Original poster thought his earth ground took a dive to
maybe a buried gas line or maybe to a water pipe some 30 yards
away. Unknown exactly where that breaker box ground wire
goes. Recommendation was, quite simply (and misrepresented in
the response) to connect that ground wire to a newly installed
and "nearby to breaker box" single point earth ground.
Breaker box would no longer find central earth ground only on
some unknown location or pipe AND all other incoming utilities
would be earthed to a common, known, single point ground. At
no time was earthing a gas pipe to the single point ground
advocated. Posted previously was that the gas pipe must
connect to breaker box safety ground as local gas company now
requires. That safety ground is typically a basement wire
connection. Saying that it is wrong to connect gas line to
grounding electrode is a classic strawman argument because no
such recommendation was made.

Please read the original post more carefully. No where is
grounding to gas pipe cited as a requirement by any code or
standards agency:
In original posters case, a wire buried in earth may connect
to buried gas pipe.

No, it may _not_. Please state your references. NEC? IEEE? If
it's an IEEE reference, please quote it, as most of us don't have
access to them without forking out huge sums of money.

Original poster thought maybe - possibly - potentially -
speculates without any certain fact - that a ground wired
going to an unknown destination might connect to gas line or
to maybe nothing. That above sentence never even implied
earthing a gas pipe was called for by any standard. Again,
because the strawman was posted so many times - connecting gas
line to grounding electrode was never advocated, encouraged,
or even suggested.

volts500 wrote:
"w_tom" wrote in message
...
The gas and electric company in this area demands gas line
be connected to safety ground.

Yes, like I said, _interior_ gas lines must be bonded to the service
equipment.......per NEC Section 250.104(B) which states:

250.104 Bonding of Piping Systems and Exposed Structural Steel.
250.104(B) Other Metal Piping. "Where installed in or attached to a
building or structure, metal piping system(s), including gas piping,
that may become energized shall be bonded to the service equipment
enclosure, the grounded conductor at the service, the grounding
electrode conductor where of sufficient size, or to one or more
grounding electrodes used. The bonding jumper(s) shall be sized in
accordance with 250.122 using the rating of the circuit that may
energize the piping system(s). The equipment grounding conductor
for the circuit that may energize the piping shall be permitted to
serve as the bonding means. The points of attachment of the
bonding jumper(s) shall be accessible."

In fact, the 2002 NEC was revised to make it clear that _interior_ gas
lines be treated the same as all other interior metal piping (such as
interior water lines). In fact, in the past many plumbers have been
killed because the interior gas lines were _not_ bonded to the service
equipment, the gas line becomes energized via a ground-fault in a gas
appliance (such as the light circuit in a gas stove), then the plumber
inadvertently touches the energized gas line while also contacting a
grounded water pipe. It's not hard to deduce how explosions can also
occur when the _interior_ gas line is not bonded to the service
equipment.

OTOH, this requirement should not be interpreted as lead one to think
that the _underground_ gas line should be connected to the grounding
electrode system. _Any_ grounding electrode that is connected to the
grounding electrode system becomes part of that system........be it a
metal underground water pipe, building steel, a concrete-encased
(Ufer) electrode, a ground ring, rod and pipe electrodes (such as
ground rods), or plate electrodes. NEC Section 250.52(B) clearly states: ...

But that gas line must not be the earth ground electrode.

If it's connected to the grounding electrode system, it's a grounding
electrode and it _will_ dissipate electrons right along with other
grounding electrodes that it is bonded too.
...