The Logistics of Natural Gas

Writing by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation led by Max Moser
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster

[krazykrispy]

As a geologist, I'd like to point out that oil and gas don't come from caverns underground, they virtually always come from the natural porosity in between the grains that make up the rock. Just like you can encounter groundwater in the soil by digging down to the water table, you can encounter gas and oil in the actual rock by digging to a formation holding the hydrocarbons in it's pore spaces. This same pore space can be used to store gas or carbon dioxide after it is injected, as well. Some salt caverns are used for this process, but those are relatively uncommon.

[MesaperProductions]

I just love how the answer for storage is:

"Put it back where we found it."

[engineeringworld.]

Amazing how natural gas has to be frozen, shipped, reheated, and piped—just to boil someone’s pasta. The world runs on invisible miracles we rarely notice

[KurtQuad]

This is right up my alley. We sell relief valve to protect these lines, ultrasonic flow meters to measure the gas, and control valves to reduce the pressure for various industrial and commercial customers. Hell, I've even sold dew point testers for gas testing at the NG storage caverns.

So much goes on behind the scenes that people take for granted. Where I live in Saskatchewan (north of Montana) all our caverns are salt caverns from all the potash mining here

[T_Sull_]

I appreciate your use of real examples and places for these - so many youtubers leave it abstract and ambiguous and it takes away immersion significantly

[davidconner-shover]

I used to work at that drywall plant 26 years back,
Part of the reason for natural gas consumption wasn't just to provide power, which would cover all the electrical needs of the manufacturing process, would also provide a large gradient of waste heat, which would then be applied to the drying process of drywall. It was far cheaper to purchase the natural gas, generate enough power to cover the manufacture of the drywall as well. The generator operator was the key to the plant, it's financial viability depended upon it. There were four generator operators, usually one, sometimes two to cover the shift. in my 5 years working there, I had a tour of the generator facility once. it was so clean, you could eat off the floor, unlike the rest of the factory. I remember multiple times calling the gen tech if he had both turbines running. You could run the entire factory on one turbine, but Lord Help You if you attempted to even start the third mill without both turbines running. Instant shutdown of the entire facility. I'd seen a co worker do exactly that, once. (startup on any of these would dim the lights, you feel the rumble through the floor) He didn;t get fired immediately, but was gone within a month. They kept 2 diesel generators on site, but were extremely rarely used except for testing and regular exercize. They weren't there to make any money, but to limit losses in a natural gas shutdown. basically to unload the total board machine (2 hours in production, start to finish
That place made thousands an hour running on natural gas, but lost easily thrice as much when fully staffed and not operating.

[Nemo]

My company makes a small mobile compressor thats designed for servicing pipelines. If you have a section of pipeline and you close two valves to isolate it, it's still full of gas and for many of these pipelines its a LOT of gas. Historically, they'd just set up a flare stack and burn it, but new requirements make that an undesirable outcome so instead, you suck it out of the section that's going to be worked on, and compress it back into a section that's still connected. it works all the way up to 1400 psi, and will actually pull the isolated section to a slight vacuum which makes nitrogen purging easier if its required.

[TugaAvenger]

I work on apps to plan pig pipe inspections, and pipe digs if anything need repair. The scale and costs involved never cease to shock. Launching an inspection pig requires slowing the flow for a few hours, and that's a 5 digit cost. Digging and repairing a few feet of pipe, add another zero or two.

[admiralcapn]

As an appliance servicer, we have both urban and rural residents with gas appliances, and diagnosing NG vs LP is astonishingly different. NG floats in regular air while LP sinks, and LP carries MUCH more energy per unit volume, so the orifices for you burners are much larger for NG to provide the same amount of BTUs. Our sales department converts appliances (which come set for NG in most instances) to LP for rural customers, but sometimes folks do a pick-up a non-converted appliance without realising the difference and have a giant blow-torch for a burner as a result.

[dimesonhiseyes]

They are called pigs because they squeal as they go through the pipe. You can hear this squeal sometimes and if you don't know what it is can be pretty strange

[theswift_gaming]

I almost always click on new Wendocer uploads, but this one was an instant. This topic is as 'quietly' essential to our lives as the video they put out on the logistics of the electrical grid. Thank you for the well researched and structured information, as always!

[Kevwa]

This is awesome, when I was an electrician apprentice I got to work on a compressor station. I remember hearing about the pig launcher too but never actually got to see it. When they did pressure testing we weren’t allowed to be on site, they said if we dropped a tool or something on one of the over pressurized lines it could cause a crack and we’d be cut in half from the pressurized gas. They were running the compressors at 125% capacity and about 6 months after we finished it one failed and blew part of the roof off the building and all the blast panels were blown out. The compressors are absolutely massive (think small house) V12 diesel engines that run on the natural gas they compress, the station I worked on had 6 of these engines. Some stations use jet engines. That was during the natural gas rush in PA and NY, the money on the line meant the construction jobs were basically 18 hour a day shifts or more and 7 days week. I don’t think the welders ever stopped, those guys were from all over the country with their own rigs, it was pretty cool.

[NateTheOhioan]

You don’t need to change the thumbnail to increase viewer click rates, I’m just waiting for dinner so I can watch something good while eating

[huntmine]

1:05 CASEY’S!! Native Iowan here, and I’ve loved your videos for probably 5+ years now

[brianfong]

If "Wendover Productions" ever turned into a x-rated channel, it would be called "Bendover Seductions"

[ythanshaw]

4:03 that poor man is gonna have his little trip seen by hundreds of thousands of people

[TheObliviousF]

As someone who works in this industry but not on the distribution side, or even with natural gas at all, it's nice to learn a bit more. The work I do is for services to buildings. I'm part of the process leading up to the installation of the gas service by locating and marking sewer lines so that when the gas is installed with a drill, they dont hit the sewer. Just a little fun fact, if a gas line hits a sewer line and becomes damaged, gas can leak into a building. Fun fact number 2: In the right concentration, natural gas is explosive. The smallest spark from even a light switch can make the gas explode

[mceajc]

I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the Spadeadam site in the UK (where rockets used to be developed), but was repurposed to safety testing gas pipelines (amongst other hazardous testing). In order to test that pipelines are "safe", they have to show that, should a crack develop and propagate, the depressurisation front of the internal gas (its local speed of sound) travels faster than the speed of the crack propagation.

So, for example, a 20-inch pipe is buried to standard depth, and cooled to -20 degrees Celsius (steel is more brittle and fracture-prone the colder it is).

Then they set off an explosive charge. On a pipe filled with pressurised natural gas. The explosions were regularly heard many miles away.

The pipe has been carefully instrumented, and if the depressurisation wave outpaces the crack propagation, the forces pulling the pipe apart will reduce at the crack site, and the crack will stop propagating (eventually).

If the crack propagates faster than the depressurisation wave - the entire pipeline is at risk of just - exploding.

[brodyscarlett]

It's cool how similar this is to electrical transmission and distribution

[Xcellent]

Right up my alley. I work in the natural gas compression industry. I work for one of the largest natural gas compression companies. A lot of the compressors used in this industry come from 3rd parties like my company. We lease out our equipment to the big oil and gas companies so they don’t have to buy their own equipment. We also do 3rd party work on large oil and gas company equipment so they don’t need to hire people to maintain the equipment. It’s cheaper for them to use our people and our equipment.