Any gas company folks out there?
One thing I hear more of lately is frozen gas lines. The freezing can only occur from any water or some other chemical in the line or equipment as methane doesn’t freeze until about -250F.
It’s either just being reported more (meaning it had been occurring and I just hadn’t heard about it), old lines cracking and letting in air vapor (which has water in it), a new chemical with a higher freeze point, or new lines that are cheap and crack more easily (letting air in).
Believe me, I think solar and wind is a total waste. Nevertheless, frozen gas lines are contributing and I’m just wondering why this is occuring now. This is not the first cold snap in history.
One thing I hear more of lately is frozen gas lines. The freezing can only occur from any water or some other chemical in the line or equipment as methane doesn’t freeze until about -250F.
__________________________________
I think the reason for the pressure drop is too many users.
Here a NGL pressure drop equation link:
A friend of ours works on natural gas pipelines. His job is replacing the old (think 40-50 years) steel pipes with a special PVC product that’s supposed to be far more resistant to the elements.
They can’t work in these conditions right now. We are west of Chicago and it’s been between 0 and 10 degrees for the last week or so with quite a bit of snow.
But he said the old steel pipes are at the end or even past the end of their useful lifespan so they’re at risk of all sorts of failures. They’re all buried below the freeze line around here, I believe he said 42 inches or so.
That’s all I know about it. If the NiGas grid goes sideways here a lot of folks will be in very serious trouble. I mean a LOT of folks.
L