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

40Brittle Powergas companies strive to avoid it at all costs. 27 Indeed, the gas industry generallyconsiders it an abstract problem—much as the electric power industry considereda regional blackout until it happened in 1965. Yet, ominously, an extortionistthreatened a few years ago to cause a brief interruption in Philadelphia’sgas supply—long enough to extinguish the pilot lights, but short enough tocause instant and widespread “urban redevelopment” shortly thereafter.Inflexibility of energy delivery systemsA monumental study of the U.S. energy transportation system identifiedsix aspects of system flexibility:•adaptability to changes in volume carried (throughput);• adaptability to different operating fuels;• sensitivity to weather;•ability to change delivery routes;• ability to build facilities quickly; and• ability to ship several different fuels jointly. 28Another attribute not mentioned by the study, but also important, is• ability to reverse direction.Several of these qualities deserve brief amplification.Volume Normal fluctuations in demand, let alone the ability to substitute forother interrupted supplies, make it desirable to be able to change the amountof energy transmitted, quickly and within wide limits. All present means of coaltransportation have this property insofar as they need no fixed or minimumthroughput. (This may not be true of proposed slurry pipelines.) Railroad andbarge traffic cannot greatly expand without overloading key track sectors,locks, and so on, but at least within those limits the volume is free to fluctuate.For oil, trucks provide the greatest ability to expand, provided there are enoughtrucks and open roads; railways and waterways are intermediate in flexibility,since they have fixed trunk routes but can move equipment along them towhere it is most needed (and, in the case of railways, can add spur lines). Oilpipelines are the least flexible, having fixed routes and—barring major modifications—fixedmaximum capacities. Most pipelines, however, can reduce theirthroughput over a substantial range with little penalty save in profits.The ability to concentrate modular fuel-carrying vehicles where they aremost needed paid off in 1940–42. At this time, the Atlantic Seaboard wasninety-five percent dependent on coastal tankers that were vulnerable toGerman submarines (and oil shipments to England were wholly dependent