The Travails of National Grid (Part 37)
April 24th, 2007
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Posted by ChrisG at 3:42 pm
More news on National Grid’s efforts to build a massive pipeline across South Wales and part of Gloucestershire with scant regard for well-founded local objections, which it seeks to disregard in favour of a dubious appeal to what it (a private company, with pressing private interests) interprets as ‘the national interest’.
The gas that is to be piped through the pipeline will be pressurised (at the Milford Haven end of the pipe) to a pressure of 94 bar before being reduced in pressure at Tirley in Gloucestershire so that it can be fed into the UK gas network. Two facts about this are particularly interesting: first of all, National Grid has no operating data for operating pipelines of this enlarged diameter (1220mm) at this pressure, due to the simple fact that it has never done so before. Secondly, to operate at this pressure requires above ground installations (AGIs) at either end of the pipeline so as to pressurise/depressurise the gas. In its evidence so far submitted to various planning enquiries (which have so far refused planning permission for the building of the AGIs), National Grid has relied consistently on the fallacy of arguing from ignorance in relation to its lack of operating experience, presenting the lack of data as proof of lack of risk. Further, it has refused to assess the risk of third party action (e.g. terrorism) compromising an AGI.
Anyone with an interest in this evidence, such as those people at either end of the pipeline who are going to be living in the vicinity of an AGI, would therefore probably be interested in this story from the BBC website, which tells of how a burning car set fire to a small depressurisation valve over a gas pipeline in Basildon, resulting in 40-foot high flames and a two-mile exclusion zone around the incident. The gas through this pipeline was presumably being pumped at standard pressure for the UK gas network. The potential results of a higher pressure gas leak at an AGI such as those at either end of the new pipeline being ignited through accident, vandalism or some other variety of third-party interference might be of interest to people who will be living rather less than two miles from the proposed installation sites.
In the meantime, National Grid continues to suffer legal setbacks, resulting in it declaring force majeure in relation to its existing contracts with LNG shippers (notice how the national interest ‘argument’ creeps into the Notes to Editors there…). This arose from the High Court’s decision to overturn Neath Port Talbot’s decision to give planning consent for the Cilfrew AGI, following a sustained and courageous campaign from local people to highlight interference by council officers in the planning process. This third judgement against the pipeline means that the planning process will now be entered into again in mid-May, giving campaigners another opportunity to blow holes right through National Grid’s increasingly transparent-looking representations.
Recent events in Essex will no doubt play a major role.
More information at Rising Tide and Fighting the Pipe.
UPDATE: I hope the National Grid employee who dropped by 15 minutes ago (12.41pm, 25 April) found what they were looking for.
UPDATE UPDATE: As they’ve been back at least twice since last Wednesday (the last time around 10 minutes ago at 15.42 on 30 April), perhaps they didn’t. If you need any help, try an email to rochenko AT gmail.com. It’ll save you a lot of scrabbling.
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I hope the National Grid employee who dropped by 15 minutes ago (12.41pm, 25 April) found what they were looking for.
How do you know this? It all sounds like an industrial 007 scenario to me.
You’re not likely to be kidnapped before the big event are you? thereafter, being ransomed by some enraged minor National Grid executive, having already reasoned that his career and bonus interests are the nations interests, and that your interest and the interests of local people and the law are somehow not so interesting afterall.
The private sector, their sanctimony, hubris, and idiocy know no limits. Lord help us all.
I await your next posting with interest, as proof that this has been avoided.
Al
Quite safe, no need to worry. All down to the wonders of Sitemeter, old chap.
During the 90s I project-managed a number of large engineering projects and was involved in three industrial accidents (I hasten to point out that only the first of those was in any way my fault… and as I was the only person injured in that one — severed the top of my finger — I thankfully don’t have any guilt to carry around).
The other two of those accidents involved high-pressure pipework, and when I read of a 1.2 metre pipe carrying a highly flammable gas being pressurised to 94 bar… well, it makes me want to go door-to-door in South Wales and tell everyone to move somewhere else.
I was present when a 40mm compressed air pipe fractured at 24 bar and a foot-long piece of stainless-steel pipe buried itself 6 inches into a concrete wall less than a foot from my head. I also saw another smaller piece pass right through a guy’s neck (he didn’t survive).
It seems like a strange thing to say, but the destructive power of compressed gasses (even air!) is awesome to behold. There’s every chance that this proposed gas pipeline and sundry compressors would never suffer a major failure. But heaven-forbid there is an industrial accident, I can confidently predict there’ll be massive destruction and — unless it occurs a long way from a populated area — a lot of dead people.
There\’s a piece on this in the Guardian today by John Harris, which concentrates on the apparent inadequacy of the methods for dealing with risk both at the Milford Haven LNG terminal and in the construction of the pipe itself. In neither case are we talking about infrastructure that\’s a long way from a populated area – same with the AGIs. In Gloucestershire, the AGI there is probably going to be about 500m from the nearest house. Given that NG have admitted more than once that they have no experience of/operational data for managing a pipeline of this size/pressurised to 94 bar, we\’re dealing with a to some degree unquantifiable risk.