Captainant

Lol O&G finance bros bigmad

Lol Rex made it about energy companies, I was trying to stick to O&G! In particular, this company profiteered off of the Feb'21 freeze and made billions on the corpses of hundreds of Texans. You're goddamn right I hold them in contempt. Even moreso if the defense is that it's too expensive to protect the thousands of families they operate around I called out centerpoint not as an O&G example, but as an example of piss poor corporate maintenance posture and over-indexing on maximizing profits over mitigating risks that has led to multiple disasters within the last several years.

If my front door was 100 feet from a 45mph four lane road, I would probably be less than enthusiastic about them playing in the front yard, yeah. And also, my child doesn't pose a public health and safety risk to thousands of families and homes should she be ran down by an out of control car. It wouldn't lead to mandatory evacuations and shelter in place orders, because the public risk exposure is significantly different in your scenario. But dude. C'mon now. You're just putting words in my mouth and doing fattyflatty and GRUhorn's work for them to put words in my mouth. I had figured you'd be better than that.

I would not classify a chain link fence as a "barrier" concerning cars. A car blows right through that sucker, just ask Deer Park. I'm not talking about how your organization does things. I'm pointing out that the standard is officially "every shop sets their own safety standards". I cited the correspondence and official guidance up thread. The result of that is that there WILL be operators that cut corners to save costs, because the risks are SOOOOO small anyways right? IDK, I just don't have alot of sympathy for arguments that its too expensive when they made two and a half billion off of Texans freezing to death in 2021. It's not a matter of funds. It's a matter of not giving a shit and thinking "good enough is good enough because we've always done it this way"

Nobody is saying every station everywhere should have bollards. Stop repeating this mischaracterization. If a valve is next to a 4 lane road and between neighborhoods, maybe there should be more than a chain link fence at that specific site?

I've never been in a car crash while I'm driving. I guess I don't need my seatbelt then because it doens't actually solve a problem and isn't a good use of my time to click and unclick every time I get in the car.

So yes, you both think installing bollards in response to the surrounding area changing and becoming more residential is an overreacton? I don't think chain link fence meets the regulatory minimum of: Section 192.317(b) Each aboveground transmission line or main, not located offshore or in inland navigable water areas, must be protected from accidental damage by vehicular traffic or other similar causes, either by being placed at a safe distance from the traffic or by installing barricades. Because it seems pretty empirically obvious that their chain link fence 100ft from the road did not protect from accidental damage from vehicular traffic. Miss me with the slipperly slope argument taking it to the absurd for aircraft strikes - and candidly, a chainlink fence would probably be enough to stop a bike. Even moreso if there were bollards present to help catch the fence and act like a net. It's genuinely shocking to see so many O&G folks recoil at the idea of proactive risk reduction measures in the face of a giant pipeline cooking a neighborhood in Houston for days on end.

yes or no: installing bollards is burdensome and an overreaction

Holy shit YGIFS has returned! And I just posted the safety standard a couple posts up for above ground pipes and valves: if the operator says it's good, then no further questions asked. Which is to say: there is effectively zero standard for safety. I appreciate your depth of experience and passion for your field, but you're acting like it's an act of god to put up more than a chainlink fence to protect a critical valve that's 100ft away from a 50mph road. Of course there can always be something bigger that would hit a valve and overwhelm its protection, and putting bollards in around the pipeline in the greenspace in your example doesn't make sense because it's not common for there to be heavy vehicles in that area. But even so, when the area around a site changes over time it's irresponsible to refuse to update your own safety posture.

Sidenote, I was curious on what the safety reg is for pipeline valve safety and found the following: https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/regulations/title49/interp/pi-12-0008 In a letter to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) dated August 9, 2012, the Associated Safety Consultants (ASC), Inc., requested an interpretation of the applicability of the Federal pipeline safety regulations at 49 CFR 192.317(b) to an aboveground gas transmission line or main. Specifically, ASC asks PHMSA's interpretation of how a 'safe distance' is defined or determined, and what would constitute an effective barricade? Section 192.317(b) reads as follows: (b) Each aboveground transmission line or main, not located offshore or in inland navigable water areas, must be protected from accidental damage by vehicular traffic or other similar causes, either by being placed at a safe distance from the traffic or by installing barricades. PHMSA has not adopted general criteria to judge the safety of distances and effective barricades separating aboveground gas pipeline facilities from vehicular traffic. Therefore, a safe distance and effective barricade would be whatever a reasonable and prudent pipeline operator would conclude is safe under the site specific circumstances, considering relevant factors such as the speed limit, the direction of traffic, the terrain, and any natural barriers. So there's no actual rules or regulations on what is required, just as long as it passes the gut check of the operator. The valve is 100 feet from a 50mph road (45 posted, but cmon its Houston yall), surrounded by gravel. A chainlink fence seems sub-par at best.

I suppose so, but I just don't understand not improving/hardening access as the surrounding area became more residential. I understand your point of "well it's been fine up till now", but isn't a part of being a professional looking to mitigate future risk and potential for operational issues like this? Nothing insane like fort knox like fatty would assert - just four concrete bollards every 90 degrees around the valve to prevent heavy collisions with a very vulnerable piece of equipment. I don't see that as overreaction, and it's surprising to see it framed as such

It's always a good time when fatty comes around and misrepresents what I posted about hardening sites near neighborhoods to instead be every site everywhere. And double lulz for citing a safety regulatory body that lost its ability to regulate thanks to the Loper decision, while getting indignant about someone being accountable to this disaster. My bad for being surprised that it's perfectly normal to have zero physical barriers to protect a valve holding back 2 days (and counting) worth of 1400psi gas in the middle of residential area.

Because your last account was porterhouse before you "quit" and came back as rex. And thank you for the thorough and tactful education that the only people allowed to call themselves members of the illustrius O&G industry are producers.

Holy shit next you're gonna say refineries aren't O&G either lmao methinks the portahouse doth protest too much.

Datacenters mainly use evaporative cooling. You go through alot of water when its sole purpose is to be heated up and change phase to carry the heat away. Another way to look at it is: more compute being used == more water being used to keep it cool. And large language models use a TITANIC amount of compute to train and operate at enterprise scale

Buried and underground, I understand running through a residential area. If you need to come above ground and expose it near neighborhoods, that's one hell of a public subsidy to not require those firms to carry a ton of insurance and/or harden the weak points in case of what's still burning in Deer Park. Hey man, it's in one of the most cancer-infested parts of Houston that's been getting the benefits of O&G industry for decades. It was an honest question if something so neglectful to public safety was unique to Houston

So rather than engage on my questions around pipeline locations and hardening, you're just being a pissant and latching onto an arbitrary industry-specific labeling. Lol in my team at my job both of those firms are in the "oil and gas" cluster of companies. I'll let them know that their entire business plan is invalid because of this oversight. I'll ask again, knowing that portahouse won't answer: is it normal to have these massively high pressure pipelines laid in between neighborhoods? It seems like a MAJOR operational security risk, not to mention the ongoing disaster that was getting entire homes close to autoignition temperature.

"I always drive carefully. I've been fine not wearing a seatbelt for years" Just because something has always been done one way doesn't mean it's the best or safest way to do it. And I again ask: is it normal to have these massively high pressure pipelines laid in between neighborhoods? It seems like a MAJOR operational security risk, not to mention the ongoing disaster that was getting entire homes close to autoignition temperature. That's one hell of a public subsidy to allow an extremely hazardous pipeline through a residential area.

It's all part of the #TradWife aestetic

[laughs in predator drone]

Russia has also been transfering loads of troops into the area in advance of a counter-offensive. I wonder if the ammo dump was over-filled in anticipation of their operations

I'm moreso just baffled how such a critical and sensitive valve has zero physical protections in place. Doesn't heavy equipment operate on those sites? It's shocking that there would be no bollards or physical barrier protecting that infra. Is it standard procedure to run a 1400PSI pipeline through a residential area with effectively zero physical protection? I am incredulous that it could be just normal to have giant exposed weak points all over the country running in between neighborhoods.

I'd call apple and nvidia both tech firms because their primary product is tech. Exxon and ETP both have O&G as a primary product, and is therefore an O&G firm. It seems weird to carve it out just because it isn't a fully vertically integrated operation. Is it like they need to have a fully realized hydrocarbon value chain complete with conveinence stores to meet your definition? Anywho, why the fuck do yall care so much? Or is this just rex doing his pissant thing?

Signs of a healthy and equitable economy lol. God bless America and her trillionaire apartheid heirs that are free to pollute and bend municipalities to their will