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Nordstream: An Accident?

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Re: Nordstream: An Accident?

#111

Post by zasdffaa »

bombcar wrote: post #75
wil421 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have pressures above 3,000psi any sudden leak or hole will be pretty catastrophic. Not an explosion like a fire explosion, something more like explosive decompression in a plane. Anyway I think they Swedes have pinned it down to an explosion, as in a bomb, based on seismometers.

Water pressure at 80 meters would be about 130 psi, so the pipe is 2800 psi over "ambient" which gives it a certain amount of "pop" should it do so. But it's also designed to not pop (and do we have any examples of a catastrophic pipe failure vs a leak?).

I thought pressure of the gas as ~114 bar, which (brain whirring sounds) is much less than 2,800 PSI. MS's calculator makes it ~1,650 PSI

I could be wrong.

Re: Nordstream: An Accident?

#112

Post by MichaelCollins »

roenxi wrote: post #100

I miss the people who were good at realpolitik. What happened barely matters. The situation appears to be escalating, there is a mobilised Russian army to worry about now. People are underestimating how unpredictable and damaging war is. Throwing weapons and sanctions at Russia is not a plausible path to peace and prosperity. This should have been Iraq 2.0. If the situation goes biblical, I'd rather be reading about…

> This should have been Iraq 2.0.

You mean 3.0 I assume...

Anyway, that seems like an awful idea to me. Russia is still nuclear armed and if you try to attack Russia hard and fast, as America did to Iraq twice, there is a chance they would respond with nuclear force. Better to keep the war at a relatively low intensity and bleed Russia dead slowly, so that at no point does Russian leadership experience existential panic. Boil the frog^W bear slow so he doesn't jump out of the pot.

Re: Nordstream: An Accident?

#113

Post by regularfry »

MauranKilom wrote: post #35

Can someone explain the chemistry of natural gas exploding by itself? In my understanding, you need oxygen for that to happen. There's a bunch of oxygen in the H2O, but what exactly would the products of an explosive reaction between natural gas and water be? Hydrogen and CO2? Don't think there's much energy to be released there... I can totally buy the "you depressurized only one end, so you had a plug slam into the…

I'm wondering if it's a combination of the two, and a physical effect rather than a chemical one. If you run the hydrate plug into a wall, the hydrate at the impact site will get crushed and release its gas, which has a bigger volume than the original plug. Local pressure goes up so the force of the impact is magnified. That means a smaller impact has potentially an outsized effect.

No idea if that works, because otherwise I think you're right. No oxygen, no kaboom. And if there was oxygen present, the leak would be on fire.

Re: Nordstream: An Accident?

#115

Post by bombcar »

zasdffaa wrote: post #111
bombcar wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water pressure at 80 meters would be about 130 psi, so the pipe is 2800 psi over "ambient" which gives it a certain amount of "pop" should it do so. But it's also designed to not pop (and do we have any examples of a catastrophic pipe failure vs a leak?).

I thought pressure of the gas as ~114 bar, which (brain whirring sounds) is much less than 2,800 PSI. MS's calculator makes it ~1,650 PSI I could be wrong.

Could be the difference between what the pipe is rated for and what the gas is normally at.

Re: Nordstream: An Accident?

#116

Post by jjoonathan »

teekert wrote: post #33
MichaelCollins wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hanlon's razor is foolish; every who's up to no good knows the "pretend it was an accident" trick. Children figure it out. Not assuming malice is a good policy in ordinary everyday situations, but the razor lacks that nuance and says to Never assume malice, which is going too far.

Still best to initially assume no malicy because it is insulting if it really wasn't. I typically adhere to Hanlon's razor because of this.

"Initially assume" is good policy, "never attribute" is bad policy.

Re: Nordstream: An Accident?

#117

Post by geysersam »

jofer wrote: post #68

This really is a plausible scenario. Hydrate buildup is a very real risk in a pipeline that isn't flowing. Trying to deal with it in a less than ideal way can absolutely lead to loss of containment and would explain the multiple leaks. Of course, hostile action is also a plausible explanation, but it is very fair to point out that we really don't have any clear evidence either way and both are reasonably likely.

Why would it happen in both pipelines the same evening?

Re: Nordstream: An Accident?

#118

Post by ethagknight »

photochemsyn wrote: post #65

These two pipelines have very different operational histories so the simultaneous formation of a 'methane hydrate plug' in both pipelines seems highly unlikely at best. There's also no apparent reason why such a methane hydrate plug should cause seismic-scale explosions in both pipelines. As far as motivation, the US agenda on Europe's fossil fuel market since at least 2008 has been to lock out Russian suppliers (who…

Regarding your comment of unlikely simultaneous formation of plugs, the thinking would be that Russian interests were attempting to test or clean or prep both lines.

Re: Nordstream: An Accident?

#119

Post by regularfry »

bombcar wrote: post #75
wil421 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have pressures above 3,000psi any sudden leak or hole will be pretty catastrophic. Not an explosion like a fire explosion, something more like explosive decompression in a plane. Anyway I think they Swedes have pinned it down to an explosion, as in a bomb, based on seismometers.

Water pressure at 80 meters would be about 130 psi, so the pipe is 2800 psi over "ambient" which gives it a certain amount of "pop" should it do so. But it's also designed to not pop (and do we have any examples of a catastrophic pipe failure vs a leak?).

It's designed to not pop, but implicit in the theory is that maintenance is shoddy and enough water has got in somehow to let hydrates form. Confidence in absence of pop may be misplaced.

Re: Nordstream: An Accident?

#120

Post by zasdffaa »

MauranKilom wrote: post #35

Can someone explain the chemistry of natural gas exploding by itself? In my understanding, you need oxygen for that to happen. There's a bunch of oxygen in the H2O, but what exactly would the products of an explosive reaction between natural gas and water be? Hydrogen and CO2? Don't think there's much energy to be released there... I can totally buy the "you depressurized only one end, so you had a plug slam into the…

"...and subject to Russian maintenance. And I’m here to tell you — Russian maintenance under the current oligarchy system isn’t any better than it was under the Soviet system."

He is, as I read it, basically saying the methane may not be being properly isolated from the atmosphere so air may be leaking in.

That said, you'd need a mega-massive-big input of oxygen contamination (wiki: "... 5–15% concentration [of air, not neat oxygen, IIUC] in a flammable or explosive mixture", and it would have to happen before gas pressurisation (or the methan would leak out, not air in). So I dunno.

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