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

Chapter Nine: Oil and Gas 115required by law. Extremely detailed maps periodically published by federalagencies and by the petroleum industry—some scaled at one and a half millionto one or less—enable anyone to pinpoint pipelines and allied facilities.Merely penetrating a pipeline may interrupt its flow and cause a fire orexplosion. But unless air leaks into a gas line in explosive proportions, thedamage will be local and probably repairable in a few days or (if the industryhad to cope with several substantial breaks simultaneously) a few weeks.Exposed pipelines can be penetrated or severed using low-technology explosivesor thermite. Commercially available shaped charges are used in the oiland gas industry itself for perforating pipe, and have apparently been usedagainst pipelines or tanks by saboteurs. 132Even if a pipeline were somehow completely destroyed, it could be relaidat a substantial rate:...under the most favorable circumstances, small-diameter lines of six to eight inchescan be constructed as rapidly as three miles or more per day, and large-diameterlines of thirty to thirty-six inches at one mile or more per day. Under extremelyadverse conditions the [respective] rates...are three thousand to four thousand feetper day [and]...one thousand to fifteen hundred feet per day. 133(Rates in swampy areas are often much lower.) But far more vulnerable andless repairable than pipelines themselves are their prime movers—pumping stationsfor oil, compressor stations for gas—and such allied facilities as interconnections,metering and control stations, and input terminals.River crossings, either on a bridge or under the riverbed, are similarly vulnerableand complicate repair. (Capline, described below, has a duplicate loopcrossing the Mississippi River, but this is far from a universal practice, and addstwo vulnerable junction points.) Dropping a bridge can not only sever a pipelinecarried on it but can at the same time stop navigation (including tankers andbarges associated with an oil terminal or refinery), block traffic, and hinder thedelivery of repair equipment. 134 Significant damage at any of these points canreduce or stop fuel flows for a half-year or more. 135 It is not in fact difficult todrop a bridge. Terrorists from Ulster to Uganda do so monthly. Arson in a controlhouse on an abandoned railroad bridge at Keithsburg, Illinois dropped aspan that blocked the Mississippi River for a week in June 1981. 136 Threemonths later, an accidental spill of ten thousand gallons of gasoline from a hugetank farm overlooking the harbor of Portland, Oregon forced the closure of amain bridge and could probably have destroyed it. 137“Pipelines are easy to sabotage. A double premium accrues to the saboteur’saccount—the loss of oil and an extensive fire that might ensue. A trainedgroup of a few hundred persons knowledgeable as to the location of our major