Professor teams with DOE to pinpoint gas pipeline weaknesses

Jul 11, 2006 3:51 PM

Physically protecting the nation's 278,000 miles of natural gas pipeline is essentially impossible. So Kirby Chapman, a professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering at Kansas State University and director of the National Gas Machinery Laboratory has begun to work with the U.S. Department of Energy and the gas industry to define critical components to ensure the continued availability of gas.
The Department of Energy has developed a national strategy for physical protection of the pipeline system. That strategy calls for research and development by the oil and gas industries to identify pipeline vulnerabilities and develop robust strategies to reduce those vulnerabilities. According to Chapman, the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center, chartered under the Patriot Act in October 2001, provides new computer modeling and simulation capabilities to focus on interdependencies, vulnerabilities and complexities.
Chapman says pipelines are favored targets for terrorist attacks outside the United States. Pipelines in Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan and Iraq have been attacked. A 1986 attack on a pipeline in Colombia cost $2.5 billion in lost revenue and resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries.
An al-Qaeda-planned attack in Saudi Arabia, had it been successful, would have disrupted an estimated 6 percent of the world's oil supply.
Chapman points out that in the United States, almost every form of productive activity -- including hospitals, security, manufacturing and transportation -- depends on energy. Natural gas feeds an increasingly larger portion of consumed electricity. Disruption in the transmission of this gas would lead to substantial curtailment of electrical power. The economy and national defense would be rendered vulnerable.

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