The horrifying natural gas explosion in San Bruno, California on September 9th ripped across headlines the nation over. As of September 29th, eight people had died from injuries sustained directly from the explosion. According to a San Francisco Chronicle report of the explosion, 53 homes were destroyed and 120 homes were damaged as the gas pipeline explosion sent up a “geyser of fire” creating a “central ball of fire, fed by the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. gas line, [that] raged past nightfall before abating.”
Pretty terrifying, eh? And the most terrifying part of it is that, according to the US Energy Information Administration, 65 million households in 2008 were consumers of natural gas delivered by similar infrastructure to that used by PG&E in San Bruno. If the threat of a pipeline explosion was not specific to San Bruno but endemic among all natural gas pipelines in the country, then it would seem that we are potentially facing not so much of a “not in my backyard” issue as a “please, please, say it isn’t in my backyard!” issue.
The threat of a natural gas pipeline explosion grows more alarming the more you look into the matter. According to msnbc.com reporter Alex Johnson, the best technology available for inspecting natural gas pipelines is a device called a “pig.” Pigs are sensors that ride through pipelines, making important safety measurements. However, as Johnson reports, 63% of natural gas pipelines in the US cannot be inspected with pigs because either the pipes themselves are too old or because the pipelines are too circuitous for the pig to run through the line.
Assuming that the kinds of line problems that prevent pigs from being used apply equally to every served household in the US, the natural gas pipelines serving 40.95 million households cannot be inspected by pigs. While there are other methods of inspecting natural gas pipelines, there seems to be an agreement that pigs are the best technology. This conclusion is reflected by the fact that on September 22nd, California Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbra Boxer introduced the Strengthening Pipeline Safety and Enforcement Act to the Senate. The bill would require that all natural gas pipelines be inspected with pigs once every five years.
However, according to an LA Times report on the bill, retrofitting pipelines that currently cannot be inspected with pigs is very expensive. State budgets are already in dire situations; California is in such bad fiscal shape that on Tuesday the University of California – Berkeley, the state’s flagship university, announced that it was cutting its men’s baseball, women’s lacrosse, and men and women’s gymnastics programs. As discussed in the LA Times article, some of the safety measures included in the Strengthening Pipeline Safety and Enforcement Act are mandated only where “technically and economically feasible.”
So we have a common problem given new urgency by a fatal tragedy. The technology exists to ensure that natural gas pipelines are safe, yet because of the high level of capital investment needed to implement the technology and the lack of immediate benefit to be gained by the implementation of the technology, we may just end up with a series of unfunded mandates. There is a possibility, however, to avoid that all-too-common outcome: if states do not have the money to improve their infrastructure, perhaps the federal government should step in. The Obama Administration has pledged $50 billion for infrastructure improvements in a new round of stimulus-like spending. Upgrading our natural gas pipeline infrastructure is perfectly suited to such an effort: the risk is there, the images of the San Bruno explosion are present in constituents’ minds, the project is far-reaching and expensive, and big energy would stand to benefit as well. So far, Rahm Emmanuel’s most memorable, G-rated quote as Chief of Staff is “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.” Here is the crisis, Mr. Emmanuel. It’s time to spend money on pigs — just don’t let anyone call it pork.