Pipelines

The greatest challenge of adapting natural gas to human use lies in its capture and transmission. Coal and even oil can be dumped into horse-drawn wagons, railcars, trucks or ships and carried from a point of origin to the consumer market. Capturing and containing a vaporous substance proved a more lasting challenge. In addition to being early experts at percussive

drilling, the Chinese were the first to successfully transmit the energy-laden vapour by funneling it through pipelines constructed of bamboo as early as around 500 BCE. Searching for brine, drillers in Sichuan Province might strike pockets of natural gas, which they then captured to fuel the fires used to extract the salt from the brine.

In North America, the earliest successful transmission of natural gas seems to have taken place in Fredonia, New York, in 1821. William Aaron Hart, an enterprising tinsmith and gunsmith, dug an 8 m (27 ft.) deep well, trying to increase the flow from a seep he had seen along the bank of the Canadaway Creek. He then piped this gas through hollowed out logs sealed with tar-soaked cloth to supply light for several stores and a grist mill in Fredonia.

In 1853, Canada moved to the forefront of pipeline technology with a 25 km (15.5 mi.) cast iron pipeline at Trois Riviѐres, Quebec, used to light the streets with

natural gas. In 1895, Eugene Coste began transmitting gas from Ontario to the United States through a 20 cm (8 in.) diameter line running beneath the Detroit River. After moving west and finding gas at Bow Island, Coste began to supply Calgary with the miracle fuel in 1912 with a pipeline running 274 km (170 mi.) from the Bow Island field. Still, pipeline technology remained limited to serving consumer markets that were relatively close to the source of production. Not until large diameter, high-pressure steel pipe and special pipe-laying machinery were developed did long-distance transmission of gas beyond its source become feasible.

Technological shortcomings were not, however, the only impediment to moving gas long distances. Albertans had a more proprietary attitude toward their gas reserves than toward their oil surplus. They were hesitant to pipe gas towards larger consumer markets until they were confident of sufficient reserves for themselves. It was 1954 before the Gas Conservation Board of Alberta, the regulatory body given the authority to assess surplus and control gas exports, felt confident enough to approve the first long-distance export application. A further complication to long-distance export was that once the now-desired

energy resource crossed provincial boundaries, it became subject to federal regulation governing interprovincial and international commerce.

Today, a vast network of pipelines crisscrosses the province and stretches far beyond, as Alberta has become a hub of the North American network linking 500,000 km (310,686 mi.) of pipelines. Through these steel and plastic arteries flows the lifeblood of the province as raw natural gas travels to be processed and then distributed to domestic, commercial, and industrial consumers.