• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
  • Podcast
  • Archives

Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Steel Requirements for Natural Gas Pipeline Construction

October 25, 2009 By Rod Adams

At Nuclear Talk, Gail Marcus has shared information from a recent presentation provided by Jason Tolland, Counsellor for Environment and Energy at the Canadian Embassy. The audience was a group of folks who graduated from MIT; the topic was the Canadian-US energy relationship.

The title of Gail’s post is LNG and Gas Pipeline Requirements: Nuclear Power Is Not Alone. Among other topics, it discusses the resource limitations that affect this politically popular form of energy production. It reminded me of a recent post by Barry Brook of Brave New Climate titled TCASE 4: Energy system build rates and material inputs that computed the resource requirements associated with wind and solar energy. He showed in that post how it takes ten times as much steel and concrete per unit energy produced to get electricity from wind turbines as from nuclear power plants.

Gail’s post did not include the computational details that Barry’s did, but it did include one statement that should overcome claims that a vast increase in dependence on natural gas can be realized easier, with less resource constraints than an increase in nuclear energy production.

Even more surprisingly, to me, is what he told us about the planned 1220 kilometer MacKenzie natural gas pipeline from the Northwest Territories. He noted that the total steel requirement for that pipeline would exceed the annual world production of steel. (Emphasis added.) Of course, it wouldn’t be built in one year, but that’s still a staggering amount of steel, and is bound to have an impact on availability and prices of steel for other purposes.

Update: Based on comments received, it appears that I need to do some additional research to validate the claim above. One back of the envelope computation showed that the pipes for a 1220 km natural gas pipeline would only consume about 0.1% of the world’s total steel production. Please do not use the quote without doing some additional computation.

Update: (Posted on Nov 12, 2009 at 0157) There is an update on Nuke Power Talk about the steel requirements claim. Thank you to all of the commenters who helped us understand the numbers and realize that building even a long gas pipeline does not materially impact the world’s annual steel production. My lesson relearned is that the world is a very large place with a lot of industrial activity in progress. A second lesson relearned is that energy is a complex issue that requires constant learning, study and mathematics.

Related Posts

  • Natural gas supply shift requires $205 billion in new pipelines

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About Rod Adams

Rod Adams is an atomic energy expert with small nuclear plant operating and design experience, now serving as a Managing Partner at Nucleation Capital, an emerging climate-focused fund. Rod, a former submarine Engineer Officer and founder of Adams Atomic Engines, Inc., one of the earliest advanced nuclear ventures, has engaged in technical, strategic, political, historic and financial discussion and analysis of the nuclear industry, its technology and policies for several decades. He is the founder of Atomic Insights and host and producer of The Atomic Show Podcast.

Please click here to subscribe to the Atomic Show RSS feed.

Primary Sidebar

Categories

Join Rod’s pronuclear network

Join Rod's pronuclear network by completing this form. Let us know what your specific interests are.

Recent Comments

  • David on Atomic Show #297 – Krusty – The Kilopower reactor that worked
  • Rod Adams on Atomic Show #297 – Krusty – The Kilopower reactor that worked
  • David on Atomic Show #297 – Krusty – The Kilopower reactor that worked
  • Rod Adams on Atomic Show #297 – Krusty – The Kilopower reactor that worked
  • paul wick on Atomic Show #297 – Krusty – The Kilopower reactor that worked

Follow Atomic Insights

The Atomic Show

Atomic Insights

Recent Posts

Atomic Show #297 – Krusty – The Kilopower reactor that worked

Nuclear energy growth prospects and secure uranium supplies

Nucleation Capital’s Earth Day in Atherton

Atomic Show #296 – Julia Pyke, Director of Finance Sizewell C

Solar’s dirty secrets: How solar power hurts people and the planet

  • Home
  • About Atomic Insights
  • Atomic Show
  • Contact
  • Links

Search Atomic Insights

Archives

Copyright © 2022 · Atomic Insights

Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy