Amid sub-zero temperatures, more than one million We Energies customers across Wisconsin are being asked to conserve natural gas because of a pipeline malfunction
We Energies asked its customers to immediately turn their thermostats to 62 degrees or lower Friday evening to prevent a widespread service outage.
Guardian Pipeline notified customers Friday that it had constrained the northbound flow of gas on one of its interstate pipelines due to unplanned maintenance at a compressor station in Illinois.
We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway said Guardian had cut the utility’s gas supply by 30%.
Conway said the utility is drawing from liquified gas and propane storage facilities and has cut gas deliveries to business customers whose contracts allow for service interruptions. But because of the extreme cold gripping most of the nation, the utility is unable to get gas from other pipeline suppliers.
People are also reading…
A spokesperson for the pipeline company said one of two malfunctioning valves had been restored as of Friday night and crews were working on the second to restore capacity “in a timely manner.”
We Energies said it would reassess the situation and update customers on Saturday. No update had been provided as of 6 a.m. Saturday.
In addition to turning down thermostats, the company asked residents to avoid using secondary gas heaters, ovens, stoves and clothes dryers.
The National Weather Service was forecasting low temperatures of zero to 14 below across Wisconsin Friday night and highs mostly in the single digits, with much of the state under a wind chill advisory.
Winter survival tips
With temperatures falling below zero and wind chills plunging far below that, emergency officials are urging residents to stay safe. The combination of drifting snow and low temperatures is also making travel particularly treacherous. Here are some tips for riding out the storm.
• If possible, stay indoors. Limit outdoor time for pets.
• If you have to go out, dress in several loose-fitting layers. Wear a hat, mittens and snow boots. Use a scarf to cover your mouth and face.
• Know the signs and symptoms of hypothermia, including shivering, exhaustion, confusion and slurred speech.
• Know the signs and symptoms of frostbite, including redness or pain in any skin area.
• Check on friends, family and neighbors. People most likely to be hurt from the cold are older adults, babies, people who spend lots of time outside, such as the homeless and hunters, and people who drink alcohol or use drugs.
• Prepare emergency kits for your home and vehicle that include blankets, snacks and water, medication and other essentials. Keep your gas tank at least half full. Go to readywisconsin.wi.gov/make-a-kit for tips on how to prepare emergency kits.
• Check to make sure snow is not blocking outdoor furnace and hot water heater vents, which could cause dangerous levels of carbon monoxide to build up in a home.
If your power goes out:
• Close off unused spaces and limit the number of times you open exterior doors.
• Open cupboards to keep pipes from freezing; in the event of an extended outage, leave a faucet partially open to keep water moving.
• Never use a stove, oven, grill or unvented heater to stay warm, and do not run portable generators in enclosed spaces as these devices give off carbon monoxide, an odorless gas that can be fatal.
GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) – We Energies is urging customers to reduce their natural gas use by immediately lowering their thermostats to 60 to 62 degrees. The move will allow customers to stay safe, warm and help avoid a significant natural gas outage.
This request comes after one of the interstate pipeline suppliers who provides natural gas to We Energies experienced a significant equipment failure that is limiting the amount of fuel they are sending We Energies.
The impacted pipeline is one of multiple sources We Energies uses to receive natural gas. On a typical day, an issue like this would not require customers to reduce their usage. However, with extreme cold setting in over much of the United States, We Energies is unable to receive additional natural gas from its other pipeline suppliers.
We Energies has already taken numerous steps to reduce demand for natural gas, including drawing from its liquefied natural gas and propane storage facilities, and reducing natural gas to business customers who have agreed to special billing in these types of events.
We Energies also strongly urges customers to avoid using other natural gas appliances like fireplaces, dryers or ovens.
The company is working to maintain service to emergency and critical facilities.
Customers should take the following actions to help reduce natural gas demand:
· Set thermostats between 60 to 62 degrees. Add layers or blankets to keep warm when lowering a thermostat’s temperature.
· Close blinds or drapes at night and avoid opening doors to retain heat. Open blinds during the day to let in heat from the sun.
· Avoid using secondary natural gas heating sources, such as natural gas fireplaces.
· Use natural gas ranges sparingly. Prepare food with slow cookers or microwaves.
We expect this shortage will last throughout the rest of the day — andwill reassess tomorrow.
MILWAUKEE — We Energies is asking customers to “immediately” lower their thermostats after one of its natural gas suppliers suffered a “significant equipment failure.”
The utility company is asking people to lower their thermostats to the range of 60 to 62 degrees.
“The impacted pipeline is one of multiple sources We Energies uses to receive natural gas,” We Energies explained in a news release. “On a typical day, an issue like this would not require customers to reduce their usage. However, with extreme cold setting in over much of the United States, We Energies is unable to receive additional natural gas from its other pipeline suppliers.”
Customers are also urged to reduce their natural gas use by avoiding other natural gas appliances like fireplaces, dryers, or ovens.
Customers are encouraged to take the following steps, provided verbatim by We Energies:
· Set thermostats between 60 to 62 degrees. Add layers or blankets to keep warm when lowering a thermostat’s temperature.
· Close blinds or drapes at night and avoid opening doors to retain heat. Open blinds during the day to let in heat from the sun.
· Avoid using secondary natural gas heating sources, such as natural gas fireplaces.
· Use natural gas ranges sparingly. Prepare food with slow cookers or microwaves.
Taking these steps “will allow customers to stay safe, warm and help avoid a significant natural gas outage,” We Energies says.
The utility says this shortage is expected to last at least for the duration of Friday, and they will re-assess on Saturday.
“We truly appreciate and thank our customers for your understanding and patience as we work to manage these challenging conditions and keep all of our customers safe and warm,” the news release says.
Enlarge / Where the action happens inside the National Ignition Facility.
On Monday, a paper was released that describes some confusing results from the National Ignition Facility, which uses a lot of very energetic lasers focused on a small target to begin a fusion reaction. Over the past few years, the facility has passed some key milestones, including ignition of fusion and creating what’s termed a burning plasma.
Now, researchers have analyzed the properties of the plasma as it experiences these high-energy states. And to their surprise, they found that burning plasmas appear to behave differently from those that have experienced ignition. At the moment, there’s no obvious explanation for the difference.
Ignition vs. burning
In the experiments at issue here, the material being used for fusion is a mix of tritium and deuterium, two heavier isotopes of hydrogen. These combine to produce a helium atom, leaving a spare neutron that’s emitted; the energy of the fusion reaction is released in the form of a gamma ray.
The fusion process is triggered by a short, extremely intense burst of laser light that targets a small metallic cylinder. The metal emits intense X-rays, which vaporize the surface of a nearby pellet, creating an intense wave of heat and pressure on the pellet’s interior, where the deuterium and tritium reside. These form a very high-energy plasma, setting the conditions for fusion.
If everything goes well, the energy imparted ignites the plasma, meaning that no additional energy is needed for the fusion reactions to continue for the tiny fraction of a second that passes before the whole thing blows apart. At even higher energies, the plasma reaches a state called burning, where the helium atoms that are forming carry so much energy that they can ignite the nearby plasma. This is considered critical, because it means the rest of the energy (in the form of neutrons and gamma rays) can potentially be harvested to produce useful power.
While we have detailed models of the physics that goes on under these extreme conditions, we need to compare those models to what’s going on inside the plasma. Unfortunately, given that both the plasma and the materials that formerly surrounded it are in the process of exploding, that’s a significant challenge. To get a picture of what might be going on, researchers have turned to one of the products of the fusion reaction itself: the neutrons it emits, which can pass through the wreckage and be picked up by nearby detectors.
Taking a temperature
The physics of the fusion reaction produces neutrons with a specific energy. If fusion happened in a material where the atoms were stationary, all of the neutrons would come out with that energy. But obviously, the atomic nuclei in the plasma—the tritium and deuterium—are moving about violently. Depending on how they’re moving relative to the detector, these ions may impart some additional energy to the neutrons, or subtract a bit.
This means that, instead of coming out as a sharp line at a specific energy, the neutrons come out at a range of energies that form a broad curve. The peak of that curve is related to the motion of the ions in the plasma, and thus the temperature of the plasma. Further details can be extracted from the shape of the curve.
Between the ignition point and the burning point, we seem to have an accurate understanding of how the temperature of the plasma relates to the velocity of the atoms in the plasma. The data from the neutrons lines up nicely with the curve that’s calculated from our model predictions. Once the plasma switches over to burning, however, things no longer match. It’s like the neutron data finds a completely different curve and follows along that instead.
So, what might explain that different curve? It’s not that we have no idea; we have a bunch of them and no way to tell them apart. The team that analyzed these results suggest four possible explanations, including unexpected kinetics of individual particles in the plasma or a failure to account for details in the behavior of the bulk plasma. Alternatively, it could be that the burning plasma extends over a different area, or lasts a different amount of time, than we’d predict.
In any case, as the authors state, “Understanding the cause of this departure from hydrodynamic behaviour could be important for achieving robust and reproducible ignition.”