Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Chapter Eight: Liquified Natural Gas 95ten miles of six-foot sewer line, or sixteen miles of a sixteen-foot-diameter subwaysystem.” 51 That is enough, if the gas actually went that far and did notleak out partway, to fill up virtually the entire Boston subway system. AnLNG spill into a sanitary sewer would vaporize with enough pressure to blowback methane through domestic traps into basements. 52 Even if buildings arenot involved, sewer explosions can damage large areas. Early on 13 February1981, for example, an hour before rush-hour traffic, miles of streets inLouisville, Kentucky were instantly torn up by an explosion of hexane vapor,which had apparently leaked into the sewer system from a factory a mile fromthe point of ignition. 53 Such explosions can do great damage with only a fewcubic meters of flammable liquids, 54 and have been used for sabotage. 55Analogous hazards of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)Liquefied petroleum gas (“LP Gas”)—the kind so commonly seen in metalbottles in rural areas and trailer parks—consists almost entirely of eitherpropane or butane. These are by-products separated from natural gas at thewellhead or, on occasion, derived from other parts of the petroleum system.Unlike LNG, LPG is not regasified and piped to customers, but rather delivereddirectly as a liquid. This is possible because propane and butane liquefyat normal temperatures under modest pressure, or alternatively with moderatecooling at atmospheric pressure. 56 Because LPG is delivered to retail customersas a liquid, it requires many small shipments. Yet because those shipmentsmake up about three percent of all U.S. energy supplies, vehicles carryingLPG are ubiquitous. It is a far older and better-known fuel than LNG,yet is less well studied and regulated—even though in some respects it may beeven more hazardous than LNG.About eighty-five percent of the LPG in bulk storage is kept under pressurein underground salt domes or caverns; 57 the rest is stored abovegroundin tanks, often small ones. As these tanks are generally pressurized rather thanchilled, they do not require insulation as LNG tanks do. Instead, they haveonly a single wall and hence are easily penetrated or destroyed. In 1978 theU.S. had twenty aboveground LPG storage facilities with capacities greaterthan twenty-three thousand cubic meters.Most LPG is transported through some seventy thousand miles of highpressurepipelines. The rest travels in sixteen thousand pressurized railcars (asopposed to LNG, which does not move by rail) and in twenty-five thousandpressurized tank trucks, whose squat cylindrical outlines are a daily sight onour highways. A large LPG truck, like its LNG counterpart, holds about fortycubic meters. But unlike an LNG truck, it is under pressure and is single-