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156 comments on Oil Demand Destruction & Brittle Systems

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garyp on August 20, 2008 - 11:59am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

I'd add one other point Jeff, on the matter of brittle vs resilient and in particular the difference between 'break' and 'shatter'. How a system breaks is critical to how it can recover and its level of resilience.

Now the electricity system can break quite spectacularly - cascade failures, etc. However its a break rather than a true shatter because bringing it back up again is a well practiced operation that can be achieved relatively quickly, with local resets etc. We can be up and running again fully within a week or two.

However something like the gas supply is a different matter. If gas stops then pilot lights go out, etc. and you can't just restart the system since its a recipe for gas explosions. As Euan has pointed out previously, restarting the gas system from a break is something people don't really know how to do. When it goes its not coming back in the same form, ever. That cascades to those dependent on it, fast and hard.

That's a system that's shattered.

In practice if a failure as cascading effects that feedback to prevent restart and feed forward to have other bigger impacts, its a shatter event and its orders of magnitude more critical than a simple break.

Most civil contingency work doesn't recognise the difference.

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jeffvail on August 20, 2008 - 2:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I was thinking of "break" and "shatter" on a civilizational level, but I think you raise an important point that applies across scale--the ability to reconstitute (break) vs. irreparability (shatter). Ultimately, it may be an accumulation (or coincidence) of multiple systems shattering that leads to civilizational failure in the energy arena.

While, generally, the electric grid may be easier to restart than the gas grid (and other examples), there are important exceptions to this as well. Hydropower, especially in some regions, represent a critical "black start" capability because they require no (or very little) electricity supplied to them in order to start generating. This is not the case with most other generation options to one degree or another, nuclear being the worst after a prolonged shutdown. Under certain types of grid failure, black start capability is a real problem...

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garyp on August 20, 2008 - 3:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thanks.

The concept comes out of thoughts on terrorism and black swans, but it applies to the systems of a post peak world - which is something I've been considering.

Of course we could suffer through the slow collapse of those systems we've built up in the peak peak world. However the reality is the transition into the world we here tend to expect is likely to happen through one or more of these shatter events. Sudden catastrophic failure, rather than slow decline - on a civilisation level.

Oil, I feel, is not likely to be at the centre. Rather something that oil maintains that shatters is likely to be highlighted as the cause. Probably electrical power in some form - so much of what we call civilisation has that at its heart.

Any thoughts on what systems can shatter would be welcomed.

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andybts on August 21, 2008 - 3:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yes, interesting stuff. What about road/rail/air traffic signaling? Could the mass failure of this be catastrophic to our just-in-time delivery systems, or would it be manageable?

I think the theft of electrical cable for sale as scrap seems like one of the scariest tendencies. This is happening increasingly now.

Another worrying thing is that I've heard reports of people following oil/diesel delivery trucks in order to identify where there are storage tanks that are worth stealing from, and are inadequetly protected. Many of the targets are small farms, who then often then need to pay for the clearup costs (where oil has leaked), as well as the repairs to the tanks, and the oil itself.

I'm only familiar with the UK environment by the way.

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john milton on August 20, 2008 - 4:24pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Garyp:
You said:

However something like the gas supply is a different matter. If gas stops then pilot lights go out, etc. and you can't just restart the system since its a recipe for gas explosions. As Euan has pointed out previously, restarting the gas system from a break is something people don't really know how to do. When it goes its not coming back in the same form, ever. That cascades to those dependent on it, fast and hard.

That's a system that's shattered.

Unless you can provide a citation from a utility to support this assertion I would disagree.

Gas equipment with standing pilots is increasingly rare, most now uses electronic ignition. In those with pilots there is a safety on the gas valve of the equipment, If the pilot goes out it cools, and when that happens the gas is shut off, to relight you need to hold a button in by hand to allow gas to flow while relighting the pilot until the safety rewarms, this is a DIY job for most people.

The gas on our street was shut off last year due to a house fire down the block a ways, the Gas Co. just put a flier in our mailbox explaining how to relight, and to call them if we needed help with that.

There might be very old, or broken, equipment still in service with no working safety on the gas valve, in such cases it would take a very long time, probably forever in most houses given that you are likely to get more than 1 air exchange per hour just from drafts even if the windows are closed, for the tiny amount of gas from a pilot to build up to explosive levels (5% of the air volume is the minimum)

Might a house or 2 explode? Highly unlikely, but possible, but this is not a "system that's shattered".

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garyp on August 20, 2008 - 5:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

There is an article by Euan on the UK gas supply under TOD:Europe that mentions this issue. Its not just the pilot light issue (of which my mother has one) that contribute to the collapse of the system.

One street is one thing. An entire country is another. If you just reconnect the gas and somewhere blows up, who do you think will be liable? Whatever most may have, it's what some might have that drives the problem.

As for it not being an issue, we regularly have 'gas explosions' most winters as some malfunctioning item causes just this effect and a couple of houses end up a smoking ruin (so much for air exchanges). That's with the status quo.

And if the gas is off for a few days during the winter, as it would be given the various issues, it IS a shatter event, since the feed forward effects are so severe (bring out your dead).

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john milton on August 20, 2008 - 6:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Garyp:

You are moving the goalposts.

Your assertion was, as I read it, that if the gas network goes down it will stay down because we don't know how to restart it, if that is your contention please provide evidence, or clarify what you meant to say.

Yes, malfunctions of equipment, and stupid contractors or owners, sometimes cause explosions (at the rate of 1 in many millions) but this was / is, I would suggest not caused by a systemic supply network failure but by individual equipment failure or human error, and is a "given" regardless of a network failure, its also I think you will find not due to pilot light issues in the vast majority of cases but from things that cause much larger rates of leakage...

Who would be liable? well, who would be liable if the Gas Company failed to restore service to customers who had contracted with them to provide it and preventable property damage or death were to result? Liability exposure cuts both ways. My expectation would be that in such an emergency gov't would backstop the risk. (I'm not American, those folks might be in a bigger difficulty in such a situation I don't know...)

Could a long winter outage cause great losses? Yes, but would that mean that the gas distribution network had been "shattered"? No, the survivors could restart the network, the network being down for some time would not, in and of itself destroy the network (again, if you can point to evidence to the contrary please do so, it's your burden of proof as the one advancing the proposition yes?).

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156 comments on Oil Demand Destruction & Brittle Systems

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