SoCal Gas Methane Leak
ldent42
Posts: 7,859
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-porter-ranch-20151228-story.html
uthern California Gas Co. officials said Sunday they have pinpointed the location of a leaking natural gas injection well that has displaced thousands of residents in the upscale San Fernando Valley community of Porter Ranch.
Workers were continuing to drill a relief well and had reached a depth of 3,800 feet about midnight Saturday when they discovered the site of the target well using a magnetic ranging tool, said Anne Silva, a spokeswoman for SoCal Gas. The well extends more than 8,000 feet below the surface.
The company is still "not sure of the exact location of the leak," Silva said, "but suspects it is within a shallow level — within the first several hundred feet of the 8,700-foot well."
With the goal of stopping the leak as quickly as possible, the company is creating a secondary relief well as backup to its ongoing drilling operation.
Drilling of the secondary well is slated to begin in January, Silva said, "and should take about three to four months."
But Silva said Saturday's discovery will probably not affect the timeline for stopping emissions.
The gas company has already told state regulators that it would complete drilling of the primary relief well by Feb. 24, but representatives said in an interview last week that repairing the leak could take until the end of March.
The well began spewing mostly methane gas Oct. 23. Silva described the failed well as "a 7-inch diameter steel pipeline that allows natural gas to be put into a naturally occurring underground storage field."
SoCal Gas said the only solution lies in relief wells being drilled to intercept and plug the damaged well.
The company is paying to relocate and house residents and pets sickened by fumes that health officials and independent experts say can cause headaches, nosebleeds, nausea and other short-term ailments but pose no long-term health risks.
Porter Ranch is a 30-year-old master-planned community of 30,000 people, schools, businesses, parks and hiking trails tucked beneath the Santa Susana Mountains at the northwestern tip of the San Fernando Valley.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-we-cant-stop-the-enormous-methane-leak-flooding-la?utm_source=vicenewsfb
One of the biggest environmental disasters in US history is happening right now, and you’ve probably never heard of it.
An enormous amount of harmful methane gas is currently erupting from an energy facility in Aliso Canyon, California, at a startling rate of 110,000 pounds per hour. The gas, which carries with it the stench of rotting eggs, has led to the evacuation 1,700 homes so far. Many residents have already filed lawsuits against the company that owns the facility, the Southern California Gas Company.
Footage taken on December 17 shows a geyser of methane gas spewing from the Earth, visible by a specialized infrared camera operated by an Earthworks ITC-certified thermographer. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) released the footage last week, calling it “one of the biggest leaks we’ve ever seen reported” and “absolutely uncontained”:
https://youtu.be/exfJ8VPQDTY
In early December, the Southern California Gas Company said that plugging the leak, which sprang in mid-October, would take at least three more months. Right now, the single leak accounts for a quarter of the state's entire methane emissions, and the leak has been called the worst environmental disaster since the BP oil spill in 2010.
“Our efforts to stop the flow of gas by pumping fluids directly down the well have not yet been successful, so we have shifted our focus to stopping the leak through a relief well,” Anne Silva, a spokesperson for the Southern California Gas Company, told Motherboard, adding that the company is still exploring other options to stop the leak. “The relief well process is on schedule to be completed by late February or late March.”
Part of the problem in stopping the leak lies in the base of the well, which sits 8,000 feet underground. Pumping fluids down into the well, usually the normal recourse, just isn’t working, said Silva. Workers have been ”unable to establish a stable enough column of fluid to keep the force of gas coming up from the reservoir.” The company is now constructing a relief well that will connect to the leaking well, and hopefully provide a way to reduce pressure so the leak can be plugged.
It’s worth noting that the type of gas involved in this leak is part of what makes it so sinister. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to climate change impact. About one-fourth of the anthropogenic global warming we’re experiencing today is due to methane emissions, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. Leaks like the current one in California, it turns out, are a major contributor. In Pasadena, for instance, just miles from the leak in Aliso, investigators found one leak for every four miles:
So far, over 150 million pounds of methane have been released by the leak, which connects to an enormous underground containment system. Silva says that the cause of the leak is still unknown, but research by EDF has also revealed that more than 38 percent of the pipes in Southern California Gas Company’s territory are more than 50 years old, and 16 percent are made of made from corrosion- and leak-prone materials.
Right now, relief efforts have drilled only 3,800 feet down—less than half of the way to the base of the well. At that rate, the torrent of methane pouring into California won’t be stopped any time soon.
uthern California Gas Co. officials said Sunday they have pinpointed the location of a leaking natural gas injection well that has displaced thousands of residents in the upscale San Fernando Valley community of Porter Ranch.
Workers were continuing to drill a relief well and had reached a depth of 3,800 feet about midnight Saturday when they discovered the site of the target well using a magnetic ranging tool, said Anne Silva, a spokeswoman for SoCal Gas. The well extends more than 8,000 feet below the surface.
The company is still "not sure of the exact location of the leak," Silva said, "but suspects it is within a shallow level — within the first several hundred feet of the 8,700-foot well."
With the goal of stopping the leak as quickly as possible, the company is creating a secondary relief well as backup to its ongoing drilling operation.
Drilling of the secondary well is slated to begin in January, Silva said, "and should take about three to four months."
But Silva said Saturday's discovery will probably not affect the timeline for stopping emissions.
The gas company has already told state regulators that it would complete drilling of the primary relief well by Feb. 24, but representatives said in an interview last week that repairing the leak could take until the end of March.
The well began spewing mostly methane gas Oct. 23. Silva described the failed well as "a 7-inch diameter steel pipeline that allows natural gas to be put into a naturally occurring underground storage field."
SoCal Gas said the only solution lies in relief wells being drilled to intercept and plug the damaged well.
The company is paying to relocate and house residents and pets sickened by fumes that health officials and independent experts say can cause headaches, nosebleeds, nausea and other short-term ailments but pose no long-term health risks.
Porter Ranch is a 30-year-old master-planned community of 30,000 people, schools, businesses, parks and hiking trails tucked beneath the Santa Susana Mountains at the northwestern tip of the San Fernando Valley.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-we-cant-stop-the-enormous-methane-leak-flooding-la?utm_source=vicenewsfb
One of the biggest environmental disasters in US history is happening right now, and you’ve probably never heard of it.
An enormous amount of harmful methane gas is currently erupting from an energy facility in Aliso Canyon, California, at a startling rate of 110,000 pounds per hour. The gas, which carries with it the stench of rotting eggs, has led to the evacuation 1,700 homes so far. Many residents have already filed lawsuits against the company that owns the facility, the Southern California Gas Company.
Footage taken on December 17 shows a geyser of methane gas spewing from the Earth, visible by a specialized infrared camera operated by an Earthworks ITC-certified thermographer. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) released the footage last week, calling it “one of the biggest leaks we’ve ever seen reported” and “absolutely uncontained”:
https://youtu.be/exfJ8VPQDTYIn early December, the Southern California Gas Company said that plugging the leak, which sprang in mid-October, would take at least three more months. Right now, the single leak accounts for a quarter of the state's entire methane emissions, and the leak has been called the worst environmental disaster since the BP oil spill in 2010.
“Our efforts to stop the flow of gas by pumping fluids directly down the well have not yet been successful, so we have shifted our focus to stopping the leak through a relief well,” Anne Silva, a spokesperson for the Southern California Gas Company, told Motherboard, adding that the company is still exploring other options to stop the leak. “The relief well process is on schedule to be completed by late February or late March.”
Part of the problem in stopping the leak lies in the base of the well, which sits 8,000 feet underground. Pumping fluids down into the well, usually the normal recourse, just isn’t working, said Silva. Workers have been ”unable to establish a stable enough column of fluid to keep the force of gas coming up from the reservoir.” The company is now constructing a relief well that will connect to the leaking well, and hopefully provide a way to reduce pressure so the leak can be plugged.
It’s worth noting that the type of gas involved in this leak is part of what makes it so sinister. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to climate change impact. About one-fourth of the anthropogenic global warming we’re experiencing today is due to methane emissions, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. Leaks like the current one in California, it turns out, are a major contributor. In Pasadena, for instance, just miles from the leak in Aliso, investigators found one leak for every four miles:
So far, over 150 million pounds of methane have been released by the leak, which connects to an enormous underground containment system. Silva says that the cause of the leak is still unknown, but research by EDF has also revealed that more than 38 percent of the pipes in Southern California Gas Company’s territory are more than 50 years old, and 16 percent are made of made from corrosion- and leak-prone materials.
Right now, relief efforts have drilled only 3,800 feet down—less than half of the way to the base of the well. At that rate, the torrent of methane pouring into California won’t be stopped any time soon.
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Reminds me of when Shoreline Amphitheater first open (home of Neil Young's Bridge School shows). Occasionally, when people lit up, methane leaks caused small fires. I grew up in that area so it's a bit strange to think that maybe the trash my family produced was helping create those flammable gasses.
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But yeah, why so little news about this? Good question.
(I swear there was a comedy bit on this - want to say Kinison but think it was someone else)
What to say, what to say...the needle and the damage done. Pretty sure that shit has drifted over many an area.
For what it's worth, it has been on the news here quite a bit. Likely mostly on the local level.
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Ident, 9th floor here! So far so good. Fingers crossed - El Nino is coming!!!