The government is pursuing its investigations to try to find what was the cause of the San Bruno explosion September 9, 2010. Recall it was a massive explosion that dug a huge crater some 50' x 110'. To date what has emerged is a major scandal about the records keeping of PG&E, Pacific Gas and Electric.
PG&E is a huge corporation and has some 48,000 miles of NG pipelines in Northern California. PG&E currently has some 300 people working to computerize about 1.25 million records dating back more than 70 years and located at more than 3 dozen locations. The cross-referencing is a nightmare. At specific contention is about 150 miles of 30" high pressure main about which the records are completely unreliable.
The specific San Bruno problem is that the pipeline was NOT seamless and reliable records of the pressure testing do not exist or more specifically they have two sets of records that don't agree. Also the problem is why was the right-of-way encroached not only at this location but several other locations? PG&E engineering people feel that the entire 150 mile section should be hydraulically tested (water), and determine at what pressure level that section can be certified.
The immediate response is that PG&E should have a huge punitive damage fine because of the quality of its records (or really more the lack of quality of its records). There is a fight about whether the fine(s) are federal OR state OR both.
Nothing has been said about the "right-of-way" encroachments and how they were approved. My guess this is a political hot potato. As regards the records I suspect that the federal government will mandate that ALL the records have to be put in computer searchable form AND kept up to date.
Mention has been made of a water main leak in the area of the explosion that may have created a underground crater from erosion. That could have been a volume under the gas main where gas/air could have accumulated. At the time of the explosion the water main was out of service.
The congressional hearing in WDC is still ongoing and we can expect much pontification but probably little else. Wikipedia has a good website about this explosion.
COMMENT—The situation at San Bruno is not the exception. NG companies are mostly monopolies and as such the capital investment has long since been paid off. So money is NOT an issue—possible political malfeasance may be another issue. But their pipeline/distributions system is a major asset. It should be accurately cataloged and described in the company records.
Interesting.
Comments