Spectra Pipeline campaign is a teachable energy moment
If I lived in New York City, I would be campaigning against the installation of large, high pressure gas pipelines and for the continued operation of the well-built and well-maintained Indian Point Nuclear Power Station. I would also campaign for the construction of additional nuclear plants. In my opinion, nuclear generated electricity is more compatible with densely populated cities than natural gas pipelines.
The San Bruno explosion mentioned in the video has been nearly forgotten by most who were not directly affected. Of course, it did not occur when the pipe was new; it took several decades worth of deterioration and high pressure operations before that event happened. However, the explosion was not unique; there have been numerous similar explosions widely distributed around the United States and the rest of the world.
High pressure gas pipelines represent a hazard that needs to be understood and acknowledged. Explosions and fires usually end quickly and harm only those nearby, but the harm is real and immediate. In contrast, Fukushima proved to the people who paid close attention that nuclear plants can be protected with enough layers so that even catastrophic failures and core melting can occur without injuring the most exposed plant workers. The probability of any harm to the uninvolved public is acceptably close to zero.
The people who produced the above video would probably recoil at my suggestion to discourage the expansion of natural gas pipelines by encouraging the use of nuclear energy. They probably would not immediately understand that more nuclear energy means less natural gas infrastructure investment, especially in places like New York City where the cost of installing new pipelines must be well above average.
The participants in Radon in My Apartment? might not understand that the best defense against risky fossil fuel projects is a greatly expanded energy supply that drives prices down and reduces investment incentives. Their fear of nuclear energy has been taught through repetitive reinforcement that has lasted for at least four decades; the campaign against fracked gas is just a couple of years old.
From a public relations point of view, nuclear energy has disadvantages that are actually important advantages from the point of view of ensuring real human safety. The redundant layers of safety systems, physical protection and backup systems help to make accidents at nuclear plants both rare and slowly developing.
Those characteristics make them “good stories” for the news media. People seem to pay more attention to rare events and a slowly developing story can be milked for days for ratings and profitable advertising. We all should agree that rare is better when it comes to accidents. Situations that develop slowly offer more time for responders to react, more time to move people out of harm’s way and more time to assemble effective assistance from distant locations.
Add in the fact that many members of The Establishment have vested interests in limiting the use of nuclear energy. Allowing it to expand at a more natural rate would reduce the proven profitability of selling fossil fuels to markets that cannot get quite enough energy. The combination of naturally good story lines amplified by commercial interests provides a recipe for long memories of non-fatal accidents like Three Mile Island and Fukushima in the same society that has collective amnesia regarding numerous fossil fuel accidents that have caused far more direct harm and property damage.
One more comment about the content of Radon in My Apartment? The Spectra Pipeline – regular readers of Atomic Insights will know that I agree with Dr. Bernie Cohen about the minimal risk associated with radon exposure for non-smokers.
It is a telling commentary about the effectiveness of the long-running antinuclear FUD campaign that one of the more effective ways to encourage people to question the expanded use of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas from deeply buried shale rock is telling them that the resulting gas might be a little radioactive.
Other inherent characteristics of natural gas worth questioning, like the facts that it is flammable, explosive, contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and has a volatile price history seem be less important in the minds of certain activists. Oh well, at least the radioactivity issue can capture their attention and inspire action that might start to overcome the seductive, well-funded advertising and lobbying campaigns of the oil and gas industry.
If we address the issue honestly, the situation offers a teachable opportunity to help people to understand the importance of getting accurate energy information. We need to make the right energy supply choices instead of those that make The (fossil fuel funded) Establishment happier and richer.
A very seldom if ever seen video in NYC, trust me. In fact, call it very “fringe”. Ironically, the green-supported anti-Spectra forces aren’t making much headway here because the imagined Fukushima in waiting peril of Indian Point up the river is just so ominously huge and metro media supported. In fact they do their own cause a disfavor by bringing up radon which is a far more mysterious frightful hazard — like Indian Point radiation — to New Yorkers than far more familiar natural gas which most assume they could always live with. I mean, a whole apartment complex might burn down from gas here and I still wouldn’t worry much about my LNG stocks. Some of the anti-Spectrta folks include notoriously anti-nuclear Hudson River alliance green groups (some affiliated with anti-VY groups), so there’s no latent nuke support or sympathy there. Some regard the anti-Spectra campaign is just a confederation of green groups exercising their oats to go beyond banishing I.P. and are very high on off-shore and interstate medium lane windmills and throwing solar cells on every rooftop here as Mayor Nanny Bloomberg often espouses. Don’t forget, this is the land where there haven’t been any junior/senior high school nuclear plant science fair exhibits — not winners, just plain exhibits! — for over twenty years! After witnessing the insane maligning the media gave Shoreham out here on Long Island — a sparkling new nuclear plant so complete that you just had to turn the key, I just doubt we’ll see any fresh nuke projects outside of I.P. and Millstone expanding. I will say one thing tho’; the motley crew of greens are hauling way more PR ass against Spectra than all the regional nuclear groups and industry ever had for Indian Point!
James Greenidge
Queens NY
Striking similarity in the talking heads here and in the Bruce Power ad!
Striking difference in message!
I guess “Occupy the Radon-Bearing Granite Underneath Your Basement” isn’t as catchy.
Besides, they’re more likely to settle for “Occupy Your Basement.” I hear it’s a good place to smoke pot.
Rod – thanks for the post, and James Greenidge – thanks for the perspective.
About all these communication issues – I’ve come across a site (and videos) by Dr. Peter Sandman on risk communication and risk communication strategies. His thesis is that Risk = Hazard + Outrage where ‘Risk’ is ‘perceived risk’ and ‘Hazard’ is what the safety industry means by ‘Risk’, the multiplication of the magnitude and the probability of the event.
He has posted 12 videos from a two day risk communication course, focusing on outrage management, given to Rio Tinto, on a Vimeo channel: Peter Sandman on Risk Communication.
I haven’t found a summary video for his ideas – one needs to be made. But to get the flavor of his work, I suggest watching the first seven minutes of the fourth video, Three Risk Communication Strategies to get a feel for Sandman and what he is doing.
For a second sample I suggest watching First Outrage Management Strategy: Stake out the Middle from the 10 minute mark to about the 14 minute mark. Sandman discusses of exaggeration in risk communication.
Tepco and BP would definitely agree that ‘That’s very hard to do’. ‘Pandora’s Promise’ is using one of his strategies – taking people on the journey from one view to the opposite.
He also goes into how to increase outrage, vital to getting things done when there are high hazards with low current levels of outrage. Global warming doesn’t have the outrage levels it needs. Steve Alpin at Canadian Energy Energy Issues is certainly doing his best to generate outrage about well intended policies. We need to generate outrage, maintain it, and focus it to start getting things done.
San bruno remindet me about a nice video Ive seen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-xzlklxMm4
Its a nice trailer for the new Thorium remix…
Hmmm…I have mixed feelings. Is it true that fracked NE gas has more radon than that form the south and traditional gas drilling methods? How true is this and, is it statistically significant? Just asking…
One can argue too that what exists now in Manhattan…the most densely populated area in North America is already run with thousands (yes thousands) of miles of very old, San-Bruno aged pipelines already. It seems the newer one would be safer. Just thinking outloud here folks.
My only criticism of the video, which is excellent as Rod notes, is that no native NYers were used to make this. At least it didn’t seem that way by their accents, which is unfortunate. I would of used some old working class types from The Bronx or Hells Kitchen (west side) to add some linguistic color to the video.
The Marcellus deposit indeed releases some radon, here’s an analysis that seems fairly balanced : http://energy.wilkes.edu/pages/184.asp
I think this was argued by Sierra Club at a 2012 FERC hearing. According to this posting, http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b5a03e9d-9dee-499b-9f20-e96d15392a85, the Sierra Club claims were rejected. (I assume the site belongs to the attorneys representing the gas company.)
It must be 10 years since someone has brought up the dangers of radon to my attention.
The gas would have to spend very little time in transit for radon to be a problem; every 4 days cuts the amount by more than half.
Having a b it of a geology background, which includes the sources of radon gas, and how the areas of Manhattan, on granite formations, are in them selves inherently radioactive, learned some years ago the central Ohio regions were a radon sink. Even Connecticut has a few nasty spots, like where the old prison had been, another area for the form of pegmatite that contains radium the parent of radon. Since fracking is usually conducted in sandstone and shale deposits, the amount of radon would be at a lower level, especially when mixed in the other sources of natural gas.
Texas has a large supply of uranium in beds in the area around Mustang Island, and is extracted by a leaching process, much like native sulfur, so has ahd little pres in those areas. Worth looking into, btw.
If you have active faults in the region of city water supplies, you get natural gas seeps, and hot spring effects, including enough sulphuric compounds that will rot out copper pipes.
A pipeline was never meant to be forever, just the dreams of the designer/builder involved with their construction.
AS to storing gas in wells; Hoskins Mound on Highway 146, just North of I-10 and East of Houston, near Bay Town, Texas was a wonderful lesson as why not to do so. At least without some serious soil mechanics being done to prove out the structure. Why? Natural faults breed leaks, which lead to all those cute littole flares along the road, but handy on a foggy night.