’s upside down.”
. . . . .
The rupture brought the pipeline to the attention of many in Appomattox who had previously ignored it.
“People in the county didn’t know the pipeline was near their houses,” said Timmy Garrett, Appomattox’s fire chief. “We had people who bought their houses, and had no idea that they were 25 feet from a gas line.”
Now, strange or loud noises around the pipeline and compressor station prompt calls to emergency dispatch, said Bobby Wingfield, the county’s emergency services director.
“With the presence of the gas pipeline, any abnormality, any suspicious activity draws attention,” he said. “People, not just pipeline people, are more aware of it.
“It will take a while for people, when they hear a loud sound, to think it’s something other than the pipeline.”
Tags: explosion, pipelines, VA, Virginia
KRGV.com reports, 9/13/09
RIO GRANDE CITY – The sky in Rio Grande City was lit up Saturday night by a huge fireball. It was the result of a natural gas pipeline explosion.
. . . . .
Firefighters say it was a challenging blaze for them because they couldn’t get to it to tackle it. Fire crews waited for the gas company to turn off the gas to that location first and waited for the fire to subside a bit before battling it. The fire burned for at least two hours and then dwindled on its own.
Fire crews are meeting with the pipeline company tomorrow morning to find out what caused the explosion. They say one possibility is that the lines could be old. The lines will stay turned off for now.
Complete story at:
http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/Gas-Pipeline-Explodes-in-Rio-Grande-City/9ZYzNbqk-kSpqAK11wFqYg.cspx
Tags: explosion, leaks, pipelines
KRGV.com in Texas, 11/26/08:
Dangers of Gas Pipelines Under Neighborhoods
Reported by: Will Ripley
MCALLEN – NEWSCHANNEL 5 uncovered the potential danger caused by natural gas pipelines under Valley neighborhoods.
Six weeks ago, a natural gas pipeline exploded in McCook. The ball of fire was 400 feet high and over 1,500 degrees. The flames melted everything around them, including the asphalt on the road.
NEWSCHANNEL 5 spent the past six weeks traveling across Texas, digging up documents, and tracing a trail of pipelines. We found the pipelines weaving under your neighborhoods, your homes, and your schools.
We also learned natural gas is being blamed for a series of house explosions in north Texas.
“We have a very volatile situation,” says Jay Marcom. The north Texas farmer was in Austin, testifying to the Railroad Commission about the danger of natural gas pipelines. He says worn-out pipelines are leaking natural gas, polluting his land, and putting lives at risk.
“They’re just sitting out there waiting and rusting, waiting to explode,” Marcom says.
He agreed to come to the Valley with special equipment used to detect natural gas leaks. It didn’t take long before we found one. It was less than three miles from the McCook explosion site.
“You can smell the natural gas in this area,” commented Marcom.
NEWSCHANNEL 5 learned there are literally hundreds of miles of natural gas pipelines, running under thousands of Hidalgo County homes. This includes houses in McAllen, Mission, Edinburg, and Pharr. In fact, Hidalgo County has more pipelines than all the other Valley counties put together.
Railroad Commission documents show some of these lines are over five decades old. Back then, the pipelines were surrounded by empty fields.
Now, new homes and businesses are going up in the area. We’re told the land is too valuable not to develop.
“You’re moving out into the oil field and you’re exposing yourself to danger when you do that,” says Marcom.
City and pipeline operators work together to keep you as safe as possible. Companies try to keep a 50-foot buffer zone around the lines. But NEWSCHANNEL 5 found out that doesn’t always happen.
We saw one pipeline running directly underneath homes. Another pipeline runs right under McAllen Memorial High School.
Gas companies insist it is safe to build over pipelines, as long as the public knows they’re there.
. . . . .
NEWSCHANNEL 5 spent two days searching for pipelines. Most of the sites looked well maintained. All of them were fenced off, keeping us and our testing equipment out.
We tried talking to the HESCO Gathering Company, which owns the pipeline that blew up in McCook. They also own gas lines that run right under Valley neighborhoods. They turned us down for an on-camera interview.
But they did agree to answer some of our questions by phone and email.
HESCO says they’re still waiting on lab reports to confirm the official cause of the McCook explosion. But they tell NEWSCHANNEL 5 it was likely a “corrosion issue.”
We asked if HESCO’s other gas lines are corroding too. They responded, “We do significant testing on our pipelines.”
But they couldn’t give us an exact date. They did say, “We are constantly inspecting and treating our pipelines.”
More than a dozen companies operate natural gas lines in the Valley. Only one company, Shell, agreed to an interview. They have three full time inspectors in the Valley. They check 600 miles of pipelines, preventing problems before they happen.
Shell spokesperson James Blanton says, “The safety of the public and the environment is of the utmost importance to us.”
We asked him if the accident in McCook could happen in McAllen.
“Yes, hypothetically, yeah it could happen,” says Blanton, “But I’m very confident it will not be a Shell line.”
The Texas Railroad Commission also has four inspectors covering more than a thousand miles of pipelines in the Valley. Their job is to make sure those pipelines are well-maintained.
But even the state admits whenever you mix pipelines and people problems are bound to happen. According to the Railroad Commission, 200 such accidents happen a week in Texas. That’s more than 28 accidents a day.
Most accidents happen when construction workers dig and hit a gas line.
Ramona Nye of the Texas Railroad Commission explains, “This is the number one cause of accidents in the state. We are working hard to reduce those accidents.”
The Railroad Commission will soon begin fining people who dig into pipelines, without calling to find out where they are.
But Marcom says with so many gas lines in such a populated area, it’s only a matter of time before the next big accident.
“You’ve got the same ticking time bomb out in the country, in McAllen, in the Valley, with these unregulated gas gathering lines that are just waiting to explode,” he says.
We should point out the local government makes millions of dollars in tax revenue from these gas gathering lines.
The official report on the McCook explosion is due out in two weeks. As soon as we get that information from the company that owns the line, we’ll share it with you.
If you’re buying a home, it’s up to you to look around and see if there are any gas pipelines in the area. If you live near a natural gas line, the Texas Railroad Commission says you should always call before you dig. You can dial 811 or call 800-545-6005.
If you see or smell gas, get away from the area immediately and don’t use your cell phone because it could spark an explosion. Once you’re in a safe area, call police to report a possible gas leak.
Complete story at:
http://www.krgv.com/content/news/investigations/story/Dangers-of-Gas-Pipelines-Under-Neighborhoods/IFdmgVrTAEqwnRvsStHctw.cspx
Tags: corrosion, explosion, leaks, pipelines
July 8, 2009 - A landscaper’s backhoe struck a gas well in Mayfield Heights, near Cleveland, Ohio, forcing the evacuation of apartments and businesses, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer and News Channel 5. According to a spokesperson for NEOGAP, the accident occurred during the routine process of “reclaiming” the well site – that is, regrading and seeding.
According to the Plain Dealer, a woman who answered the phone at Bass Energy Co, the well owner, hung up on a reporter. Video shot by Newsnet 5 shows the vice president of Bass Energy ripping the mic from a reporter’s hand and throwing it away in the parking lot, after the reporter followed him to his car to get a comment.
Story:
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/gas_leak_in_mayfield_heights_f.html
Story and video:
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/19991581/detail.html
Food for thought:
Were you under the impression that if you live in a town, you don’t have to worry about being affected by the natural gas industry?
Why do states allow gas wells – an obvious hazard – to be developed in densely populated residential neighborhood and commercial areas?
When the neighborhood opposed the well (see video) why were its concerns ignored?
Do you think your state and regulating agencies are really looking out for you and your community?
Do gas companies make good neighbors?
Do you want the hazards of a gas well near you?
Tags: Bass Energy Co, leak, Ohio, residential
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http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?sectionId=46&id=63728
FORESTVILLE, Md. – Five firefighters and one gas company employee were burned in an apparent natural gas explosion at a shopping center in Forestville. Some were seriously burned, but they have not said if any of the injuries were life threatening. All six have been transported to the Washington Hospital Center’s burn unit.
As many as a dozen were injured, the other six were hit by shrapnel from the explosion.
According to Prince George’s County Fire and EMS spokesperson Mark Brady, the fire department received a call around 12:30 p.m. Thursday for a report of a natural gas leak. They arrived at 3426 Donnell Drive and evacuated the building. Sometime after that, the explosion occurred.
Brady reports that a flash fire burned the firefighters and gas company employee. The building was heavily damaged, so no one has been able to go in and search to make sure everyone got out. Brady says they are hoping everyone was taken out in the initial evacuation.
Tags: explosion, leak, natural gas
http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?S=9349075&nav=menu682_2
Natural Gas Pipeline Explosion
The explosion and fire near Alex closed down State Highway 19.
Associated Press
  |
ALEX, Okla. (AP) — Two people were hospitalized after natural gas pipeline operated by Enogex exploded early Friday morning in Grady County.
Three homes were destroyed by fire after the explosion near Alex and State Highway 19 was shut down.
A man and woman in a mobile home were injured. The man was taken to a Chickasha hospital. His name and extent of his injuries weren’t immediately known.
The woman is identified as Mildred Hull and is reported in good condition in an Oklahoma City hospital with second- and third-degree burns to about 17 percent of her body.
The cause of the explosion isn’t known. Enogex and Oklahoma Corporation Commission inspectors have been sent to the scene.
The pipeline was built in 1975 and transports natural gas from wells northwest of Thomas in Custer County to a production plant south of Alex.
————
Interview with fire chief:
http://www.kswo.com/Global/story.asp?S=9353162&nav=menu495_2
Grady County Fire Chief interviewed, says he could see it from his house 20 miles away, “A big massive, huge fire ball. The sound, it was unreal.”… “This is nothing like I’ve ever seen before. I’ve been in the fire service for 21 years now.” He says the initial explosion was only part of the problem. “Everything ignited from the heat, even the high line poles on the south side of the road ignited from the heat off that,” he said. ”The other house across the road ignited from the heat.”
Tags: fire, infrastructure, natural gas explosion, pipelines
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/us/18blast.html?_r=1&hp
Fatal Blast Wounds a City to Its Core
BOZEMAN, Mont. – In the struggle to keep its historic core viable, this city, with throngs of college students, Yellowstone-bound tourists and wealthy second-home owners, has defied the trend of declining downtowns. Main Street is a bustling place.
But a natural gas explosion nearly two weeks ago ripped a hole in the heart of Bozeman’s downtown, killing a woman, leveling five historic buildings that contained thriving businesses and damaging several more whose condition will not be known for some time. Dozens of plate glass windows on Main Street were blown out.
Concern about the future of the historic downtown, a five-block stretch of Main Street and a block on either side, grew last week when investigators said the cause of the explosion was a leak in a gas line to one of the destroyed businesses, Montana Trails Gallery. The line was more than 70 years old. The woman who died, Tara Bowman, the gallery director, was working when the explosion occurred. City officials say that no estimate of damages has been released.
Beyond the obvious destruction, the blast delivered a deep psychic blow to the business district, which was already going through some difficulty because of the declining economy.
“The explosion has significantly rocked this community,” said Chris Pope, a commercial real estate agent and the owner of a severely damaged building. “People are holding their breath. The stark realities of doing business in 2009 is in the front of everybody’s mind. There will be businesses that leave downtown.”
The accident comes as the economy here, as in so many other places across the country, has been hit hard. Bozeman though, with the likes of the media mogul Ted Turner and Tim Blixseth, developer of the super-rich Yellowstone
Club, has seen more of a boom than other parts of the state and so is feeling the impact more deeply.
“We’re not immune to the recession,” said Chris Kukulski, the city manager. “And to have a hole in the ground and all the businesses that brought people downtown gone is going to be felt.”
…..
All of that affects Bozeman’s downtown business district. “Since last fall we’ve seen planned projects come to a halt,” said Mark Hufstetler, chairman of the city’s Historic Preservation Advisory Board. “I don’t think we’ll see a parking lot in the middle of downtown Bozeman,” he said, but a replacement building “won’t be constructed as readily because of the economy.”
The explosion has taken an emotional toll, as well.
“People have a lump in their throat,” said Laura Ryan, an owner of Barrel Mountaineering, across the street from the blast site. “I didn’t cry for me or for my store, but I cried for the buildings that are gone and for downtown. Here’s where I based my life, and it’s gone and it hurts.”
Ms. Ryan’s store survived, but two of its large plate glass windows were blown out and much of the inventory ruined.
Residents worry about the potential for other gas line problems. A leak a year and half ago closed part of downtown for one day. The fire department is fielding four to six calls a day from worried residents; most are false alarms, but three more gas leaks have been found.
Still, some downtown business owners insist Bozeman will recover. “It’s going to be long and hard, but this town will not let downtown die,” Ms. Ryan said. “It’s a gorgeous little downtown.”
For now, people still seem to be coming to grips with what happened. “It’s still a very fresh wound for a lot of people,” Ms. Ryan said.
Tags: Bozeman, dead, explosion, natural gas explosion, pipelines, reduce demand
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Ploughing resources into the use of natural gas as an alternative energy supply could lead to global shortage within 20 years time, according to a leading energy expert.
Professor in Physics at Uppsala University in Sweden, Kjell Aleklett, says reliance on natural gas – believed by many to be a key source of alternative fuel for the future – would be a major mistake.
Whilst it could provide a short term solution to the energy issue, Professor Aleklett believes it is not the long term answer we need to tackle what he predicts will be a continuing decline in global oil production.
Professor Aleklett will outline his views this evening (Thursday 5 March) in his lecture Global Energy Resources – The Peak Oil View– which takes place as part of the institution’s Energy Controversies lecture series.
Professor Aleklett said: “The problem we should be concerning ourselves with is not climate change but the fact that there are too many people and not enough energy resources.
“We have reached a level where economic growth in the oil and gas industry is no longer possible. Looking for alternative energy sources has to become a key priority to counteract the continuing decline in global oil production which I predict we will experience.
“Many are looking to natural gas as a solution for electricity production in the future, but this is a massive mistake. Natural gas could generate enough energy to meet the demand for the next five to 10 years, but it is not a long term sustainable option.
“To expand the use of natural gas would be a mistake which could have catastrophic economical consequences for UK, Europe and across the globe in 20 years time. When we are hit by “Peak Gas” there are no alternatives for power generation. We have a discussion about future energy policy – it’s time to start to discuss the future power policy.”
Modified from a post on MarcellusGasInfo:
The following is an outline from James Lovelock’s book, Revenge of Gaia, pages 74-76. Lovelock is a member of Britain’s Royal Society (a scientific body) and originator of the Gaia theory, which postulates that the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere (all life) compose a single system that regulates the Earth’s climate. I’m outlining this section because there is too much text to type in .
——————
To reduce global warming, governments welcome the chance to burn natural gas instead of coal or oil.
The main constituent of natural gas is methane – one molecule is composed of 1 carbon and 4 hydrogen atoms.
For the same amount of energy, methane combustion releases only 1/2 as much carbon dioxide as burning oil or coal.
Unfortunately, some natural gas leaks into the air before it is burned. Society of Chemical Industry’s 2004 report indicates 2%-4% of natural gas is lost to leakage. Most of the leakage is at production sites, but leakage also occurs in pipelines and in our homes.
Methane is 24 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Methane has a shorter residence time in the air: 8% oxidizes each year.
In 12 years, only 37% of escaped methane remains, the rest having oxidized into carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Carbon dioxide has an effective residence time in the air of between 50 and 100 years.
If only 2% (the conservative end of the 2-4% estimate) of natural gas leaks before burning, it causes, over a period of 20 years, a peak global warming equal to coal burning.
If 4% leaks, natural gas causes 3X more warming than coal burning over a 20 year period.
The claim that natural gas halves carbon dioxide emissions is only true if there are no leaks anywhere (and also if the CO2 emissions from the very hydrocarbon-consumptive extraction process is not factored in).
Difficult to find estimates of natural gas leakage. An April, 2004 article in the journal Nature estimates 1.4% leakage from Russian piplines and 1.5% from US pipelines. This report does not include leakage at production sites or when the gas is burned.
Failure to consider the effects of natural gas leakage on global warming is a serious gap in our knowledge. The International Panel on Climate Change(IPPC) should study this phenomenon further.
Tags: CO2, coal, leak, methane, pipelines
The victims of Atmos Energy’s negligence lingered for over 2 and 5 months, respectively.
May 16, 2008 7:10 pm US/Central
Set of Explosions Destroy 3 Homes in McKinney
http://cbs11tv.com/local/mckinney.house.explosion.2.726162.html
May 18, 2008
McKinney explosion witnesses, victims’ families criticize Atmos Energy’s response
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/051808dnmetexplosionfolo.34729ab.html
May 19, 2008 5:10 pm US/Central
McKinney FD Chief Reveals New Details on Explosion
http://cbs11tv.com/local/mckinney.explosion.family.2.727862.html
Related stories:
- Set Of Explosions Destroy 3 Homes In McKinney (5/17/2008)
- McKinney, Others Continue Explosion Investigation (5/17/2008)
Monday, June 9, 2008
Family of McKinney gas explosion victim speaks out
http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2008/jun/09/family-mckinney-gas-explosion-victim-speaks-out/
Tags: Atmos, dead, deaths, dies, explosion, family, fatal, McKinney, residential, victim
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