Huge methane cloud via IR camera
Watch 50,000 Kilograms of Methane Per Hour Gush From a Busted Pipe
<< Infrared footage shows what a Los Angeles community has been living for nearly two months >>
From an Article by Laura Bliss, L. A. City Lab, December 9, 2015
What does a pipe spewing 50,000 kilograms of methane per hour look like? You’d never know, as the highly flammable gas is invisible to the naked eye. But in the northern San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, where a ruptured pipe has been pluming natural gas for nearly two months, residents finally have their chance to see.
The video was captured by the environmental nonprofit Earthworks, whose staffers took infrared cameras to the hills outside the natural gas storage field where the broken line sits. Owned by the Southern California Gas Company, the field is about a mile away from homes in the 30,000-person community of Porter Ranch. Since the break was first reported on October 23, residents have endured nausea, headaches and nosebleeds from chemicals added to the gas to give it a smell.
The utility has unable to repair the pipe, and has said it will be months before it’s fixed. State air quality regulators recently estimated that the rupture is releasing about 50,000 kilograms of methane per hour.
Hundreds of Porter Ranch families have been relocated to hotels by the gas company, and about 2,000 more are seeking such accommodations. Public health officials say that methane itself is not too risky in the short term, given that it’s rising into the atmosphere. But the longer the leak lasts, the greater the risk to humans becomes, as there are trace amounts of more harmful gases mixed in with the methane.
The city attorney of Los Angeles announced Monday that he was suing the gas company over how they’ve handled the leak. Porter Ranch residents have also served the utility with a class action lawsuit, which the video was made to support, according to KPCC.
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FLIR Footage from Gas Leakage
If you have never seen footage of gas leaks taken by a FLIR infrared camera, this will be enlightening, possibly shocking.
As you can see from the list of titles, this goes on everywhere. Princeton is currently researching this in PA, WV, and NJ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7YPkElp4Rw&list=PL9BS7nDf-8toxkJJw4eDWt_qP1uIOcBYf&index=2
Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, up to 80 times worse than CO2 over a 20-year period.
Is it any wonder we are facing thermal runaway in this century?
http://www.xylenepower.com/index.htm#homepage
Best, april keating
Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance
http://www.mountainlakespreservation.org
California Has a Huge Gas Leak, and Crews Can’t Stop It Yet
By Sarah Zhang, Wired, December 15, 2015
While the world was hammering out a historic agreement to curb carbon emissions—urged along by California, no less—the state was dealing with an embarrassing belch of its own. Methane, a greenhouse gas 70 times more potent than carbon dioxide, has been leaking out of a natural gas storage site in southern California for nearly two months, and a fix won’t arrive until spring.
The site is leaking up to 145,000 pounds per hour, according to the California Air Resources Board. In just the first month, that’s added up to 80,000 tons, or about a quarter of the state’s ordinary methane emissions over the same period. The Federal Aviation Administration recently banned low-flying planes from flying over the site, since engines plus combustible gas equals kaboom.
Steve Bohlen, who until recently was state oil and gas supervisor, can’t remember the last time California had to deal with a gas leak this big. “I asked this question of our staff of 30 years,” says Bohlen. “This is unique in the last three or four decades. This is an unusual event, period.”
Families living downwind of the site have also noticed the leak—boy, have they noticed. Methane itself is odorless, but the mercaptan added to natural gas gives it a characteristic sulfurous smell. Over 700 households have at least temporarily relocated, and one family has filed a lawsuit against the Southern California Gas Company alleging health problems from the gas. The gas levels are too low for long-term health effects, according to health officials, but the odor is hard to ignore.
Given both the local and global effects of the gas leak, why is it taking so long to stop? The answer has to do with the site at Aliso Canyon, an abandoned oil field. Yes, that’s right, natural gas is stored underground in old oil fields. It’s common practice in the US, but largely unique to this country. The idea goes that geological sites that were good at keeping in oil for millions of years would also be good at keeping in gas.
Across the US, over 300 depleted oil fields, of which a dozen are in California, are now natural gas storage sites. “We have the largest natural gas storage system in the world,” says Chris McGill, a vice president of the American Gas Association. And the site at Aliso Canyon is one of the largest in the country, with a capacity of 86 billion cubic feet. Aliso become a natural gas storage site in the 1970s. Each summer, SoCalGas pumps natural gas into the field, and each winter, it pumps it out. The sites are basically giant underground reserves for winter heating.
On October 23, workers noticed the leak at a 40-year-old well in Aliso Canyon. Small leaks are routine, says Bohlen, and SoCalGas did what it routinely does: put fluid down the well to stop the leak and tinker with the well head. It didn’t work. The company tried it five more times, and the gas kept leaking. At this point, it was clear the leak was far from routine, and the problem was deeper underground.
How crew will drill the relief well at Aliso Canyon. (photo: WIRED)
Here’s the new plan: SoCalGas began drilling a relief well on December 4. The relief well will intercept the steel pipe of the original well—all of seven inches in diameter—thousands of feet below ground. Then crews will then pour in cement to seal the wells off permanently. “Relief wells are a proven approach to shutting down oil and gas wells,” said SoCalGas in a statement.
As if finding a skinny pipe hundreds of feet below ground weren’t hard enough, the presence of all that explosive natural gas adds an extra layer of complication. A tiny spark and everything can go boom.
So at the leaking well site, work is restricted to daylight, says Bohlen, as lighting equipment could produce stray sparks. (The relief well far enough away that drilling there can proceed 24/7.) Back in 1975, a well at Aliso Canyon caught fire because of sparks from sand flying up the well.
And crews can’t set a deliberate fire, also known as flaring, which they often do at other remote areas with excess gas. The leak is so big and the flare would be so hot that it could make the mess even harder to contain.
“There is no stone being left unturned to get this well closed. It’s our top priority,” says Bohlen. But even that is slow, with months of drilling to come as methane continues to billow into the air.
Massive Methane Gas Leak Displaces Thousands In Los Angeles County
From National Public Radio, December 24, 2015
A major methane leak from a Los Angeles County natural gas storage field is spewing huge amounts of the potent climate change chemical into the air. Nearly 2,000 elementary students whose schools are nearby will have to enter different schools by mid-year. Low flying aircraft have been instructed to steer clear, and about 3,000 families have sought relocation. Several lawsuits have been filed on behalf of residents who say they’ve been harmed. Neither efforts to capture the leaking gas nor to seal off the damaged well have been successful.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A natural gas leak in Los Angeles County has forced more than 2,000 families to move temporarily. The leak began weeks ago – residents have complained of headaches, nausea and nosebleeds. As Ingrid Lobet reports, the leak is sending a potent greenhouse gas into the air.
INGRID LOBET, BYLINE: The methane gas – the same gas that fires your stove or heater – is billowing out of the ground from a field where the gas company stores it until it’s needed. But for nearly nine weeks now, it’s also been reaching the community of Porter Ranch. Robin Shapiro, the mother of two toddlers, recently spoke at a community meeting.
SHAPIRO: I have felt the effects, as my husband has – the stomach, the vomiting, the headaches. But when my 17-month-old son has to be on a nebulizer and comes home with bloody noses, there’s no excuse. I had to leave.
LOBET: Two nearby elementary schools are closing for the rest of the school year, meaning nearly 2,000 local children will have to finish at other schools. The carcinogen benzene was found well above expected levels in one government air sample. While the community struggles with dislocation during the holidays, up above in Aliso Canyon, crews of workers are trying again this week to kill the broken well from above. One challenge – the terrain is pretty steep.
JASON MARSHALL: Oh, it’s absolutely steep.
LOBET: Jason Marshall is chief deputy director of the California Department of Conservation. The leak raises an important question – why isn’t all this gas being captured?
MARSHALL: When the gas comes up, it’s not like it’s in a neat, tidy stream that you can just sort of put a nuzzle over and capture. The earth has actually been pushed away by the gas coming up around the outside of the well.
LOBET: But Marshall says they are trying to capture the gas, and they’re drilling a new well to intercept and close off the one that’s blown, which was drilled back in 1953.
MARSHALL: You know, it’s an old well. The construction of it wouldn’t meet today’s standards.
LOBET: The backdrop for this leak is that never have there been more regulations in the works to control methane – many times stronger than carbon dioxide in its ability to warm the atmosphere. So the sheer size of the release has been shocking. Tim O’Connor works for the Environmental Defense Fund, but he used to inspect large plants, like refineries, for leaks.
>>O’CONNOR: And we’d find little leaks, big leaks, that might be on the order of a pound or two per day. In this, we’re looking at 44,000 to 55,000 kilograms per hour of methane.
LOBET: So far, it’s enough to have heated tens of thousands of households for a year.
>>O’CONNOR: This is so far above and beyond what I’ve ever seen or what most people in the California research agencies or in the oil and gas space have ever seen.
LOBET: Multiple lawsuits have been filed. Now some residents are calling for the closure of the entire gas storage field. But Southern California Gas, which owns it, says this release, while extremely serious, is an aberration. Gillian Wright is vice president for customer services.
GILLIAN WRIGHT: This is not something that we have ever observed in any of our storage fields. It’s not something that we’re aware of occurring in other storage fields in the U.S. or North America.
LOBET: Wright also points out this gas field provides for the basic needs of more than 21 million customers.
WRIGHT: And it is the largest storage field in the western United States. So it’s essentially the heart of our system in terms of supplying and managing demand.
LOBET: Investigations into what caused the blowout of the well named SS-25 will be going on for months. For NPR News, I’m Ingrid Lobet.
Source: http://www.npr.org/2015/12/24/460959686/massive-methane-gas-leak-displaces-thousands-in-los-angeles-county