Kentucky Natural Gas Pipeline Explosion & Fire Burns 200 Acres

Duane Nichols — Wed, 13 May 2020 07:05:58 +0000

Natural gas fire in northeastern KY about 80 miles west of Ashland, KY

Texas Eastern line has history in Kentucky, including fatal Lincoln explosion

From an Article by Steve Rogers, WTVQ, ABC News 36, May 5, 2020

FLEMING COUNTY, Ky. (WTVQ) – An investigation is underway Tuesday morning after a gas line explosion caused a huge fire off Highway 1013 in Fleming County on Monday afternoon, May 4th, according to Fleming County Emergency Management.

The pipeline is owned by Texas Eastern, which has a history in the state, including a fatal explosion last summer in Lincoln County. But despite the two incidents, experts say such explosions are rare.

In the video, shot by pilot Josh Clark, flames can be seen blazing through timberland on a hill. The fire was reported just before 5:00 p.m.

The pipeline explosion was three miles outside of Hillsboro, according to emergency management officials. The explosion and subsequent fire was in a remote area. No homes or businesses were threatened, according to emergency management. No one was hurt.

The pipeline belongs to Texas Eastern, according to emergency management officials. The cause of the explosion is under investigation.

An estimated 200 acres on the hillside burned, according to emergency management. No land in the Daniel Boone National Forest was affected, according to officials.

The fire was extinguished on Monday night (5/4/20) and Texas Eastern secured the area so repairs and an investigation could begin Tuesday morning. Residents said on Facebook the explosion could be heard and smoke could be seen for miles.

This is the third Texas Eastern pipeline explosion in the state in the last 17 years and the second in less than a year.

The Lincoln County explosion on Aug. 1, 2019 killed one person, injured more than a dozen, forced the evacuation of 75 people from the Indian Camp mobile home park, destroyed five homes, damaged 14 others and burned about 30 acres. including railroad tracks owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Corporation.

Lawsuits still are pending over that explosion.

On Nov. 2, 2003 in Morehead, a Texas Eastern pipeline released about 167,100 million cubic feet of natural gas which ignited. There were no fatalities or injuries as a result of that explosion.

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A spokesman for Enbridge, the Canadian-based energy conglomerate that owns the Texas Eastern Transmission Co. pipeline, said in a statement that company crews are on-site and have “secured the area.”

The 30-inch pipe that exploded, Line 10, feeds into the Texas Eastern System — a network of 9,100 miles of piping that stretches from Texas to New York and moves 20% of America’s natural gas.

About 690 of those piping miles run through the state of Kentucky, from Lewis County on the Ohio border to Monroe County on the Tennessee border.

Adjacent Lines 15 and 25, which are also part of the Texas Eastern, have also been shut down, according to the pipeline safety administration.

These natural gas pipelines have a history of fatal blasts before this Kentucky explosion.

Gas Pipelines Uproot People, Destroy Farmland & Forests, and are Dangerous

Duane Nichols — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 11:17:41 +0000

"It brings me to tears!" Heidi Cochran

A Country’s Need for Natural Gas, A Woman’s Beloved Farmland, A Pipeline that Tore a Country Apart

From an Article by Brad Horn, Washington Post Magazine, Sunday, June 12, 2016

If it made it through the arduous approval process, Dominion’s proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline — 560 miles long from the hills of Harrison County, W.Va., to the red clay of Robeson County, N.C. — would carry natural gas to southeastern power plants that are phasing out coal. Dominion, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and AGL Resources are partners in the project. Construction would begin in late 2016, the operation coming online two years later. Richmond-based Dominion would construct it.

At 42 inches in diameter, the pipeline would be part of a new generation of American mega-pipelines built to transport our dizzying windfall of natural gas. At full pressure, it would move 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. It would be almost as large as American pipelines come.

There are four large natural gas pipelines underway in the Eastern United States, what some energy experts have described as a “natural gas race” to bring gas to the East Coast. Energy companies are being incentivized by Environmental Protection Agency regulations championed by the Obama administration called the Clean Power Plan . The plan would essentially regulate coal-fired power plants out of existence, replacing them with gas-powered facilities. The goal is a dramatic overhaul of America’s energy grid and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

The pipeline’s champions say it will significantly reduce carbon emissions while creating jobs along its route. Detractors say the $5 billion project will lead to more methane emissions (themselves a highly potent greenhouse gas) from the controversial natural gas drilling technique known as fracking, violate private property rights and disrupt fragile ecosystems when it passes through some of the more intact wilderness of the southern Appalachians.

What isn’t argued is whether the United States needs a replacement for coal. Coal-fired power plants generate 33 percent of the nation’s electricity but 71 percent of our carbon emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). This gives coal the distinction of being the nation’s single largest contributor to climate change.

“One out of every 15 tons of carbon dioxide emissions that goes into the atmosphere anywhere in the globe is from the United States power sector,” says Susan Tierney, a former assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Energy. “[That’s from] us plugging in our iPhone chargers. We’ve got to do that more cleanly, got to do it much more efficiently.”

Opponents wondered: Why not simply convert to a system powered by renewables?

Renewables can’t meet demand, says Tierney, now an adviser at Analysis Group, a consulting firm. To replace coal with wind, solar and geothermal infrastructure (which supply just 5.7 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to the EIA), “you have to put in a whole lot more resources, making it much more expensive to replace a coal plant.” One of her biggest concerns, Tierney says, is that “opposition to a natural gas plant will mean coal plants stick around longer.”

“Climate change is occurring,” she says, and decommissioning coal plants can’t wait.

Note: See the 21 pictures in the Photo Gallery here.

Frack Check WV » forest land

Kentucky Natural Gas Pipeline Explosion & Fire Burns 200 Acres

Gas Pipelines Uproot People, Destroy Farmland & Forests, and are Dangerous