Former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz recently recognized the work of an Argonne team in support of the Interagency Task Force on Natural Gas Storage Safety. The task force’s final report chronicles lessons learned from a large natural gas storage leak and includes a range of recommendations to industry, federal, state, and local regulators and governments to reduce the likelihood of future leaks and minimize the impacts of any that occur.
In a letter to each of the Argonne report authors, Moniz said of the Argonne team, “In six short months, your efforts supported the development of dozens of recommendations to reduce the likelihood of future natural gas storage leaks and minimize the impacts of any that occur. This achievement would not have been possible without your efforts and the Task Force team’ s tremendous spirit of collegiality across multiple agencies.
“You can be proud that your contributions have helped make our energy infrastructure safer and that they will have a lasting impact for the American people. I am grateful for your dedication to public service,” Moniz said.
The Argonne report was prepared by Steve Folga, Edgar Portante, Shabbir Shamsuddin, Angeli Tompkins, Leah Talaber, Mike McLamore and Jim Kavicky of the Risk and Infrastructure Science Center in the Global Security Sciences Division, as well as Guenter Conzelmann and Todd Levin of the Center for Energy, Environmental and Economic Systems Analysis in the Energy Systems Division.
Argonne’s report was one of several technical reports used to develop the Interagency Task Force Report. The report analyzes the nation’s more than 400 underground natural gas storage fields and chronicles lessons learned from the Aliso Canyon leak near Los Angeles, Calif., which vented thousands of tons of natural gas over several months in 2015-2016. It was the worst single natural gas leak in U.S. history in terms of its environmental impact.
More information, including the full report, is available online.