Moving Energy - Pipelines

[RWebb]

Besides the recent failure of the SW electric grid, and the great East Coast "gridout" where people walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, the US has lots of problems in transportation of liquid energy.

Not just by ship (Exxon Valdez) but also the supposedly safe pipeline network.

[Two Rivers]

I wonder what the natural gas leakage from the pipe lines to the house meters is.
Has to be millions of cubic feet a day one would think.
I do not know how methane plays into pollution. It can not be good.

[RWebb]

yes, that is another issue - I know people have measured the CH4 leakage in large pipelines and it is pretty high - there was a summary article on it in the NYT a few weeks ago.

[GH85Carrera]

Let's shut all the pipelines down and go back to cutting down trees for energy.

[944Larry]

Originally Posted by Two Rivers

I wonder what the natural gas leakage from the pipe lines to the house meters is.
Has to be millions of cubic feet a day one would think.
I do not know how methane plays into pollution. It can not be good.

most gas companies shoot for less than 2% total and probably "0" if they could.

[944Larry]

Originally Posted by RWebb

Besides the recent failure of the SW electric grid, and the great East Coast "gridout" where people walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, the US has lots of problems in transportation of liquid energy.

Not just by ship (Exxon Valdez) but also the supposedly safe pipeline network.

I agree spills can and should minimized but you have all these spills over an 11 year period. Spills are a whole lot easier to clean up on land than in the water. I work in the industry and I've never even seen a spill over 50 gallons. I'd find something else to worry about at night if I was you.

[andrew15]

I didn't calculate for the other types, but for crude oil in 2008, that about a .006% loss. Even that calculation is probably high as I considered that each gallon used by the US only got moved once.

AM

[RWebb]

it is the damage done not the loss that is the issue - spills often happen at river crossings, like the recent one in Montana

the agency that is supposed to enforce pipeline safety is doing a very poor job, partly b/c Congress has choked off their funding

[BeyGon]

what about last year when ubama owned the Congress.

[legion]

Apparently the only system that is acceptable to Randy is one that never has any failures.

[Schrup]

Originally Posted by 944Larry

I work in the industry and I've never even seen a spill over 50 gallons.

I hope things have greatly improved over the last 13 years since I got out of the industry. I witnessed a lot of spills, both military & civilian. When I was stationed at Ramstein, we had a 24" cargo apron split. 50K gallons of JP4 in & above ground. The locals were not pleased with the lake of jet fuel.

We retrofit countless gas stations that leaked for years & did a lot of soil remediation for a large airplane company. Allegedly one of the superfund sites was used by the company for summer picnics, they lit the ponds of waste on fire.

Even with new tech, accidents still happen. Guy mismeasured the turbine pump 4 inches too long at a new gas station, installs it into the fiberglass tank & goes home. The next day everyone wonders where the 8K gallons of gasoline went.

As long as peolpe are running the show there will be spills.

[944Larry]

Originally Posted by RWebb

it is the damage done not the loss that is the issue - spills often happen at river crossings, like the recent one in Montana

the agency that is supposed to enforce pipeline safety is doing a very poor job, partly b/c Congress has choked off their funding

glad their funding was chocked off. I had 3 inspectors watching me work the other day, how many other occupations have that many people watching them? As far as damage, just like plane crashes, car wrecks or whatever it all gets cleaned up.

[944Larry]

Originally Posted by Schrup

I hope things have greatly improved over the last 13 years since I got out of the industry. I witnessed a lot of spills, both military & civilian. When I was stationed at Ramstein, we had a 24" cargo apron split. 50K gallons of JP4 in & above ground. The locals were not pleased with the lake of jet fuel.

We retrofit countless gas stations that leaked for years & did a lot of soil remediation for a large airplane company. Allegedly one of the superfund sites was used by the company for summer picnics, they lit the ponds of waste on fire.

Even with new tech, accidents still happen. Guy mismeasured the turbine pump 4 inches too long at a new gas station, installs it into the fiberglass tank & goes home. The next day everyone wonders where the 8K gallons of gasoline went.

As long as peolpe are running the show there will be spills.

can't argue with none of this-I only do cross-country pipelines and am not really qualified to say yea or nay about the spills you speak of here.

[Hugh R]

Its much better than say 25 years ago. With double-walled fuel tanks and leak detection systems its a lot better. I had a gasoline tank failure cleanup in West Hollywood, CA about 25 years ago where they lost 10K gallons, sticked the tank and thought they'd misread the sales sheet and ordered another 10K gallons and lost it again overnight. We had 3 feet of gasoline floating on the groundwater 1/4 mile downhill. Santa Palm Car Wash in West Hollywood. You could probably find it with a goggle search if you cared enough.

[sammyg2]

OH BS. The US has pipelines all across it and if "the US has lots of problems in transportation of liquid energy" it would not be necessary for you to come here and try and make people aware of it.

You're intent is consistent with that of an enviro-tard, trying to create a sensationalistic emotional response from the uninformed ignorant masses through exaggeration and deception. Unfortunately as evidenced in this thread ,you have not been completely unsuccessful.

It's amazing how SOME people can form a strong opinion about something they have no knowledge or understanding of.

[billybek]

Perhaps it takes less energy and is safer to transport oil and liquefied fuels by truck in mass quantities?

Na, I didn't think so either.

[sammyg2]

Here's a perfect example of what we're talking about:
oil is natural in nature. It exists naturally, it floats to the surface naturally, it is part of nature.
It is especially prevalent off the California coast, where thousands of times or more oil and tar washes up onto the shore from natural sources than from any man-made oil spill. But the lefties can't stand that FACT.
That's right kiddies, they've taught you that if oil gets on the ground the world will end, they did not tell you that most oil that ever hits the ground or water is from NATURE.
How convenient.
The lib gubmint (USGS) is spending large fortunes to try and identify all tar and oil found to determine if it is from a natural source or from a man-made source. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack. If it's from nature which it almost always is, they so no big deal, that's perfectly OK. but if they find a tiny amount from a man-made source, they act as if WWIII just broke out and try to put the company out of business. I remember about 20 years ago there was a petition going around that asked the fed gubmint to declare a superfund site around a large tar deposit in a town called La Brea. Yep, that's right. they got thousands of signatures to clean up the La Brea Tar Pits.

Sources, Transportation, and Fate of Natural Oil and Gas Seepages
Overview

Tar and oil residues are common on California beaches, especially in southern California where natural oil seeps are present. Baseline information on tar and oil accumulations from natural seepage and spills is sought in order to manage the offshore production of oil and gas. The Minerals Management Service and the County of Santa Barbara have funded the USGS organic geochemistry team in Menlo Park, California to provide geochemical information that can be used to distinguish between sources of tar from natural seeps of from man-made spill. Baseline tar accumulation on beaches is an important management tool to assess the environmental impact of natural oil seepage in contrast to possible oil spills or illegal dumping at sea. Tar accumulation on specific beaches is monitored on a periodic basis providing details of tar composition, amount, and possible transport pathways as they vary with time.
Related Projects

Submarine Oil Seep Study: Southern Santa Maria Basin and Western Santa Barbara Channel
Pacific Region, Naturally Occurring Oil Seeps

Santa Barbara County Natural Seep Inventory Project (2002-2004)
County of SB : Energy Division, project report

University of California Santa Barbara "Bubbleology" Coal Oil Point interactive explorer
Seep_Mapping_Frame
Bubbleology Main Page

USGS seeps page
Natural Oil and Gas Seeps in California - USGS PCMSC


The major goal of this project is to establish the geologic setting, source(s), and ultimate dispersal of natural oil and gas seeps in the offshore southern California within the area between Point Arguello and Ventura. The surveys will focus on likely areas of hydrocarbon seepage which are known to occur over the Pt. Arguello oil field, and the area near Santa Barbara where huge amounts of offshore oil seepage occur. Objectives in reaching this goal are to:

document the locations and geochemically fingerprint natural seeps within the offshore southern Santa Maria and Ventura Basins;
geochemically fingerprint coastal tar residues and potential sources, both onshore and offshore, in this region and compare these data with the existing database from this and other coastal regions of California;
establish chemical correlations between offshore active seeps and coastal residues thus linking seep sources to oil residues;
measure the rate of natural seepage of individual seeps and attempt to assess regional natural oil and gas seepage rates;
attempt to predict transport pathways of oil from seep sources to the coastline;
interpret the petroleum system history for the natural seeps; and
extend coastal tar residue study to include beaches of Santa Barbara County.

Approach

The Minerals Management Service has awarded the USGS funds over a 5 year period to conduct this program with the understanding that the USGS and our partners, will provide salary for our respective personnel. Below is a detailed workplan for years one to five.

Synthesize acoustic evidence of gas and oil seepage based on reviews of existing seismic-reflection and sidescan-sonar data. Goal: to define most favorable areas for detailed offshore fieldwork during year 2.
Review MBARI EM-3000 multibeam bathemetry and acoustic backscatter imagery previously collected in the southern Santa Maria Basin.
Review USGS seismic-reflection and related data lines in areas of interest for:
echo-sounding data at either 10 kHz or 12 kHz,
high-resolution seismic-reflection data using both 3.5 kHz and boomer sound sources,
side-looking sonar images,
single-channel seismic-reflection data, and
limited amounts of 24-channel seismic-reflection data.
Review of industry geophysical data archived by MMS.
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) evidence for oil seepage to determine if SAR is useful in this area for identifying and locating seep-rich areas.
Review oceanographic conditions to determine if transport pathways for oil originating at offshore seeps can be predicted.
Review existing records of near-bottom transport taken by USGS personnel at sites north of Pt Conception.
Review surface current information (observations, analysis, and numerical models) from the SBC-SMC circulation study. Current data at various depths along the central California coast, available through Mr. Sig Larson at MMS, will also be reviewed.
Develop a chemical-fingerprint library for oil, gas and source rock signatures. Goal: Establish a library of oil chemistry fingerprints with the utility to identify oil samples and their likely sources in contrast to oil residues resulting from spillage, especially those of non-California sourced oils. Tar residues and oil or tar found in seeps, sediments, in the water column and the surf area from California coastline locations within the study area will be collected mainly during year one. These samples are expected to include:
a representative number of about 150, some collected seasonally, of tar residue samples from the coastline between Point Arguello and Point Conception,
oil and gas samples from offshore wells in the study area,
oil and gas samples from selected onshore wells or seeps in the study area, and
organic matter in selected oil source rocks.

In order to address the temporal variations in oil deposits, a sample set will be collected bi-yearly during years one and two at established stations located next to intertidal biological monitoring stations previously established by MMS. We hope to coordinate oil residue collections with MMS and the County of Santa Barbara. In addition we intend to work with, and have previously worked with Bill Castle of the California Department of Fish and Game who has developed a chemical fingerprint library in the vicinity of our proposed study area. We will also integrate the new geochemical information from southern California with our current database which contains data on tar residues from a broader extent of the California coast.
News

Tar Balls Washed Onto Central California Beaches by Storms Tar Balls Washed Onto Central California Beaches by Storms

Mapping the Sea Floor Off Santa Barbara, California Mapping the Sea Floor Off Santa Barbara, California

Mapping Benthic Habitat Around Oil Platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel, California Mapping Benthic Habitat Around Oil Platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel, California

Report on Hazards Offshore California's Ventura County Coast Compiled in Response to Congressional Request Report on Hazards Offshore California's Ventura County Coast Compiled in Response to Congressional Request

Natural Tar Seeps in the Santa Maria Basin and Western Santa Barbara Channel Workshop, November 2004 http://www.mms.gov/omm/pacific/offshore/ROTAC/041102-ROTAC.htm

Survey of Offshore Hazards in Southern California Survey of Offshore Hazards in Southern California

Beginning the Search for Offshore Oil Seeps Near Point Conception, California Beginning the Search for Offshore Oil Seeps Near Point Conception, California

Ecology of Oil Seeps in Central California The Ecology of Oil Seeps in Central California

Ubiquitous Coastal-Tar Residues on Santa Rosa Island, Offshore Southern California Ubiquitous Coastal-Tar Residues on Santa Rosa Island, Offshore Southern California

Santa Barbara oil seeps: USGS-MMS co-op - USGS PCMSC

[sammyg2]

Isn't it amazing how perspective can change when you have the real story or the whole story?

Natural Oil 'Spills': Surprising Amount Seeps into the Sea | LiveScience

Natural Oil 'Spills': Surprising Amount Seeps into the Sea
LiveScience Staff
Date: 20 May 2009 Time: 06:04 AM ET


The infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, one of the largest in U.S. history, dumped more than 10 million gallons of crude into Prince William Sound.

While the amount of oil and its ultimate fate in such manmade disasters is well known, the effect and size of natural oil seeps on the ocean floor is murkier. A new study finds that the natural petroleum seeps off Santa Barbara, Calif., have leaked out the equivalent of about eight to 80 Exxon Valdez oil spills over hundreds of thousands of years.

These spills create an oil fallout shadow that contaminates the sediments around the seep, with the oil content decreasing farther from the seep.

There is effectively an oil spill every day at Coal Oil Point (COP), the natural seeps off Santa Barbara where 20 to 25 tons of oil have leaked from the seafloor each day for the last several hundred thousand years. The oil from natural seeps and from man-made spills are both formed from the decay of buried fossil remains that are transformed over millions of years through exposure to heat and pressure.

"One of the natural questions is: What happens to all of this oil?" said study co-author Dave Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara. "So much oil seeps up and floats on the sea surface. It's something we've long wondered. We know some of it will come ashore as tar balls, but it doesn't stick around. And then there are the massive slicks. You can see them, sometimes extending 20 miles [32 kilometers] from the seeps. But what really is the ultimate fate?"

Based on their previous research, Valentine and his co-authors surmised that the oil was sinking "because this oil is heavy to begin with," Valentine said. "It's a good bet that it ends up in the sediments because it's not ending up on land. It's not dissolving in ocean water, so it's almost certain that it is ending up in the sediments."

The team sampled locations around the seeps to see how much oil was leftover after "weathering" — dissolving into the water, evaporating into the air, or being degraded by microbes.

Microbes consume most, but not all, of the compounds in the oil. The next step of the research is to figure out just why that is.

"Nature does an amazing job acting on this oil but somehow the microbes stopped eating, leaving a small fraction of the compounds in the sediments," said study co-author Chris Reddy, a marine chemist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Mass. "Why this happens is still a mystery, but we are getting closer."

Support for this research, which is detailed in the May 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, came from the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, and Seaver Institute.

Natural oil seeps off the coast of Alaska release about 100,000 gallons of oil a year into the marine environment.

The rate of release of oil seeps off the coast of California is estimated to be nearly six million gallons of oil a year, with Coal Oil Point, in Santa Barbara Sound being the largest natural oil seep.

The Gulf of Mexico natural oil seeps release over 40 million gallons of oil into the marine environment every year easily dwarfing the BP oil spill so far.


Read more at Suite101: Oil Rig Spills not the Major Sources of Marine Oil Pollution | Suite101.com http://laurenceosullivan.suite101.com/oil-rig-spills-not-the-major-sources-of-marine-oil-pollution-a250680#ixzz1Xf8l7diN


And don't think this is a remote or rare occurrence. Oil seeps and natural spills happen all over the world, every day. Yet the tree-hugging-geniuses won't talk about that, no. They'd rather try to scare the weak-minded into supporting their irrational and emotional cause.

Try not to be the droids they're looking for.

[scottbombedout]

[QUOTE=sammyg2;6248318]
That's right kiddies, they've taught you that if oil gets on the ground the world will end.

Exaggerate much?

Originally Posted by sammyg2

They'd rather try to scare the weak-minded into supporting their irrational and emotional cause.

Try not to be the droids they're looking for.

Pot, kettle, black.

[island911]

hyperbole -know the difference.

Then you will see Sammy's main point - which you are free to attempt to refute. ...good luck w/ that