Han wrote:

"Pete C." wrote in
ster.com:


David Nebenzahl wrote:

Been watching the teevee nooz coverage of the San Bruno [San
Francisco peninsula] gas main explosion and conflagration. Wow.

I used to live about a mile away from that spot, across Skyline
Blvd.; used to shop at the Lunardi's just across the road.

The news reported lots of people saying they'd been smelling gas in
the neighborhood for the last week or so. One can only hope that PG&E
(Pure Greed & Extortion) gets raked over the coals, literally, for
this one.

A few comments on this:

- People said they had smelled gas for a week, did any of those people
bother to report it?

- People laugh at me when I say Nat. Gas is *not* safe and should not
be allowed in residential areas, yet nearly every day there is a house
explosion due to a nat. gas leak, and every year or two a big incident
like this one. I recall an apartment building in the northeast (NJ?)
being leveled by one of these nat. gas transmission lines exploding
under it.

- Gas detectors are pretty inexpensive, they're included in every RV.
Various technologies exist to allow the gas monopolies to install gas
monitors in the areas where they pipe their dangerous product. It
would not be especially expensive to install remote gas detectors in
the area that would not rely on some person actually calling the
monopoly to report a possible gas leak. The gas detectors also are
more sensitive than human noses so they could detect a small leak
blowing past.

With properly maintained facilities, natural gas is safe. Considering
the number of households and commercial establishments of all kinds that
use NG, the number of accidents and fatalities is small. Gasoline etc
probably have at least as many (BP well blowing up).

Some 6.6 residential nat. gas fires and/or explosions (they tend to go
together) per *DAY* (NFPA statistics) may be small relative to the total
number of residential nat. gas installations, but it is unacceptably
high given the many safer alternatives, and at the very least the
availability of inexpensive gas detectors (every RV has one).


Now as far as proper maintenance, I don't understand the use of a 54"
inch main gas line only 3 feet under a residential area. In an
earthquake prone region. I bet that it will turn out that the residents
have warned many times (probably crying wolf too many times, as far as
PG&E was concerned), and that the line was NOT inspected often enough
and recently enough. Wouldn't want to have shares in that company ...

A nat. gas transmission line that blew in the northeast (NJ I believe)
was *under* and apartment building. What ****-for-brains allowed that,
and how much were they bribed?