How reliable is natural gas delivery?

[khc3]

I was thinking about some kind of backup electricity, and saw that there are large generators that run off your homes NG supply. That would seem to be more convenient and possibly safer than keeping cans of diesel or gas around the house.

but then I got thinking about how reliable NG service would be in some kind of disaster scenario, and i realized I have no idea how NG is transported through pipelines to end users.

What is required to get NG to someone's home? If there are widespread power shortages, is NG delivery at risk for interruption?

[sea_demon2003]

I've looked into these a little and know of a few people who have them. If you're without power for more than a couple of days be prepared for a HUGE gas bill. After Hurrican Ike here in Houston one of my friends ran his for 7.5 days and his bill was over $1800! Granted he ran the thing 24 hours a day and his whole house was hooked up but that is a little expensive in my opinion. They really suck the natural gas up. It doesn't have the combustion/burning capacity of propane or gasoline so it requires more volume to produce the same amount of electricity.

[shadowalker]

Those generators will also run on propane, you can have an under ground propane tank installed and connected to the generator.

The next house I build I'm planning on taking this approach.

I would also recommend having a small 2500 - 3000KW or so gas generator to power small appliances and freezers in case you can't or don't want to run the main propane / NG generator.

[MarshallDodge]

It depends on how big the disaster is. If it is an earthquake then there is a good chance that the lines will get severed.

There is a lot of infrastructure in place for compressing and even storing the gas. If I remember correctly, a lot of the compressors run on natural gas, so as long as the gas is flowing to them then they should be pumping.

[khc3]

I've looked into these a little and know of a few people who have them. If you're without power for more than a couple of days be prepared for a HUGE gas bill.

Yep, that's something to consider. I almost barfed last month when I got our gas bill. We got gas logs for our fireplace for Christmas, and just had to enjoy them during Jan.

I will have to look into the relative costs.

[shadowalker]

The nice thing about them and a propane tank is that propane is much easier to store than gasoline and diesel and with an underground tank you can store a considerable amount. I'll have roughly a 60 day supply of power running 4 to 6 hours a day.

Gasoline and Diesel will be essentially unavailable in any major event and if you do find it pricing is likely to be many times higher than normal, so you'll have what you have.

Gasoline has a short storage life, there are systems you can put in place to extend it but not as easily as gas. Good diesel generators cost as much and usually more than NG / Propane generators.

Even with a the NG / Propane generators if you attempt to power your house as you normally would use it you will go through gas very quickly. You should use the transfer switch to select only the necessities and don't run the generator continuously. The goal shouldn't be "normal" life but an acceptable quality of life for as long as possible.

Freezers, etc only need to run for about 4 to 5 hours a day. When you run the generator you usually are consuming gas at a half load rate even if you only have a quarter load on it, so make use of that half load of power. While running the generator if you have excess capacity do everything you can that requires power.

You can use small gas powered generators with high efficiencies to power smaller applications OR you can use deep cycle marine batteries with an inverter (say 1500-2000 watts) and use the generator to charge the batteries while it is powering other loads (like freezers).

[sea_demon2003]

Another friend of mine went out and purchased 4-100 gallon propane tanks. He then dug out and poured a reinforced concrete underground box that came to a little more than halfway up the bottles. He then installed anchors in the concrete so that when he put the bottles down in it he could securely chain them and lock them up. With those 4-100 gallon bottles he ran more than a week 24 hrs a day with his house totally hooked up. He did throw some switches and isolate a few things when not needed but he was very comfortable. He also had 2-100 gallon tanks full as spares in his garage just in case but he has never needed them. The reason I like the 100 gallon tanks is that they are fairly portable and can be readily filled around this area. It doesn't require a pump or generator to have them filled, just cascade into the tank.

[npmako]

Whenever the line and/or equipment up line from your home are compromised, the natural gas supply ends. Not many people understand how much maintenance is required to maintain the regulator stations to prevent these failures. In cold weather especially, these devices do fail. Unless you're lucky enough to have a healthy well on your property which you could usurp for your own use in the event of "SHTF", then natural gas (or propane especially) should be considered a finite resource.

[Von Rheydt]

A friend of mine in Angola rigged up a nice little setup. He had a small generator that used to kick in to power his fridge if power failed during the day. Additionaly during the daytime the same generator recharged 12v car batteries - that he ahad salvaged. He changed all the bulbs in his place for 12v bulbs so at night he ran them off the batteries.

I recently saw Cree/LED bulbs for normal light fittings. These provide a much whiter light and I think, don't know for sure, that they are also 12v.

For domestic heating you need to be looking to move away from fossil fuel based technology. Its running out which means its going to get more expensive.

Look at heat pumps. Ground source or air source. They provide around five (5) times more energy than they use - that means for every $1 they cost to run they are giving back the equivelent of $5 of heat and warmth. You can use heat pumps to to provide warmth and cooling/air con. They are not overly expensive if you shop around. I have seen a set up sold in the UK that makes and stores hot water for the house - it costs around £1300 'ish. It does not take much more to hook one up to a central heating system that provides household warmth.

I have also seen a very simple system that works a bit like old faithfull in Yellowstone. It is simply a doubled up length of plastic pipe put down a bore hole around 60 'ish foot down. You pour water down one end and hot water comes out the other. The further down you go beneath the frostline the warmer it gets.

[npmako]

geothermal heat pumps still require energy (electricity).
In the event of an emergency situation, electricity is the
most likely utility to fail. Some sort of backup power source is
required. A backup generator is the most reliable option
from the perspective of preventative maintenance. Diesel is a
very good option for predictable delivery (propane similarly but offers no real advantage). Natural gas is one of our most abundant energy sources. The only problem is that without devout infrastructure, it doesnt get delivered to your home.

[Von Rheydt]

geothermal heat pumps still require energy (electricity).
In the event of an emergency situation, electricity is the
most likely utility to fail. Some sort of backup power source is
required. A backup generator is the most reliable option
from the perspective of preventative maintenance. Diesel is a
very good option for predictable delivery (propane similarly but offers no real advantage). Natural gas is one of our most abundant energy sources. The only problem is that without devout infrastructure, it doesnt get delivered to your home.

Yup, electrics will fail. Mainly because in an emergency situation or breakdown of society the workers will not go to "The Office" and fail-safes will shutdown operation.

I used to be a Police Representative on a county emergency planning committee. We had all the scenarios laid out for us by the people that ran the various utilities telling us how long things would operate and when they would shut down or simply fail function.

Natural gas used to be good in the UK. We have a national distribution pipeline network that takes it from storage tanks to homes. The problem now though is that the UK used to have its own gas from the North Sea ........ now we buy it from Russia, so they control the on/off switch.

With heat pumps I would use a self standing power production supply such as a wind turbine or photo voltaic panels - if you live in the hills and have flowing water you can install a small hydro electric generator. That way you are totally self sufficient and not reliant on external provision.

[rob_s]

As mentioned above, how reliable natural gas delivery is will depend in large part on what area you're in and what kind of disaster you're preparing for. An earthquake is much more likely to affect the underground pipes than a hurricane.

I worked on a project a couple of years ago where the owner was considering changing the spec'd diesel generator to natural gas. As it turned out we were too far down the path to go back, but the information we got was interesting. Durring the busy hurricane seasons of a couple of years ago they had essentially zero failure of service. Some localized single-customer failures in isolated incidents but nothing widespread.

If you go this route, my suggestion would be to be conservative with what you choose to power due to the potential cost issues of running the thing mentioned above. You don't need to run the entire house, and I wouldn't bother trying to. Refrigerator, possibly the A/C, and the GFCI circuit in the house. My rationale for the GFCI is that it will limit your usage. If the TV doesn't have power the kids won't turn it on but you can use the outlets in the bathrooms to charge whatever you need and/or run an extension cord where you need to. I know that the experts caution against extension cords as a trip hazard but if you're not 90 years old I think this is a non-issue.

[LOKNLOD]

This is venturing into my lane a bit. I am in the natural gas industry, although my company is in the midstream gathering/transmission business versus the distribution network side of the business.

The natural gas system is pretty reliable, and being mostly underground is much more robust to natural events than the electrical system. Of course that can be dependent on where you live, as others have said. I would imagine serious earthquakes could do some major disruptions to underground utilities. Barring the "big one" however I think you'll see your gas service outlast your electrical service in most any situation.

Now if the world comes unscrewed, all the infrastructure will fail anyway, so if there was an option to convert it to diesel or propane for an extended outage, that would be very beneficial.

I agree with Rob about not trying to power everything at once with the back-up, but in the name of maximizing versatility, I would still recommend being able to feed your breaker box with the generator, and then using the circuit breakers in the home to control what does or does not have power (that may have been what Rob was referring to doing, sorry if I misunderstood). That way if you choose to hole up in one room or another, you can send the power here or there at the flick of a switch. If you hard wire only to a few outlets or circuits, even if they're well-planned, it may cause a problem later when the room you planned on holing up in becomes the one that has a hole in the roof, etc. No matter what, be sure and have a method to prevent back-feeding the generator power into the grid. Not only is that a waste of your energy, it's a hazard for crews coming to make repairs.

[hickuleas]

Get a Generator in naturaul gas. In the event of natural gas delievery problems just switch to propane. This only requires changing the regulator from approx 3.5 inches of water colum to approx 11 inches. You also need to change the orifice on the gas valve. Basically identical to switching a furnace from one fuel sorce to another.

[motorolahamm]

pretty reliable, mainly when i eat to much chilli or spicey food::)