An update while working on an investigative mentorship under Dr. Muralee Muraleetharan, a professor at University of Oklahoma School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science.
For an OSSM student, embarking on a mentorship is a rite of passage, as well as a way of passing time outside of schoolwork and other academic duties. So, when I was first acquainted with my mentor over a project investigating current and possible improvements in regulating the design of oil pipelines in the state of Oklahoma, I was intrigued. Since pipelines are the physical intersections of state agencies that regulate the flow of petroleum products and the agencies that supply them, they are often neglected in terms of the efficiency of their design and their ability to withstand earthquakes, which have increased in frequency due to new techniques like hydraulic fracturing. Combining my interests in public policy, urban planning, environmental engineering, and structural engineering, I was immediately on board. After all, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake had just shaken the town of Pawnee last weekend, so the timeliness of this project was also appealing.
During the meeting, my mentor, a jovial middle-aged Indian man by the name of Dr. Muralee Muraleetharan, laughed as he announced that just last year he had given a Reuters reporter the recommendation that any earthquake over 5.0 in magnitude would pose serious infrastructural effects in the state of Oklahoma.
A shudder of confusion and (a little terror, perhaps?) went down my spine. I kept smiling as he proceeded to hand over a stack of documents as my assigned reading. Through the readings, I was supposed to formulate answers to the following questions:
What are the possible failure mechanisms for oil (liquid petroleum products) and gas (natural gas) storage tanks and pipelines during earthquakes?
How are oil & gas (natural gas) storage tanks and pipelines in U.S. designed for earthquakes? Who regulates their designs?
What are the best guidelines available to design these structures for earthquakes?
How were the facilities in Cushing designed?
What are the possible seismic hazards in Cushing?
What are the consequences (environmental, social, and economic) of a failure in Cushing?
Can the facilities in Cushing be designed better?
If necessary, how can the existing facilities in Cushing upgraded to handle higher seismic loads?
I am by no means an expert on the background of these questions nor am I able to definitively answer these questions yet. But, I look forward to analyzing what the experts say to craft a sufficient response and recommendation to the challenges we face in adapting current models of pipeline design for seismic situations.
Just this weekend, I listened to a podcast series from Planet Money, where a team of reporters bought 100 barrels of oil and followed it out of the ground, through a refinery, and into someone’s tank. Oil is everywhere and in everything and has driven industrial progress. Yet it has also contributed to air pollution and climate change. It made me think of how ubiquitous oil is, yet how it is remarkably invisible (NPR).
Through this mentorship, I expect to elucidate at least a part of that picture.
