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

60Brittle Poweretors of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline are running a similar risk: they propose tostore spare pumps at the pumping stations themselves. This would save havingto ship them to the site of a failure (a difficult task, especially in winter).But it would also increase the likelihood that mishap or sabotage woulddestroy both original and spare at the same time.Spare parts may be effectively lost, too, by becoming inaccessible. A fivemilestretch of canal along the Gulf Coast, for example, contains an astonishingconcentration of oil-well service companies whose capacity, vital to theentire offshore and near-shore oil industry, could be bottled up by somethingas simple as a failed lock or drawbridge.Few energy companies have retained the on-site manufacturing capabilitiesthey had when they did much of their own machine-shop work. Many utilitiesdo have portable substations of modest size, and some have spare-partsharing arrangements with adjacent utilities. Still, most major items have to beimported from relatively remote manufacturers, who may have shortages orproduction problems of their own. The complexity of modern energy equipmentis tending to increase resupply problems and lead times. ProfessorMaynard Stephens, for example, in one of a series of pioneering studies of thefragility of the oil and gas industry, surveyed in 1969 the ready availability ofthree-phase explosion-proof electric motors—a key component of most oil andgas facilities. He found the total stock of the four main U.S. manufacturers tobe only twenty-two motors of one hundred fifty horsepower and up, withsmaller sizes faring little better. Most larger sizes required special orderingwith delivery delays of months. Just replacing the explosion-proof motorrequired for a single small crude-oil distillation plant “could use up thenation’s entire supply of [such] motors.” 5 Some key components, such as transformers,seem scarcer yet. Even such mundane items as the hoses and couplingsneeded to unload oil tankers often require special ordering. 6 And thereare of course limits to the insurance spare parts inventories can provide: “Onepipeline company keeps two of each important piece … of critical equipmenton hand, but if three items of the same [type] were damaged, as much as nineteenmonths’ delay could be created.” 7Repair times, facilities, and skillsIn the best of circumstances, and based on data from 1967 when manycomponents were smaller and simpler than today’s, estimated repair times forseriously damaged major components of power systems or other major energyfacilities are daunting. 8 Typically hundreds, and in some cases thousands,of person-days are required to repair substantial damage: an estimated twen-