WEBVTT 00:00:01.640 --> 00:00:04.040 The following content is provided under a Creative 00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:05.580 Commons license. 00:00:05.580 --> 00:00:07.880 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare 00:00:07.880 --> 00:00:12.270 continue to offer high quality educational resources for free. 00:00:12.270 --> 00:00:14.870 To make a donation or view additional materials 00:00:14.870 --> 00:00:18.830 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 00:00:18.830 --> 00:00:20.000 at ocw.mit.edu. 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:23.670 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Where we are scientists-- 00:00:23.670 --> 00:00:26.750 I'm speaking as a professional scientist-- 00:00:26.750 --> 00:00:30.350 and the wall they we're hitting in communicating our science, 00:00:30.350 --> 00:00:35.040 and having things translate out of there-- 00:00:35.040 --> 00:00:37.850 I'm aware of a paper that was just 00:00:37.850 --> 00:00:40.220 published a few weeks ago that's on the importance 00:00:40.220 --> 00:00:42.550 of storytelling in science. 00:00:42.550 --> 00:00:47.390 And that they found that some published journal articles that 00:00:47.390 --> 00:00:50.120 had more of a narrative structure are getting 00:00:50.120 --> 00:00:54.510 cited more because people want to hear stories. 00:00:54.510 --> 00:00:58.137 The dry, scientific, just the facts aren't working. 00:00:58.137 --> 00:00:59.220 They want to hear stories. 00:00:59.220 --> 00:01:01.500 So I want to share my story with you 00:01:01.500 --> 00:01:04.970 about how I got involved in this gas leak stuff, 00:01:04.970 --> 00:01:07.490 and then I'll hand the baton to Audrey, 00:01:07.490 --> 00:01:09.900 and she'll take it from there. 00:01:09.900 --> 00:01:15.110 But I started about this thing about the methane gas leaks 00:01:15.110 --> 00:01:17.930 as a citizen. 00:01:17.930 --> 00:01:21.770 This started in 2010, November 2010, 00:01:21.770 --> 00:01:26.550 for me, walking two blocks away from our home in Newton, 00:01:26.550 --> 00:01:28.380 in the Auburndale village of Newton, 00:01:28.380 --> 00:01:33.080 with my 10-year-old son, who was 7 or 8 years old 00:01:33.080 --> 00:01:34.345 at the time, Julian. 00:01:34.345 --> 00:01:36.800 And two blocks away from our home, 00:01:36.800 --> 00:01:39.260 we came upon a gas leak, and someone 00:01:39.260 --> 00:01:44.360 who was working on gas leaks, Bob Ackely, Gas Safety USA. 00:01:44.360 --> 00:01:47.290 He's a 30-year professional, non-scientist, 00:01:47.290 --> 00:01:50.860 but that curiosity, what are you doing there. 00:01:50.860 --> 00:01:54.880 He looked like Ghostbusters with a metal detector, 00:01:54.880 --> 00:01:56.730 but it was a gas meter. 00:01:56.730 --> 00:02:00.650 And that's how I got involved in understanding 00:02:00.650 --> 00:02:03.080 this problem with gas leaks. 00:02:03.080 --> 00:02:05.210 So it was as a citizen. 00:02:05.210 --> 00:02:08.240 And for me, that has started a process 00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:14.480 by which I've grown as a scientist citizen 00:02:14.480 --> 00:02:18.710 and come into a community science framework, 00:02:18.710 --> 00:02:22.975 working with Audrey and a whole group of other citizens 00:02:22.975 --> 00:02:23.600 in a community. 00:02:23.600 --> 00:02:26.060 And we've defined, I think, a community 00:02:26.060 --> 00:02:28.640 that crosses all types of boundaries 00:02:28.640 --> 00:02:31.250 to address the problem of gas leaks. 00:02:31.250 --> 00:02:34.670 So from that first chance citizen 00:02:34.670 --> 00:02:43.700 kind of experience for me, till 2013, the science part of this 00:02:43.700 --> 00:02:48.080 developed that we mapped out over 3,000 of these gas leaks 00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:49.950 in the city of Boston. 00:02:49.950 --> 00:02:54.530 And then we followed it up with a study in which we estimated 00:02:54.530 --> 00:02:57.620 that the amount of gas being lost in Eastern Massachusetts 00:02:57.620 --> 00:03:02.720 amounted to about 10% of the Commonwealth's greenhouse gas 00:03:02.720 --> 00:03:04.700 emissions inventory. 00:03:04.700 --> 00:03:13.760 So that propelled a coalition of a community to then say, 00:03:13.760 --> 00:03:16.160 how do we move our political leaders 00:03:16.160 --> 00:03:19.310 to actually create policy to address this situation? 00:03:19.310 --> 00:03:22.800 So it's been a really fulfilling thing for me. 00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:25.925 And I will say that the science that we did, actually, 00:03:25.925 --> 00:03:31.670 and what we published in the journals, is not new. 00:03:31.670 --> 00:03:35.000 The problem had been known about for decades. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:37.980 It's just that it was not known to the public. 00:03:37.980 --> 00:03:40.970 So we found citizen after citizens 00:03:40.970 --> 00:03:43.160 in different neighborhoods of Boston that would say, 00:03:43.160 --> 00:03:44.840 oh yeah, I know about a gas leak. 00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:47.535 I smell it every time I go walking to the store. 00:03:47.535 --> 00:03:49.550 And so what we realized is that there 00:03:49.550 --> 00:03:53.810 were hundreds of anecdotes that were completely 00:03:53.810 --> 00:03:55.560 siloed from each other. 00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:59.930 And once we put a map out there, the community, 00:03:59.930 --> 00:04:02.270 everyone could see the whole thing collectively 00:04:02.270 --> 00:04:03.570 at the same time. 00:04:03.570 --> 00:04:05.330 And that was the only thing we did. 00:04:05.330 --> 00:04:08.540 We just made it visible. 00:04:08.540 --> 00:04:10.520 And Audrey took it to the next step, 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:12.302 and I'll pass the baton to you. 00:04:12.302 --> 00:04:13.468 AUDREY SCHULMAN: OK, thanks. 00:04:13.468 --> 00:04:15.680 So I'm just going to talk for one second 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:19.490 about what actually gas leaks are, since-- 00:04:19.490 --> 00:04:21.200 from pipes under the street, right? 00:04:21.200 --> 00:04:23.780 So a lot of our pipes under our street are really old. 00:04:23.780 --> 00:04:28.040 Here's a close up detail of back bay, a National Grid map, 00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:30.890 very small detail of it, and you can see that two 00:04:30.890 --> 00:04:32.420 of the pipes running down-- 00:04:32.420 --> 00:04:37.550 the 1860 one is a pipe from 1860 running down Beacon Street. 00:04:37.550 --> 00:04:42.830 And two streets away running down Comm Ave is one from 1882. 00:04:42.830 --> 00:04:44.880 And those pipes are still in use. 00:04:44.880 --> 00:04:50.229 So we've got some really old infrastructure around. 00:04:50.229 --> 00:04:52.770 The problem with gas leaks is, they're potentially explosive. 00:04:52.770 --> 00:04:56.600 This is a picture of the explosion in Harlem about two 00:04:56.600 --> 00:04:59.920 years ago, I think 2014. 00:04:59.920 --> 00:05:04.050 As they gas percolates up through the soil it, 00:05:04.050 --> 00:05:06.810 pushes oxygen out and trees actually 00:05:06.810 --> 00:05:08.910 need to breathe oxygen through their roots. 00:05:08.910 --> 00:05:10.530 So they can die. 00:05:13.310 --> 00:05:17.700 And then it's, as Nathan said, a powerful greenhouse gas. 00:05:17.700 --> 00:05:22.080 If you burn natural gas, it's turned into CO2. 00:05:22.080 --> 00:05:24.870 If you don't burn it, it stays as methane. 00:05:24.870 --> 00:05:27.960 Methane, on a 20-year time frame, 00:05:27.960 --> 00:05:32.970 is 86 times more damaging than CO2. 00:05:32.970 --> 00:05:35.630 And finally, we have to pay for it 00:05:35.630 --> 00:05:37.560 because the utilities can pass that cost 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:39.960 on to us, the ratepayers. 00:05:39.960 --> 00:05:42.040 So it's sort of just insulting. 00:05:42.040 --> 00:05:45.090 So when I read about Nathan's first, 00:05:45.090 --> 00:05:47.860 I run an energy efficiency nonprofit. 00:05:47.860 --> 00:05:51.870 And primarily, we used to work in the buildings of nonprofits 00:05:51.870 --> 00:05:54.870 to help them lower their energy bills and energy emissions. 00:05:54.870 --> 00:05:57.840 And so then, a lot with Mass Save, 00:05:57.840 --> 00:06:01.380 which is the state's energy efficiency 00:06:01.380 --> 00:06:03.850 state-funded program. 00:06:03.850 --> 00:06:06.330 And so I read about Nathan's research 00:06:06.330 --> 00:06:08.700 when he surveyed all of Boston and found 00:06:08.700 --> 00:06:11.090 those over 3,300 gas leaks. 00:06:11.090 --> 00:06:12.840 And there was one line in the article that 00:06:12.840 --> 00:06:18.930 said that the amount of gas lost in just Boston alone 00:06:18.930 --> 00:06:21.810 totally erased all of the state's energy efficiency 00:06:21.810 --> 00:06:23.890 programs. 00:06:23.890 --> 00:06:25.980 And so I was that was it. 00:06:25.980 --> 00:06:27.780 I was in. 00:06:27.780 --> 00:06:32.730 So I called up Nathan and said, how can I help? 00:06:32.730 --> 00:06:35.670 And he was kind enough to loan us 00:06:35.670 --> 00:06:38.790 his extremely fancy cool equipment, which 00:06:38.790 --> 00:06:43.150 is called the Picarro High Precision Natural Gas Analyzer. 00:06:43.150 --> 00:06:47.190 And we drove it all over Cambridge and Somerville. 00:06:47.190 --> 00:06:50.370 So the yellow lines are where we drove-- 00:06:50.370 --> 00:06:52.350 or not, we Bob Ackley-- 00:06:52.350 --> 00:06:55.110 drove. 00:06:55.110 --> 00:07:00.060 And the spikes are where there is elevated levels of methane 00:07:00.060 --> 00:07:02.460 found. 00:07:02.460 --> 00:07:04.260 And it's sort of fascinating. 00:07:04.260 --> 00:07:09.060 We found no correlation between income level of neighborhoods. 00:07:12.110 --> 00:07:14.330 Because they're just-- you'll see them 00:07:14.330 --> 00:07:16.610 sort of somewhat clustered together 00:07:16.610 --> 00:07:19.100 because neighborhoods are built at the same time, 00:07:19.100 --> 00:07:22.130 generally, using the same infrastructure, same material. 00:07:24.660 --> 00:07:30.170 Here's what I call the Alps of North Somerville. 00:07:30.170 --> 00:07:34.760 And we will be going, we'll be doing a leak survey 00:07:34.760 --> 00:07:37.970 in the fantastic van with the Picarro, 00:07:37.970 --> 00:07:41.840 so you can come along and see these on your own, 00:07:41.840 --> 00:07:45.990 and do some surveying on your own. 00:07:45.990 --> 00:07:47.930 AUDIENCE: And smell it. 00:07:47.930 --> 00:07:49.971 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Yeah, I mean we can also smell-- 00:07:49.971 --> 00:07:52.257 see what's fascinating to me, is like, near my house-- 00:07:52.257 --> 00:07:53.840 I would always bike along the Charles, 00:07:53.840 --> 00:07:55.340 and there was just one huge gas leak 00:07:55.340 --> 00:07:56.780 I would smell all the time. 00:07:56.780 --> 00:07:59.067 And I would always think, like, can't 00:07:59.067 --> 00:08:00.650 be because I'm looking around, and I'm 00:08:00.650 --> 00:08:03.030 seeing all the other people, and they're just walking by. 00:08:03.030 --> 00:08:06.890 So I always thought, like, I must just be making it up. 00:08:06.890 --> 00:08:07.952 But then I called it in. 00:08:07.952 --> 00:08:08.660 And it was fixed. 00:08:08.660 --> 00:08:11.090 And after that, I never smelled it again. 00:08:11.090 --> 00:08:14.790 And that was so-- like we just don't believe our noses. 00:08:14.790 --> 00:08:18.980 So after we did the Cambridge Somerville work, 00:08:18.980 --> 00:08:21.320 I thought, we've got to scale this up somehow. 00:08:21.320 --> 00:08:27.450 I found some arcane data on the Department of Public Utilities 00:08:27.450 --> 00:08:32.030 site, where they have to give a lot of information, including 00:08:32.030 --> 00:08:35.750 this, which-- 00:08:35.750 --> 00:08:38.429 over 300 pages of this sort of stuff. 00:08:38.429 --> 00:08:41.526 But you'll see that there's actually addresses there. 00:08:41.526 --> 00:08:43.400 So as soon as I saw that there were addresses 00:08:43.400 --> 00:08:48.650 showing where the leaks were, I thought, cool, I can map it. 00:08:48.650 --> 00:08:54.410 So I mapped every gas leak in Massachusetts on Google Maps, 00:08:54.410 --> 00:08:55.940 so they're zoomable. 00:08:55.940 --> 00:08:59.790 Anybody can see them at squeakyleak.org. 00:08:59.790 --> 00:09:05.420 The yellow map pins are where the leaks are unrepaired, 00:09:05.420 --> 00:09:09.800 and the reds are where they were repaired the previous year. 00:09:09.800 --> 00:09:13.310 And there's just a lot of them. 00:09:13.310 --> 00:09:15.440 And this was some of the-- 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:19.490 really transformative for a lot of people, 00:09:19.490 --> 00:09:21.050 because then they could actually see 00:09:21.050 --> 00:09:26.390 where the leaks were near their home, near their kids school, 00:09:26.390 --> 00:09:27.950 near their business, et cetera. 00:09:27.950 --> 00:09:30.710 It made the, not only invisible visible, 00:09:30.710 --> 00:09:35.030 but it also made the global local. 00:09:35.030 --> 00:09:38.660 And then I'll finally finish up with one last thing, which 00:09:38.660 --> 00:09:44.276 is some other parts of Nathan's research, 00:09:44.276 --> 00:09:45.650 as well as Margaret Hendrick, who 00:09:45.650 --> 00:09:49.495 is a graduate student, a postdoctoral student here 00:09:49.495 --> 00:09:53.300 at BU, is they surveyed a hundred gas leaks in Boston 00:09:53.300 --> 00:10:01.160 to find that just 7% of them emit 50% of the gas by volume. 00:10:01.160 --> 00:10:03.710 So that means-- as soon as you know that, you know, 00:10:03.710 --> 00:10:07.610 OK, the whole thing is to find and fix those leaks. 00:10:07.610 --> 00:10:11.150 So through a lot of work, through all 00:10:11.150 --> 00:10:14.030 the different people who are interested in this, 00:10:14.030 --> 00:10:16.700 we managed to get, we helped to get 00:10:16.700 --> 00:10:19.430 a state law passed that those leaks will 00:10:19.430 --> 00:10:22.025 have to be found and fixed. 00:10:22.025 --> 00:10:23.900 And so one of the things we're going be doing 00:10:23.900 --> 00:10:26.720 is, at the hackathon, we'll hopefully 00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:29.630 be trying to figure out a method that's 00:10:29.630 --> 00:10:32.450 utility friendly for the utilities 00:10:32.450 --> 00:10:37.940 to measure the emissions off of each one of these theoretically 00:10:37.940 --> 00:10:38.785 high volume leaks. 00:10:41.400 --> 00:10:44.270 Because if we don't have feedback for the system, 00:10:44.270 --> 00:10:48.050 they're probably going to find whatever leaks are convenient 00:10:48.050 --> 00:10:50.000 and call those high volume, and fix them. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:51.708 Because they don't know how to do it yet. 00:10:51.708 --> 00:10:53.910 Nobody does-- how to find the leaks. 00:10:53.910 --> 00:10:55.473 Yeah? 00:10:55.473 --> 00:10:57.240 AUDIENCE: Have you checked on the response 00:10:57.240 --> 00:10:58.756 of National Grid or other utilities 00:10:58.756 --> 00:11:00.506 about their capacity to repair these leaks 00:11:00.506 --> 00:11:02.881 and also compare that to the new leaks that have emerged? 00:11:13.132 --> 00:11:15.465 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Yeah, I met with a lot of other people. 00:11:15.465 --> 00:11:18.140 I met with National Grid on Friday. 00:11:18.140 --> 00:11:22.010 They say they've hired a whole bunch of new people, 00:11:22.010 --> 00:11:25.010 and they say they will have the capacity to do this, 00:11:25.010 --> 00:11:27.770 to fix all these leaks. 00:11:27.770 --> 00:11:29.750 But what I want them to do is be transparent 00:11:29.750 --> 00:11:33.890 about their information so anybody 00:11:33.890 --> 00:11:35.729 can check that they fixed the right leaks, 00:11:35.729 --> 00:11:38.270 that the leaks were fixed, that you know, so on and so forth. 00:11:38.270 --> 00:11:42.290 Because the more transparency we have, 00:11:42.290 --> 00:11:45.700 the more researchers can look at stuff and citizens can, too. 00:11:45.700 --> 00:11:49.255 AUDIENCE: Is there color coding near the [INAUDIBLE] 00:11:49.255 --> 00:11:52.790 AUDREY SCHULMAN: No, in this case I was mapping, 00:11:52.790 --> 00:11:55.000 the pink ones are super-emitters, 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:56.780 the high-volume gas leaks. 00:11:56.780 --> 00:11:58.900 The yellow ones are not. 00:11:58.900 --> 00:12:02.034 They're just normal gas leaks. 00:12:02.034 --> 00:12:03.950 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Maybe I'll just add something 00:12:03.950 --> 00:12:07.580 about the community science and the opportunities 00:12:07.580 --> 00:12:09.950 for just being creative here. 00:12:09.950 --> 00:12:13.160 And I think it's just is embodied by the collaboration 00:12:13.160 --> 00:12:17.840 that Audrey and I have so well was, to do this study, 00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:19.880 we had to think of methods that were 00:12:19.880 --> 00:12:24.710 a little out of the box, a little bit about found objects 00:12:24.710 --> 00:12:25.640 fortuitous stuff. 00:12:25.640 --> 00:12:29.302 Because there's no real kit to measure gas leaks that you 00:12:29.302 --> 00:12:32.480 can buy from some-- we were making this up as we go. 00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:36.560 So, for example, we found out that the best kind of chamber 00:12:36.560 --> 00:12:39.490 to measure what's coming out of man holes 00:12:39.490 --> 00:12:42.130 is a turtle shell from a sandbox. 00:12:42.130 --> 00:12:46.600 So it fits right over with a known volume, 00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:50.440 and you get that for $20 instead of having a machine 00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:52.760 shop make it for $1,000. 00:12:52.760 --> 00:12:54.680 So there's that level of creativity. 00:12:54.680 --> 00:12:57.980 And just yesterday Audrey came up 00:12:57.980 --> 00:13:03.390 with the use of a pinwheel that might be able the mix the air 00:13:03.390 --> 00:13:04.640 that we need to measure. 00:13:04.640 --> 00:13:06.290 And it's the kind of thing that it's 00:13:06.290 --> 00:13:09.560 like, once she said that, it's like, yeah perfect, you know, 00:13:09.560 --> 00:13:10.340 a pinwheel. 00:13:10.340 --> 00:13:14.660 So I think, in the hackathon, there will be opportunities 00:13:14.660 --> 00:13:18.380 to think about how we might go about doing something 00:13:18.380 --> 00:13:23.060 in a cost-effective way without doing it kind of like, 00:13:23.060 --> 00:13:26.720 you know, NASA does in their multimillion dollar 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:28.250 laboratories. 00:13:28.250 --> 00:13:32.570 you find-- you had your test going out with the truck. 00:13:32.570 --> 00:13:35.120 And then you had the DPU emissions data. 00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:38.760 Did you find any leaks that were not on the DPU National Grid 00:13:38.760 --> 00:13:39.260 list? 00:13:39.260 --> 00:13:40.343 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Oh, yeah. 00:13:42.680 --> 00:13:46.430 With Metropolitan Area Planning Council, HEET, my nonprofit, 00:13:46.430 --> 00:13:51.050 has done a survey of 15 different municipalities. 00:13:55.400 --> 00:14:00.440 We found 1.7 times more leaks than the utilities reported. 00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:02.300 And there's lots of other stuff that we 00:14:02.300 --> 00:14:09.370 found that makes us question the utility data. 00:14:09.370 --> 00:14:10.314 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Paul. 00:14:10.314 --> 00:14:13.770 AUDIENCE: Nathan, thank you [INAUDIBLE] 00:14:13.770 --> 00:14:16.385 question and a comment. 00:14:16.385 --> 00:14:19.266 Question, how do you know where the super emitters are now 00:14:19.266 --> 00:14:21.564 on the map, given that you're still 00:14:21.564 --> 00:14:25.540 in the process of measuring, as I understand? 00:14:25.540 --> 00:14:29.310 NATHAN PHILLIPS: So we did this survey, the driving survey, 00:14:29.310 --> 00:14:33.060 that measured 3,356 leaks in Boston. 00:14:33.060 --> 00:14:34.497 But that's just detecting leaks. 00:14:34.497 --> 00:14:36.330 That doesn't tell us how much is coming out. 00:14:36.330 --> 00:14:40.970 So then subsequently to that, we went out with these chambers. 00:14:40.970 --> 00:14:42.960 Some of them were the turtle shell. 00:14:42.960 --> 00:14:45.550 Some of them were five gallon buckets with a slot cut out 00:14:45.550 --> 00:14:47.040 so it could go up to a curd. 00:14:47.040 --> 00:14:52.070 Because sometimes it comes out these complex geometries. 00:14:52.070 --> 00:14:56.340 And so we did the laborious task of going back 00:14:56.340 --> 00:14:59.880 to 100 of those 3,356 leaks. 00:14:59.880 --> 00:15:02.430 And measuring how much just coming out using this chamber 00:15:02.430 --> 00:15:03.756 technique. 00:15:03.756 --> 00:15:06.730 And from that the statistics of those 100 leaks 00:15:06.730 --> 00:15:09.660 showed that seven of them accounted 00:15:09.660 --> 00:15:13.320 for 50% of the total lost gas. 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:15.240 AUDIENCE: So you've done a sample, but not 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:17.749 comprehesive in any regard. 00:15:17.749 --> 00:15:18.790 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Exactly. 00:15:18.790 --> 00:15:21.510 It might be more like-- if we get the whole thing over again, 00:15:21.510 --> 00:15:26.070 maybe pick another 100 leaks, it may be that 10 of them 00:15:26.070 --> 00:15:28.970 accounted for 50%, or maybe 6. 00:15:28.970 --> 00:15:31.840 Right, it was a sample. 00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:34.860 We know that it's not a bell shaped curve, 00:15:34.860 --> 00:15:36.304 and you've got an average leak. 00:15:36.304 --> 00:15:37.720 And some were a little bit higher. 00:15:37.720 --> 00:15:39.094 And some were a little bit lower. 00:15:39.094 --> 00:15:41.180 The distribution has a long tail. 00:15:41.180 --> 00:15:43.476 There's a few big ones. 00:15:43.476 --> 00:15:44.970 And a lot of small ones. 00:15:44.970 --> 00:15:47.882 AUDIENCE: Now my comment is antecdotal, but it's true. 00:15:47.882 --> 00:15:51.950 In one town that I was working with, I won't name the town, 00:15:51.950 --> 00:15:55.725 the report was that when they had a gas leak, 00:15:55.725 --> 00:15:58.470 and the citizen complained enough, that they would exactly 00:15:58.470 --> 00:15:59.660 come out and fix the leak. 00:15:59.660 --> 00:16:03.110 But they didn't fix it well the first time. 00:16:03.110 --> 00:16:06.750 They sometimes have to come back and do it five times. 00:16:06.750 --> 00:16:10.115 And the reason for that is that the gas companies 00:16:10.115 --> 00:16:14.790 get paid based on the amount of work that they do. 00:16:14.790 --> 00:16:17.160 So if they do the same work over and over again, 00:16:17.160 --> 00:16:19.860 the get paid each time for it. 00:16:19.860 --> 00:16:23.700 So as you're engaging in this mentoring and monitoring, 00:16:23.700 --> 00:16:26.100 I do completely agree with the fact 00:16:26.100 --> 00:16:31.140 that some amount of oversight, or review, 00:16:31.140 --> 00:16:35.995 or checking up on ones that they say have been fixed 00:16:35.995 --> 00:16:39.700 would be a good part of the plan. 00:16:39.700 --> 00:16:42.530 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Yeah, I think transparency 00:16:42.530 --> 00:16:45.550 and watchdogs are good for any industry. 00:16:48.854 --> 00:16:53.410 AUDIENCE: Have you projected, just in a dream-like way, 00:16:53.410 --> 00:16:57.212 how much gas could be contained, and how much 00:16:57.212 --> 00:17:00.309 that would reduce any demand? 00:17:00.309 --> 00:17:01.850 NATHAN PHILLIPS: So the best estimate 00:17:01.850 --> 00:17:07.000 that we have for amount of lost gas comes from a study 00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:09.250 that we did in collaboration with Harvard 00:17:09.250 --> 00:17:14.050 University, Catherine McKain, Steve Wofsy and their lab. 00:17:14.050 --> 00:17:17.050 And we estimated that a little less than 3% 00:17:17.050 --> 00:17:19.720 of the amount gas that's delivered into the service area 00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:21.760 is leaked out. 00:17:21.760 --> 00:17:25.300 So that may not sound like a lot, the 3%, 00:17:25.300 --> 00:17:29.780 but because of the power of methane as a greenhouse gas, 00:17:29.780 --> 00:17:32.270 it has an outsized effect. 00:17:32.270 --> 00:17:35.380 And so that's why a 3% turns into about 10% 00:17:35.380 --> 00:17:39.010 of the total commonwealth's greenhouse gas emissions 00:17:39.010 --> 00:17:40.210 inventory at that level. 00:17:40.210 --> 00:17:45.310 So if you took that 3% leaked gas down to zero, 00:17:45.310 --> 00:17:49.240 you'd save the commonwealth 10% of its greenhouse gas emissions 00:17:49.240 --> 00:17:50.440 inventory. 00:17:50.440 --> 00:17:52.890 And about $90 million dollars per year 00:17:52.890 --> 00:17:55.570 was the cost of the commodity at the time 00:17:55.570 --> 00:17:57.670 that the study was done. 00:17:57.670 --> 00:18:00.612 Gas is volatile so that number changes. 00:18:00.612 --> 00:18:02.320 AUDIENCE: But there's another observation 00:18:02.320 --> 00:18:04.730 in that, which is that 3% just in itself 00:18:04.730 --> 00:18:11.017 would reduce to peak load demand for gas by 3%. 00:18:11.017 --> 00:18:13.160 And when they talk about new pipelines, 00:18:13.160 --> 00:18:18.168 they're increasingly talking about a 5% definciancy 00:18:18.168 --> 00:18:21.034 in our peak load capacity level. 00:18:21.034 --> 00:18:24.380 So you can definitely mitigate the need 00:18:24.380 --> 00:18:27.050 for disposing the new pipelines if you were 00:18:27.050 --> 00:18:28.300 to come out and fix the leaks. 00:18:28.300 --> 00:18:30.591 NATHAN PHILLIPS: That is an excellent, excellent point. 00:18:33.690 --> 00:18:36.140 We'll do here and then there. 00:18:36.140 --> 00:18:37.610 AUDIENCE: Don't you have a problem 00:18:37.610 --> 00:18:40.774 of how you put all these dollars together, 00:18:40.774 --> 00:18:43.656 because there's $90 million dollars that I understand 00:18:43.656 --> 00:18:47.795 that ratepayers paying the leak gas that we don't know about. 00:18:47.795 --> 00:18:49.805 We don't know her. 00:18:49.805 --> 00:18:53.200 And then there's this fund that they have for fixing leaks. 00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:55.733 And then there's the mountain lines 00:18:55.733 --> 00:18:58.642 that they're using for developing a new pipeline. 00:18:58.642 --> 00:19:02.162 And those are all coming out of different pocketbooks, I think. 00:19:02.162 --> 00:19:04.182 And it seems that if you don't figure out 00:19:04.182 --> 00:19:07.315 how to put them together, how about-- 00:19:07.315 --> 00:19:11.750 OK, stop making us pay $90 million for wasted gas. 00:19:11.750 --> 00:19:15.840 Let's use the $90 million and fix the leaks, 00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:18.090 and then don't use the money that we're 00:19:18.090 --> 00:19:20.810 going to build a pipeline for and fix the leaks. 00:19:20.810 --> 00:19:23.830 So because this is all about money at the end of the day. 00:19:23.830 --> 00:19:25.219 It's all anybody cares about when 00:19:25.219 --> 00:19:27.746 you [INAUDIBLE] company, either that or the people being 00:19:27.746 --> 00:19:30.896 mad at them in the public, which ultimately is about the money 00:19:30.896 --> 00:19:32.320 issues as well. 00:19:32.320 --> 00:19:35.804 So have you thought about how you [INAUDIBLE] 00:19:35.804 --> 00:19:37.692 to put those together? 00:19:41.300 --> 00:19:42.800 AUDREY SCHULMAN: One of the things-- 00:19:42.800 --> 00:19:43.850 AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] 00:19:43.850 --> 00:19:44.933 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Well, no. 00:19:44.933 --> 00:19:47.510 One of the things, I think, that would be most effective 00:19:47.510 --> 00:19:51.500 is if the utilities had to pay for the cost of the lost gas. 00:19:51.500 --> 00:19:54.140 If they did, as soon as they did, 00:19:54.140 --> 00:19:57.770 I think we'd see a massive amount of repair happening 00:19:57.770 --> 00:20:00.410 a hell of a lot faster. 00:20:00.410 --> 00:20:02.390 That that's what happened in Texas. 00:20:02.390 --> 00:20:03.800 They passed a law saying that. 00:20:03.800 --> 00:20:06.350 And within-- and I'm going to get this wrong now-- 00:20:06.350 --> 00:20:10.580 within three years, they had 50% of the leaks fixed. 00:20:10.580 --> 00:20:13.965 So it's just incentives. 00:20:13.965 --> 00:20:15.340 NATHAN PHILLIPS: What I heard was 00:20:15.340 --> 00:20:18.200 on the day that the legislature, the end 00:20:18.200 --> 00:20:20.670 of the legislative session last year, when the energy 00:20:20.670 --> 00:20:23.960 omnibus bill was finally passed at-- whatever-- two o'clock 00:20:23.960 --> 00:20:29.982 in the morning, I think that's when the provision that 00:20:29.982 --> 00:20:34.110 would include the incentives, the cost of the lost gas 00:20:34.110 --> 00:20:38.000 gets shipped into the companies was gone. 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:42.380 So there's a lot of logging going on over who's 00:20:42.380 --> 00:20:44.176 paying for the lost gas. 00:20:44.176 --> 00:20:45.104 That's a problem. 00:20:45.104 --> 00:20:46.687 AUDIENCE: Well, but what you're saying 00:20:46.687 --> 00:20:49.170 is that's the first place to start, start 00:20:49.170 --> 00:20:53.530 by not taking the $90 million and using it to fix the leaks, 00:20:53.530 --> 00:20:55.580 taking $90 million and say ratepayers 00:20:55.580 --> 00:20:58.360 you keep it in your pocket until the gas 00:20:58.360 --> 00:20:59.360 company's paying for it. 00:20:59.360 --> 00:21:02.247 But that's a really simple-- any legislator can figure that out, 00:21:02.247 --> 00:21:04.330 or any member of the public could figure that out. 00:21:04.330 --> 00:21:05.673 You make it really simple. 00:21:05.673 --> 00:21:07.881 NATHAN PHILLIPS: That was the provision [INAUDIBLE].. 00:21:07.881 --> 00:21:08.354 AUDIENCE: Well, I know. 00:21:08.354 --> 00:21:10.960 But the public [INAUDIBLE] in the middle of the night 00:21:10.960 --> 00:21:12.355 is that the public is asleep. 00:21:12.355 --> 00:21:13.996 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Right, exactly. 00:21:13.996 --> 00:21:17.604 AUDIENCE: Just when they emit the gas. 00:21:17.604 --> 00:21:19.480 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Yep. 00:21:19.480 --> 00:21:21.040 AUDIENCE: So with the infrastructure 00:21:21.040 --> 00:21:26.780 being this old, I'm worried if you fix the leaks in one spot, 00:21:26.780 --> 00:21:28.590 because it's [INAUDIBLE] of pressure, 00:21:28.590 --> 00:21:32.380 then it will just create leaks in other spots. 00:21:32.380 --> 00:21:37.600 So has there been any study of what happens 00:21:37.600 --> 00:21:39.222 when you fix leaks? 00:21:39.222 --> 00:21:41.480 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Do you want to take it? 00:21:41.480 --> 00:21:43.350 AUDREY SCHULMAN: We both can answer. 00:21:43.350 --> 00:21:44.610 NATHAN PHILLIPS: You go first. 00:21:44.610 --> 00:21:46.350 AUDREY SCHULMAN: I think a lot in Boston, 00:21:46.350 --> 00:21:47.766 a lot of the pressure in the pipes 00:21:47.766 --> 00:21:49.700 is about half pound per square inch. 00:21:49.700 --> 00:21:53.580 So fixing a leak in one spot is really not 00:21:53.580 --> 00:21:56.190 going to make any discernible difference. 00:21:56.190 --> 00:21:59.217 And the pressure's supposed to be maintained evenly 00:21:59.217 --> 00:22:01.800 across the system, otherwise the people at the end of the line 00:22:01.800 --> 00:22:03.008 would not be getting any gas. 00:22:03.008 --> 00:22:07.140 So there is the question that hammering into the ground 00:22:07.140 --> 00:22:08.820 and moving stuff could potentially 00:22:08.820 --> 00:22:10.560 displace a little bit of-- 00:22:10.560 --> 00:22:13.440 move the joint of the pipe a teeny bit, 00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:15.649 although I wonder if that's actually true. 00:22:15.649 --> 00:22:16.190 Your thought? 00:22:16.190 --> 00:22:17.106 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Yeah. 00:22:17.106 --> 00:22:18.750 It's a pressure-regulated system. 00:22:18.750 --> 00:22:20.460 So if you patch a leak, they're just 00:22:20.460 --> 00:22:23.550 going to turn down the flow to maintain the-- so 00:22:23.550 --> 00:22:26.200 it's not going to induce a higher leak rate elsewhere. 00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:29.460 But it is a Band-Aid solution to patch, 00:22:29.460 --> 00:22:33.690 because every 12 feet on a cast iron pipe is a joint. 00:22:34.300 --> 00:22:36.110 And you often have a series of leaks, 00:22:36.110 --> 00:22:38.970 so then you're facing the question, 00:22:38.970 --> 00:22:43.320 do you repair or replace? 00:22:43.320 --> 00:22:45.570 And there's a whole other set of considerations 00:22:45.570 --> 00:22:46.860 in terms of money. 00:22:46.860 --> 00:22:48.620 Cost. 00:22:48.620 --> 00:22:52.560 And I'm still very ambivalent about whether we should triage 00:22:52.560 --> 00:22:55.170 the system that we have as we transition 00:22:55.170 --> 00:22:57.480 to electrifying our heating system 00:22:57.480 --> 00:23:00.420 and making the transition to a clean energy-- 00:23:00.420 --> 00:23:03.510 a non-fossil energy-- or do we actually 00:23:03.510 --> 00:23:07.860 invest in replacing pipes that are going to be down 00:23:07.860 --> 00:23:10.680 for another 30, 40, 50 years? 00:23:10.680 --> 00:23:13.545 So, it's a tough call. 00:23:13.545 --> 00:23:15.200 AUDIENCE: Is the technology-- 00:23:15.200 --> 00:23:17.670 are they discussing technology and the composition of pipes 00:23:17.670 --> 00:23:20.910 that would be more long-term and less susceptible to-- 00:23:20.910 --> 00:23:22.140 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Not really. 00:23:22.140 --> 00:23:24.860 Plastic is what's being put down now. 00:23:24.860 --> 00:23:28.810 And it's not leaking because it's new. 00:23:28.810 --> 00:23:31.860 They don't really know, as far as I know, 00:23:31.860 --> 00:23:35.430 how acids in the soil and weathering and all 00:23:35.430 --> 00:23:39.330 of these kinds of things-- what the influence on the plastic 00:23:39.330 --> 00:23:40.470 will be. 00:23:40.470 --> 00:23:44.190 There's nothing inherently wrong with cast iron pipe, 00:23:44.190 --> 00:23:45.020 except it's old. 00:23:45.020 --> 00:23:47.520 If it was new cast-iron pie-- 00:23:47.520 --> 00:23:49.590 of course, that's more energy intensive to make-- 00:23:49.590 --> 00:23:53.736 but it's really just the age factor, I think. 00:23:53.736 --> 00:23:55.610 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Although I just want to say, 00:23:55.610 --> 00:23:57.410 I keep thinking dentists can come up 00:23:57.410 --> 00:23:59.480 with stuff that can fix teeth that 00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:05.390 are in saliva and acidic stuff and under incredible pressure 00:24:05.390 --> 00:24:06.230 and stuff like that. 00:24:06.230 --> 00:24:07.896 Why can't anybody come up with something 00:24:07.896 --> 00:24:10.820 that we could just coat the pipes on the inside? 00:24:10.820 --> 00:24:15.475 So, you know, go ahead. 00:24:15.475 --> 00:24:20.002 AUDIENCE: I was curious how broad a number 00:24:20.002 --> 00:24:22.457 of the people who have been doing this sort of work, you 00:24:22.457 --> 00:24:26.385 might have across the country-- other cities around the world-- 00:24:26.385 --> 00:24:27.858 are you in touch with folks? 00:24:31.295 --> 00:24:33.040 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Mostly Massachusetts. 00:24:33.040 --> 00:24:34.540 NATHAN PHILLIPS: You know, the study 00:24:34.540 --> 00:24:39.120 we did in Boston was the first study of its kind in the world. 00:24:39.120 --> 00:24:43.700 So things started bubbling out from here, literally I guess. 00:24:43.700 --> 00:24:46.980 But I think there's been a very strong what 00:24:46.980 --> 00:24:48.480 we call the gas leak's allies. 00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:51.300 The working group that we have that meets-- is it once a month 00:24:51.300 --> 00:24:52.080 or once a week? 00:24:52.080 --> 00:24:52.990 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Twice a month. 00:24:52.990 --> 00:24:54.350 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Twice a month. 00:24:54.350 --> 00:24:55.540 This core group. 00:24:55.540 --> 00:24:58.200 And Mothers Out Front has been amazing 00:24:58.200 --> 00:25:02.060 in terms of, essentially, keeping that and growing 00:25:02.060 --> 00:25:04.139 that network. 00:25:04.139 --> 00:25:06.680 You know, you're seeing research communities and other people 00:25:06.680 --> 00:25:10.470 in the science community doing this work in other locations. 00:25:10.470 --> 00:25:15.102 I haven't quite seen the network expand the way it has here, 00:25:15.102 --> 00:25:16.810 but the other interesting thing, I think, 00:25:16.810 --> 00:25:18.720 is that we're also realizing that there's 00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:21.560 this urban to rural interdependency. 00:25:21.560 --> 00:25:25.680 And so the pipeline issues connect us with, you know, 00:25:25.680 --> 00:25:27.480 rural Western Massachusetts. 00:25:27.480 --> 00:25:32.640 And the Kinder Morgan proposed pipeline going in there. 00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:35.790 The pipeline that connects us, in Boston, 00:25:35.790 --> 00:25:39.550 to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. 00:25:39.550 --> 00:25:41.750 The Algonquin Incremental Market. 00:25:41.750 --> 00:25:43.140 The Spectra pipelines. 00:25:43.140 --> 00:25:47.580 That we are connected across the rural and urban communities 00:25:47.580 --> 00:25:49.810 by the same infrastructure. 00:25:49.810 --> 00:25:55.470 So I think that the fossil fuel infrastructure expansion 00:25:55.470 --> 00:26:00.930 physically starts to organize a social network of resistance 00:26:00.930 --> 00:26:03.840 that is co-located with that. 00:26:03.840 --> 00:26:08.370 And that we're stronger when we, as people, make 00:26:08.370 --> 00:26:11.790 the connections that are being made physically, to resist it 00:26:11.790 --> 00:26:14.749 in a concerted fashion. 00:26:14.749 --> 00:26:16.790 AUDIENCE: One more just quick technology, though. 00:26:16.790 --> 00:26:18.120 I read about it in [INAUDIBLE] Apparently 00:26:18.120 --> 00:26:20.260 there's a new kind of robot that they have. 00:26:20.260 --> 00:26:21.570 AUDREY SCHULMAN: The CISBOT? 00:26:21.570 --> 00:26:22.070 Yeah. 00:26:22.070 --> 00:26:25.500 AUDIENCE: That they can put into the pipes-- that can fix leaks 00:26:25.500 --> 00:26:27.841 from inside the pipe, without having 00:26:27.841 --> 00:26:30.270 to shut the gas line down and without having 00:26:30.270 --> 00:26:31.700 to dig up the streets. 00:26:31.700 --> 00:26:35.940 But they are phenomenally expensive robots, I guess. 00:26:35.940 --> 00:26:38.820 So that struck me when I read about it 00:26:38.820 --> 00:26:41.200 as a significant ray of hope that technology 00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:44.569 could once again come to the rescue here, so to speak. 00:26:44.569 --> 00:26:47.992 If we had more robots, then it might not be so economically 00:26:47.992 --> 00:26:57.080 difficult for the utilities to deal with the 20,000-odd leaks. 00:26:57.080 --> 00:26:58.160 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Yeah. 00:26:58.160 --> 00:26:59.585 Yeah. 00:26:59.585 --> 00:27:01.940 That robot-- they have to dig down to put it in, 00:27:01.940 --> 00:27:03.420 and it only has a limited expanse. 00:27:03.420 --> 00:27:07.710 So it needs so much improvement, it's stunning to me. 00:27:07.710 --> 00:27:10.660 Maybe. 00:27:10.660 --> 00:27:11.820 AUDIENCE: I'm from Chile. 00:27:11.820 --> 00:27:14.778 I work for an oil company in Chile. 00:27:14.778 --> 00:27:17.700 It's an operation company, and they'll 00:27:17.700 --> 00:27:22.570 have pipelines in the city, but only we extract oil and gas. 00:27:25.492 --> 00:27:30.690 We detect a lot of leaks of methane in operations, 00:27:30.690 --> 00:27:32.130 and it's really, really difficult 00:27:32.130 --> 00:27:35.296 to solve the problems. 00:27:35.296 --> 00:27:38.551 Sometimes you can measure it in one corner, 00:27:38.551 --> 00:27:42.239 but the leak is two blocks to the other side, 00:27:42.239 --> 00:27:43.892 because [INAUDIBLE]. 00:27:43.892 --> 00:27:46.723 And from the perspective of the oil 00:27:46.723 --> 00:27:52.570 and gas utility companies, only the first-- 00:27:52.570 --> 00:27:55.265 the priority is for the explosion. 00:27:55.265 --> 00:27:56.640 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Yeah, of course. 00:27:56.640 --> 00:27:58.020 AUDIENCE: This is the problem. 00:27:58.020 --> 00:28:04.190 I can say 2%, 4%, 5%. 00:28:04.190 --> 00:28:05.070 But that's OK. 00:28:05.070 --> 00:28:06.528 It's the effort to do the business. 00:28:15.690 --> 00:28:19.420 When the general manager or the manager of some assets 00:28:19.420 --> 00:28:23.096 know that he has a waste-- 00:28:23.096 --> 00:28:25.774 structural waste in the area-- 00:28:25.774 --> 00:28:28.580 he's really charged with this [INAUDIBLE].. 00:28:28.580 --> 00:28:30.729 If you put this information at an address, 00:28:30.729 --> 00:28:32.020 they are ready to move forward. 00:28:37.255 --> 00:28:38.171 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Yeah. 00:28:41.390 --> 00:28:44.670 AUDIENCE: Something happened, because they know. 00:28:44.670 --> 00:28:53.540 Something happened, [INAUDIBLE] I work for the oil company, 00:28:53.540 --> 00:28:56.590 but I know when you have risk, [INAUDIBLE],, 00:28:56.590 --> 00:29:00.020 you need to take this risk into account. 00:29:00.020 --> 00:29:03.372 [INAUDIBLE] 00:29:03.372 --> 00:29:05.080 NATHAN PHILLIPS: I would agree with that. 00:29:05.080 --> 00:29:07.960 You know, there's a nexus of issues associated with the gas 00:29:07.960 --> 00:29:12.560 leaks at the local scale, explosion risks, 00:29:12.560 --> 00:29:14.450 risks to vegetation and trees-- 00:29:14.450 --> 00:29:15.700 that's local. 00:29:15.700 --> 00:29:18.410 Air quality degradation is more of a regional thing. 00:29:18.410 --> 00:29:21.580 And then there's the global issue. 00:29:21.580 --> 00:29:25.810 And they're all issues, and they should all be considered. 00:29:25.810 --> 00:29:29.130 Because after our Boston study, I 00:29:29.130 --> 00:29:34.000 remember that I was on Greater Boston, the TV show. 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:39.460 And the co-panelist was the Secretary 00:29:39.460 --> 00:29:42.036 of Energy and Environment for Massachusetts. 00:29:42.036 --> 00:29:44.920 And he said, thank you for the work you're doing, 00:29:44.920 --> 00:29:50.470 because you're giving me a way to make this issue. 00:29:50.470 --> 00:29:52.560 You know, because the explosion issue 00:29:52.560 --> 00:29:57.700 allowed him to push forward the climate change part of this. 00:29:57.700 --> 00:30:00.246 So, yeah, that's consistent with what you're saying. 00:30:00.246 --> 00:30:10.658 AUDIENCE: When you [INAUDIBLE] have you ever 00:30:10.658 --> 00:30:13.750 been talked to by somebody walking along? 00:30:13.750 --> 00:30:15.216 NATHAN PHILLIPS: All the time. 00:30:15.216 --> 00:30:19.240 AUDIENCE: So, why is the situation definitely like this? 00:30:23.054 --> 00:30:24.470 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Well, he's been-- 00:30:24.470 --> 00:30:31.090 Bob Ackley has been a lone voice for the last 30 years 00:30:31.090 --> 00:30:34.870 who has been struggling to be not just 00:30:34.870 --> 00:30:38.930 the only person who has been calling this issue out. 00:30:38.930 --> 00:30:43.768 And I think he feels-- 00:30:43.768 --> 00:30:46.060 I don't want to speak for him, but-- 00:30:46.060 --> 00:30:49.030 when people started to join with him, 00:30:49.030 --> 00:30:50.707 that's when I think he started to feel 00:30:50.707 --> 00:30:51.790 some level of vindication. 00:30:51.790 --> 00:30:54.220 That it's not just me. 00:30:56.740 --> 00:31:03.250 So as this network has grown larger, I think the changes-- 00:31:03.250 --> 00:31:06.550 the policy changes are happening because it's just everyone 00:31:06.550 --> 00:31:08.900 seeing that this is a problem. 00:31:08.900 --> 00:31:11.510 He's been struggling on his own for-- 00:31:11.510 --> 00:31:14.850 he worked for the gas companies to do leak surveys. 00:31:14.850 --> 00:31:19.480 So for much of his career, he was basically 00:31:19.480 --> 00:31:21.310 a worker for the gas company. 00:31:21.310 --> 00:31:22.560 Here's the leak reports. 00:31:22.560 --> 00:31:24.340 Here are the gas leaks. 00:31:24.340 --> 00:31:26.850 And he would notice trees were dying, 00:31:26.850 --> 00:31:30.610 and that the gas companies were not taking that seriously. 00:31:30.610 --> 00:31:32.952 They're like, well, we're not going to worry about that. 00:31:32.952 --> 00:31:34.160 And that really bothered him. 00:31:34.160 --> 00:31:38.890 So at some point, he defected and went out on his own 00:31:38.890 --> 00:31:42.730 because the trees were-- he felt like his work wasn't 00:31:42.730 --> 00:31:48.460 being taken seriously, and so he struck out on his own. 00:31:48.460 --> 00:31:52.420 It's one person and these massive investor-owned 00:31:52.420 --> 00:31:59.476 utilities that has made it very difficult. 00:31:59.476 --> 00:32:01.770 AUDIENCE: I saw your latest. 00:32:01.770 --> 00:32:03.640 You tweeted it. 00:32:03.640 --> 00:32:04.536 In Dedham? 00:32:04.536 --> 00:32:06.102 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Yeah. 00:32:06.102 --> 00:32:07.445 AUDIENCE: Is that a new line? 00:32:07.445 --> 00:32:08.320 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Yes. 00:32:08.320 --> 00:32:11.165 Yes, that's the West Roxbury lateral pipeline. 00:32:11.165 --> 00:32:13.330 AUDIENCE: And now it leaks? 00:32:13.330 --> 00:32:17.590 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Yeah, so I'm going to just show it. 00:32:17.590 --> 00:32:19.270 So we went out on Monday. 00:32:19.270 --> 00:32:19.830 A while back. 00:32:19.830 --> 00:32:23.640 Me and myself and my son. 00:32:23.640 --> 00:32:25.030 So you see these spikes. 00:32:25.030 --> 00:32:26.210 Something like this, right? 00:32:26.210 --> 00:32:28.306 You see the red spikes. 00:32:28.306 --> 00:32:31.420 And this is on a stretch of-- 00:32:31.420 --> 00:32:34.120 it's East Street in Dedham. 00:32:34.120 --> 00:32:38.060 Very close to Dedham center, right by where the Boston 00:32:38.060 --> 00:32:41.650 and Providence turnpike-- 00:32:41.650 --> 00:32:46.120 whatever it's called-- fast-moving thing. 00:32:46.120 --> 00:32:49.310 That stretch of East Street, which is about an eighth 00:32:49.310 --> 00:32:53.240 of a mile, is part of the pathway of the new West Roxbury 00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:58.940 lateral pipeline, which is a 750 pounds per square inch, 00:32:58.940 --> 00:33:01.930 two-foot diameter transmission pipeline 00:33:01.930 --> 00:33:06.020 spur that has been part of Spectra Energy. 00:33:06.020 --> 00:33:09.550 It's their project to increase the gas flow into Boston. 00:33:09.550 --> 00:33:13.570 And what's really disturbing about what we found on Monday 00:33:13.570 --> 00:33:16.270 is that this is where, in the last year, 00:33:16.270 --> 00:33:21.780 they've trenched that entire roadway and put this new pipe. 00:33:21.780 --> 00:33:28.232 Then they covered it up, paved new paving, new sidewalks, 00:33:28.232 --> 00:33:30.620 but they left leaking pipelines-- 00:33:30.620 --> 00:33:32.730 the low-pressure distribution pipelines-- 00:33:32.730 --> 00:33:34.480 they left them leaking, and that's 00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:38.560 where there's all of these leaks, one after the other. 00:33:38.560 --> 00:33:41.210 And so it was a missed opportunity. 00:33:41.210 --> 00:33:43.240 If you're going to dig up the street, 00:33:43.240 --> 00:33:46.660 don't leave hundred-year-old leaking pipelines there. 00:33:46.660 --> 00:33:47.560 Fix it. 00:33:47.560 --> 00:33:51.670 There's already patches, now, in this new pavement, 00:33:51.670 --> 00:33:54.383 which are going to mean potholes are going to form soon. 00:33:54.383 --> 00:33:56.091 AUDIENCE: Are these leaks the spokes that 00:33:56.091 --> 00:33:57.299 run off of the main pipeline? 00:34:01.474 --> 00:34:03.390 NATHAN PHILLIPS: They're the old distribution, 00:34:03.390 --> 00:34:05.590 low-pressure pipelines, that should've 00:34:05.590 --> 00:34:08.219 been fixed at the same time that they put the new pipeline in. 00:34:12.325 --> 00:34:13.449 AUDIENCE: So two questions. 00:34:13.449 --> 00:34:16.710 One, what's the name of the instrument? 00:34:16.710 --> 00:34:19.219 Are we going to learn more about it? 00:34:19.219 --> 00:34:22.679 And then two, how does the EPA rule [INAUDIBLE] 00:34:22.679 --> 00:34:23.679 impact any of this work? 00:34:28.630 --> 00:34:29.980 NATHAN PHILLIPS: OK. 00:34:29.980 --> 00:34:33.337 Yes, you get to go on the 31st. 00:34:33.337 --> 00:34:34.670 AUDIENCE: I'm out of town, darn! 00:34:34.670 --> 00:34:36.628 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Well, we can arrange something 00:34:36.628 --> 00:34:38.020 on another occasion, I'm sure. 00:34:38.020 --> 00:34:40.750 But we get in the van, you can see that the picture 00:34:40.750 --> 00:34:42.909 that Audrey showed-- 00:34:42.909 --> 00:34:47.065 it's called a cavity ring-down spectrometer. 00:34:47.065 --> 00:34:49.380 That's the technology. 00:34:49.380 --> 00:34:51.830 It's a laser technology. 00:34:51.830 --> 00:34:55.630 It has a little chamber in it that is evacuated down 00:34:55.630 --> 00:34:59.291 to about one fifth of a whole vacuum, so it's got about 20% 00:34:59.291 --> 00:35:02.334 of the air molecules that normal air would have in it. 00:35:02.334 --> 00:35:03.750 So it's pulled down to that level. 00:35:03.750 --> 00:35:05.990 It's about a one-liter chamber. 00:35:05.990 --> 00:35:08.800 And in that chamber, there are three mirrors 00:35:08.800 --> 00:35:10.430 that are pointed at each other. 00:35:10.430 --> 00:35:13.040 And then they pulse a laser into that 00:35:13.040 --> 00:35:19.178 that is tuned to the unique absorbance span for methane. 00:35:19.178 --> 00:35:24.370 And that pulse of laser bounces around the three mirrors. 00:35:24.370 --> 00:35:25.830 That's called ringing down. 00:35:25.830 --> 00:35:28.300 It's ringing in that thing and bouncing around. 00:35:28.300 --> 00:35:32.460 And the more concentration of methane there is in that air, 00:35:32.460 --> 00:35:36.850 the faster that pulse will decay to zero, because the molecules 00:35:36.850 --> 00:35:39.214 of methane are absorbing. 00:35:39.214 --> 00:35:40.630 So if there's no methane in there, 00:35:40.630 --> 00:35:43.010 it'll take a long time for that thing to decay-- 00:35:43.010 --> 00:35:44.700 that light pulse. 00:35:44.700 --> 00:35:47.772 So that's the basic method for the cavity ring-down 00:35:47.772 --> 00:35:48.730 spectrometer. 00:35:48.730 --> 00:35:52.105 AUDIENCE: Did you build that, or [INAUDIBLE] 00:35:52.105 --> 00:35:53.870 NATHAN PHILLIPS: The manufacturer 00:35:53.870 --> 00:35:56.670 for the instrument we use is called Picarro, 00:35:56.670 --> 00:35:58.880 and they're based in Santa Clara. 00:35:58.880 --> 00:36:03.360 The technology and the patents were mostly 00:36:03.360 --> 00:36:06.515 from Stanford University scientists. 00:36:06.515 --> 00:36:09.740 There's another firm that's doing the same basic kind 00:36:09.740 --> 00:36:14.480 of technology called Los Gatos out in that area of California 00:36:14.480 --> 00:36:16.390 as well. 00:36:16.390 --> 00:36:20.827 There's a few different flavors of this kind of method. 00:36:20.827 --> 00:36:23.160 AUDIENCE: So do you think that there's-- because this is 00:36:23.160 --> 00:36:25.820 an expensive instrument. 00:36:25.820 --> 00:36:27.002 How much does it cost? 00:36:27.002 --> 00:36:28.710 NATHAN PHILLIPS: This one was about $60k. 00:36:31.380 --> 00:36:33.990 AUDIENCE: So I'm thinking more in the community science 00:36:33.990 --> 00:36:36.230 direction. 00:36:36.230 --> 00:36:40.440 I think cheap lasers are becoming real, right? 00:36:40.440 --> 00:36:42.330 While maybe the mirror configuration 00:36:42.330 --> 00:36:45.830 might be the expensive piece there, 00:36:45.830 --> 00:36:51.330 is there a way to combine the pulse lasers and, using data, 00:36:51.330 --> 00:36:54.054 and other techniques to get more cheap results? 00:36:54.054 --> 00:36:54.970 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Well. 00:36:54.970 --> 00:36:55.830 Do you want to answer? 00:36:55.830 --> 00:36:56.886 I'm doing all the talking. 00:36:56.886 --> 00:36:57.969 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Go ahead. 00:36:57.969 --> 00:36:58.490 I'm happy. 00:36:58.490 --> 00:37:00.906 NATHAN PHILLIPS: I'll just say that I'm going to come back 00:37:00.906 --> 00:37:03.430 to some comment there. 00:37:03.430 --> 00:37:06.930 MIT, the people here? 00:37:06.930 --> 00:37:07.885 The robot thing? 00:37:07.885 --> 00:37:11.330 Yeah, we could have swarms of little tiny robots fixing 00:37:11.330 --> 00:37:13.770 pipelines, and MIT is a great community 00:37:13.770 --> 00:37:15.990 to come up with those types of solutions. 00:37:15.990 --> 00:37:22.040 And then, as well, low-cost sensors that could do this 00:37:22.040 --> 00:37:27.493 would unlock opportunities for a much wider group of people 00:37:27.493 --> 00:37:28.920 to be doing this stuff. 00:37:28.920 --> 00:37:29.550 AUDREY SCHULMAN: And I don't think 00:37:29.550 --> 00:37:30.758 they'll have to be expensive. 00:37:30.758 --> 00:37:32.610 Like there's this one technology where 00:37:32.610 --> 00:37:35.247 it's just something that goes on the pipe seal, 00:37:35.247 --> 00:37:37.830 between the two joints, because that's where most of the leaks 00:37:37.830 --> 00:37:38.640 come from. 00:37:38.640 --> 00:37:44.540 And if that link is broken, it tells the office. 00:37:44.540 --> 00:37:46.650 That's simple. 00:37:46.650 --> 00:37:48.300 Let's do something simple like that. 00:37:48.300 --> 00:37:49.230 That's not expensive. 00:37:49.230 --> 00:37:51.270 That's not hard. 00:37:51.270 --> 00:37:56.134 AUDIENCE: You can detect the leaks in operations, 00:37:56.134 --> 00:37:58.084 we use infrared camera-- 00:37:58.084 --> 00:37:59.000 AUDREY SCHULMAN: Yeah. 00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:01.291 AUDIENCE: You can see the flows, you couldn't measure-- 00:38:05.855 --> 00:38:06.813 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Right. 00:38:06.813 --> 00:38:09.524 AUDIENCE: Less flows, or more-- 00:38:09.524 --> 00:38:10.440 NATHAN PHILLIPS: Yeah. 00:38:10.440 --> 00:38:11.430 More qualitative-- 00:38:11.430 --> 00:38:21.210 AUDIENCE: But you can see, [INAUDIBLE] 00:38:21.210 --> 00:38:25.200 AUDIENCE: Very briefly mentioned that the town of Brookline 00:38:25.200 --> 00:38:30.670 has now passed two resolutions opposing natural gas pipeline 00:38:30.670 --> 00:38:31.870 expansion in Massachusetts. 00:38:31.870 --> 00:38:36.380 We're the first community to do such a thing where 00:38:36.380 --> 00:38:40.980 a pipeline was not scheduled to go through in our boundaries. 00:38:40.980 --> 00:38:42.864 And we'd be happy to-- 00:38:42.864 --> 00:38:45.930 Brookline town meeting-- to look into the issue of somehow 00:38:45.930 --> 00:38:49.701 pressuring the gas companies to more speedily 00:38:49.701 --> 00:38:53.180 address some issues and leaks in our town. 00:38:53.180 --> 00:38:55.730 Kind of a general pressure thing. 00:38:55.730 --> 00:38:56.840 [INAUDIBLE] 00:38:56.840 --> 00:38:57.973 AUDIENCE: I think that's something that Mothers 00:38:57.973 --> 00:38:59.097 Out Front is already doing. 00:39:03.520 --> 00:39:05.840 AUDREY SCHULMAN: And we want that. 00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:08.820 The more pressure they have, the more everybody 00:39:08.820 --> 00:39:09.660 takes it seriously. 00:39:09.660 --> 00:39:10.980 As it should be. 00:39:10.980 --> 00:39:14.650 PROFESSOR: So, we have three more sessions on the 23rd, 00:39:14.650 --> 00:39:16.740 which is the coming Monday. 00:39:16.740 --> 00:39:18.690 We have a hack-a-thon. 00:39:18.690 --> 00:39:23.987 and And again, we will be playing with two different ways 00:39:23.987 --> 00:39:25.070 of hacking with this data. 00:39:25.070 --> 00:39:29.080 One is more data-centric, more code-centric. 00:39:29.080 --> 00:39:32.460 The other might be more design charette-centric. 00:39:32.460 --> 00:39:33.314 So-- 00:39:33.314 --> 00:39:34.230 AUDIENCE: Visualizing. 00:39:34.230 --> 00:39:35.688 PROFESSOR: So visualizing the data. 00:39:35.688 --> 00:39:38.040 Again, depending on what your interests are, 00:39:38.040 --> 00:39:39.850 you can do one or the other. 00:39:39.850 --> 00:39:45.270 Do sign up on the CLIAP site, if you haven't already done so. 00:39:45.270 --> 00:39:49.230 The next session, on the 31st is driving around town, 00:39:49.230 --> 00:39:52.110 and smelling. 00:39:52.110 --> 00:39:54.550 I think that's going to be what we'll be doing. 00:39:54.550 --> 00:39:59.030 And finally, on the first, we will come back together 00:39:59.030 --> 00:40:03.660 and say, what can communities and citizens and scientists 00:40:03.660 --> 00:40:04.380 do with this? 00:40:04.380 --> 00:40:06.110 Can you take this to court? 00:40:06.110 --> 00:40:08.570 So, how do you build an ecosystem 00:40:08.570 --> 00:40:10.510 that addresses these challenges, and not 00:40:10.510 --> 00:40:13.710 just do it individually?