Pipelines play a critical role in matching the supply and demand of natural gas. The pricing of their capacity is an important problem in practice, both for pipeline companies and shippers, the users of this capacity, including natural gas merchants, producers, and local distribution companies. This paper conducts a normative analysis of how pipeline capacity should be priced by each of these p...

Methane emissions from natural gas delivery and end use must be quantified to evaluate the environmental impacts of natural gas and to develop and assess the efficacy of emission reduction strategies. We report natural gas emission rates for 1 y in the urban region of Boston, using a comprehensive atmospheric measurement and modeling framework. Continuous methane observations from four stations...

We examine the life cycle costs, environmental discharges, and deaths of moving coal via rail, coal gas via pipeline, and electricity via wire from the Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming to Texas. Which method has least social cost depends on how much additional investment in rail line, transmission, or pipeline infrastructure is required, as well as how much and how far energy is transported....

An Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm is proposed for optimal tree-structured natural gas distribution network. Design of pipelines, facilities, and equipment systems are necessary tasks to configure an optimal natural gas network. A mixed integer programming model is formulated to minimize the total cost in the network. The aim is to optimize pipe diameter sizes so that the location-alloc...

Introduction: The safety of the Unites States’ natural gas supply is of prime importance since 30% of the energy produced in the country is derived from it. Natural gas is supplied through a million miles of vast pipeline network [1]. Pipeline companies have an impressive safety record due to the proactive role of standards and inspection of pipelines. Since the pipelines are getting old, there...

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Article history: Received: 27.08.2014. Received in revised form: 08.12.2014. Accepted: 11.12.2014. Pipelines are of major importance for transport of natural gas, but a lot of the current in-service pipelines are in wear-out phase. Safe and reliable operations of these pipelines are related to economic development and social stability. It is of great importance and practical significance to stu...

Nowadays, centrifugal compressors are commonly used in the oil and gas industry, particularly in the energy transmission facilities just like a gas pipeline stations. Therefore, these machines with different operational circumstances and thermodynamic characteristics are to be exploited according to the operational necessities. Generally, the most important operational parameters of a gas pipel...

Regulatory authorities in many countries are moving away from prescriptive approaches for keeping natural gas pipelines safe. As an alternative, risk management based on a quantitative assessment is being considered to improve the level of safety. This paper focuses on the development of a simplified method for the quantitative risk assessment for natural gas pipelines and introduces parameters...