Thousands of gas leaks under Boston and San Francisco

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128203.800-thousands-of-gas-leaks-under-boston-and-san-francisco.html

Thousands of gas leaks under Boston and San Francisco

06 July 2011 by Phil McKenna

IF YOU are reading this in the US, the chances are there is a natural gas leak on your street. The US Energy Information Administration estimates that more than 8 billion cubic metres of gas are lost each year somewhere between the point of production and reaching homes across the nation. Some of this "unaccounted-for gas", as the EIA has dubbed it, is probably down to faulty meters and accounting errors. But not all.

Thousands of unreported leaks are turning up under Boston and San Francisco, according to Nathan Phillips of Boston University. Together with documents from the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, it suggests that some of the gas is leaking into the atmosphere from ageing pipelines beneath urban centres.

The leaked gas represents 1.4 per cent of the nation's total distribution but the methane it contains could scupper one of the best hopes for clean energy.

…

http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news/releases/display.php?id=2242

News Releases

For Release Upon Receipt - May 13, 2011
Contact: Patrick Farrell, 617-358-1185, [e-mail]

BU RESEARCHERS IDENTIFY EXTENSIVE METHANE LEAKS UNDER STREETS OF BOSTON

New findings by to be presented May 17-18 at NOAA Global Monitoring Conference in Boulder, CO

(Boston) -- Earlier this year, Boston University researchers and collaborators conducted a mobile greenhouse-gas audit in Boston and found hundreds of natural gas leaks under the streets and sidewalks of Greater Boston. Nathan Phillips, associate professor of geography and environment and director of BU’s Center for Environmental and Energy Studies (CEES), and his research partners will present these and related findings at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) Global Monitoring Annual Conference, May 17-18 in Boulder, Colorado.

Phillips and partners Picarro, Inc., Gas Safety USA, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, are currently researching the economic and environmental impacts of these leaks. Their work updates earlier findings that unaccounted-for gas amounted to eight billion cubic feet in Massachusetts, costing about $40 million. Such gas leaks have been implicated in damage and mortality of urban and suburban street trees. Evidence from other states indicates that the situation in Boston is likely similar to cities and towns across the nation.

In an attempt to identify major methane sources in Boston and Indianapolis, Phillips and his research partners systematically measured methane (CH4) concentrations at street level using a vehicle-mounted cavity “ringdown” analyzer. A number of discrete sources were detected at concentration levels in excess of 15 times background levels. Background levels of methane were also measured to be 10 percent higher than the world-wide average of 1.860 ppm. Measurements of CH4 concentration levels along with detailed location information will be presented. In addition, chamber flux measurements of discrete sources will also be presented.

Recent measurements indicate that urban emissions are a significant source of CH4 and in fact may be substantially higher than current inventory estimates. As such, urban emissions could contribute 7-15 percent to the global anthropogenic budget of methane. Although it is known that the per capita carbon footprint of compact cities such as New York City, Boston, and San Francisco are smaller than sprawling cities such as Houston, the strengths of individual sources within these cities are not well known. Such information is of use to government policy makers because it can be used to incentivize changes in transportation and land use patterns.

…

[not4nuthin]

1. Gas Leaks

This is really scary stuff! I had never thought about the possibility of gas leaks underground.

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. Lots of crews replacing gas pipes under streets near Boston

I live northwest of Boston. All this past year, ever since the ice season was past, crews have been out digging trenches in streets and replacing the gas lines in several of the local communities, including mine. I haven't been in Boston itself recently and don't know if it's going on there too. However, this very slow, expensive and laborious work is ONLY going on along the main streets, NOT along the gas mains on residential side streets. But those are leaking too: on my very short street alone, twice in the last 4 years the fire department had to come out on an emergency basis for serious gas leaks in the aging lines going down my street. Crews then came in to replace those segments, but one of them told me that the rest of the street's lines are rotten too, the whole town's are. There are explosions said to be from gas leaks every so often in local communities. I don't think those are from stoves left turned on or the like. I think they're mostly from similar leaking mains.

This is an extremely serious problem, like so much of the aging infrastructure of the nation's cities. These local cities, like Boston, are very old and their gas lines are, too. I'd imagine the same is true of many other cities.

K & R

Edited to add: Other infrastructure problems in New England: a large number of dams that could go at any time the next time a big rain comes, decaying bridges, pothole-ridden, sometimes undrivable streets. And much more. It's overwhelming.

[One_Life_To_Give]

3. Hardly surprising

Half the water leaving the reservoir for Boston leaks out before arrival. Pets get electrocuted walking down the sidewalks in winter. Steam leaks all over the place. And potholes come close to swallowing cabs.

[Nihil]

4. Well, if their focus on the safety & cost aspects cause them to fix the leaks ...

... all strength to them as this will fix the climate impact of such
releases of methane in the process.

Mind you, I suspect this pales into insignificance compared to the
leaks of methane at gas wells (but every bit helps).

:shrug: