LVXXU

Summary: The First Installment of the Quadrennial Energy Review
Figure SPM-1. Age by Decade of U.S. Gas Transmission and Gathering Pipelines
10%
80s
11%
90s 9%
00s
4%
Pre-40s
11%
70s
8%
40s
24%
60s
23%
50s
Chapter 1, Figure 1-1.
The Nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) also requires attention. The design of the SPR and the
infrastructure for utilizing it were determined in 1975, when domestic oil production was in decline, oil price
and allocation controls separated the U.S. oil market from the rest of the world, there was no global commodity
market for oil at all, and there were no hedging mechanisms to manage risk. The SPR requires updating in light of
changed circumstances, including significant maintenance and upgrades to enhance its distribution capability.
Climate Change
Energy TS&D infrastructure has always been shaped not only by the mix of energy supply technologies
and end-use patterns, but also by the characteristics of the environment where the infrastructure must
operate, including, for example, terrain, vegetation, soil and seismic conditions, and climate. It has long been
true, as well, that choices about TS&D infrastructure have had to take into account the need to limit that
infrastructure’s adverse impacts on the environment.
By far the most important environmental factor affecting TS&D infrastructure needs now and going forward
is global climate change. Sea-level rise, thawing permafrost, and increases in weather extremes are already
affecting TS&D infrastructure in many regions. The need to mitigate global climate change by reducing
GHG emissions, moreover, is accelerating changes in the mix of energy supply options and end-use patterns,
and over time, it is likely to become the dominant such influence. Reducing GHG emissions from TS&D
infrastructure, including methane emissions from the transmission and distribution of natural gas, will be
increasingly important in this context.
The key relevant conclusions from climate science—as embodied in the most recent reports of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Academy of Sciences (jointly with the Royal Society
of London), and the Third National Climate Assessment of the Global Change Research Program 3, 4, 5 —are that
GHGs emitted by civilization’s energy system are the dominant cause of changes in climate being observed
across the globe; that the changes not just in average conditions, but in extremes, are already causing harm to
life, health, property, economies, and ecosystem processes; and that deep reductions in GHG emissions will be
required if an unmanageable degree of global climate change is to be avoided.
S-6 QER Report: Energy Transmission, Storage, and Distribution Infrastructure | April 2015