Baltic Sea several key natural gas pipelines suddenly broke down and seriously leaked at at least three locations. This can be regarded as a major event in the world and has a profound impact on the strategic pattern of the Western world; it can also be regarded as a landmark event in the further deepening of the global energy crisis today. So regardless of the nature of the incident itself, from a technical perspective, is the probability of these natural gas pipelines being destroyed purely technical failure or artificial damage higher? To put it bluntly, is it the sudden bursting and large-scale leakage of these submarine natural gas pipelines that suddenly "swell" or is it obvious that someone deliberately exploded underwater with explosives or other weapons? Hanhai Langshan (Xiongnu Langshan) believes that long-distance natural gas pipeline transportation and fuel transportation. All of them must be used for large diameter and high strength seamless steel pipes. There are high pressures inside the pipeline, so that crude oil, refined oil or natural gas in the fluid or gas state can be transported hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away. The transportation volume of oil or gas pipelines such as
is also very large. A double pipeline can transport hundreds of millions of tons of crude oil or hundreds of billions of cubic meters of natural gas day and night in a year. It is almost 8 to 10 times the overall efficiency of transporting by railway tankers, so it is the main way to transport oil and gas on land and shallow seas on a large scale in the world today. The power of oil and gas transmission comes from the pressure pump station set up on the pipeline. Internal combustion or electric booster turbines are installed in the pump station. If a pipeline can transport 100 million tons of fuel or 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas in one year, then 365 days a year is equivalent to transporting 270,000 tons of oil or 270 million cubic meters of natural gas every day, which is equivalent to a 300,000-ton tanker or a natural gas transport ship of the same level arrives at the port and is unloaded every day. Therefore, the diameter of this type of pipeline cannot be very small. Most of its diameters are between 60 cm and 120 cm, and most of them are laid in parallel with double pipes to achieve an annual transmission of 100 million tons of oil and gas equivalent .
Oil and gas transport volume is large. In addition to the relatively large pipe diameter, it is also necessary to require that the internal flow and transportation of oil and gas must be extremely fast. To do this, it is necessary to require the turbine of each pump station to apply a large internal air pressure to the inside of the pipeline through mechanical force, so that oil and gas can flow quickly for large-scale transportation. Therefore, the oil and gas transmission pipelines are not only large diameter seamless steel pipes, but also have very high strength. The thickness of the steel in the pipe wall is basically around 4 cm. This thickness and pressure bearing capacity are even stronger than the main pressure resistant shell of conventional submarine . Some of them can be matched with the strength standards of nuclear submarine pressure resistant shell, and the welding standards between pipelines are also very high, which is basically equivalent to the welding of submarine pressure resistant shell. The submarine pressure-resistant shell mainly overcomes the external water pressure, while the oil and gas transmission pipeline mainly overcomes the internal pressure. The oil and gas pipelines laid on the seabed need to face the internal pressure of the internal oil and gas transported internally and the external seawater pressure. That burst of underwater pipes. Is it because of the internal pressure, is it because of the large internal pressure, is it because of
or the external sea water pressure? It depends on the local seabed conditions. The Baltic Sea is actually a shallow sea at high latitudes formed by glacier erosion. The formation principle is not much different from the five major lakes in North America, except that the Baltic Sea is ultimately directly connected to the Atlantic Ocean on the outside, while the five major lakes in North America are only connected to the outer sea. This results in the Baltic Sea not deep as a whole, with an average depth of only 55 meters. In the middle "high seas" area where several natural gas pipelines pass by, the normal water depth is basically between 70 meters and 100 meters, and the average water depth of pipeline laying is only about 80 meters. The closer to land, the shallower the depth of laying. Therefore, it can be considered that even if these pipelines are laid in the so-called deep water area, they basically do not exceed 100 meters deep, and the water depth of seventy or eighty meters is the most common. The deepest part of the Baltic Sea is 457 meters, which is the area of the Gothrain Trench, but this is already the opening position connecting the Atlantic Ocean between Denmark and Swedish .Most natural gas pipelines pass through the Baltic Sea, and
does not pass through the trench area, which is more than 400 meters deep. Therefore, even at a depth of 100 meters in the seabed, the pipes lie flat on the sandy seabed . The maximum external water pressure is only 1.1 megapas, which means that every square centimeters of bears 10 kilograms of water pressure, plus 1 atmospheric pressure. This is still much smaller than the internal pressure of 8 to 8.5 megapas inside the pipeline. Therefore, the internal pressure of the subsea oil and gas pipeline is still significantly greater than the external water pressure in shallow seas within 100 meters. From this point of view, it can be seen that the normal seawater pressure of 100 meters is completely impossible to naturally crush these submarine pipelines. Because the internal pressure during normal oil and gas transmission is actually much greater than the external pressure. If one of the pipelines has not been put into production, but will also enter nitrogen to maintain a positive pressure state, it is because it is worried that internal rust will occur if it is not used for a long time. With the normal pressure resistance of this type of pipeline, even if there is only one atmospheric pressure inside, because the steel pipe itself is very strong, the sea water pressure of 100 meters cannot be naturally suppressed or leaked.
Since the sea water pressure in the outside world is not bad, some people say that the current sales of this part of natural gas is not as good as before, resulting in too much steam supply, and the gas pipeline is "exploding" more? This kind of possibility is also slim. Because long-distance oil and gas transmission are all technical jobs that have been mature for many years. The internal pressure is normal, and there are strict standards and real-time monitoring. Moreover, too much gas transmission leads to an over-the-counter load, which will first increase and break the land safety valve , or cause the turbine failure of the pump station. It is almost impossible to overturn the extremely strong submarine steel pipe first. What's more, two main gas pipelines that were in trouble at the same time exploded together; one of the newly built ones has not achieved actual gas transmission, and only nitrogen is temporarily filled with anti-rust, so it is even more impossible to break the pipeline due to excessive gas transmission. The nearby earthquake network has repeatedly detected a signal of violent explosion underwater. It is impossible for seawater to destroy pipelines from the outside, or natural gas to rise from the inside and break out of the underwater pipelines, and it is impossible to explode violently.
Especially the new pipeline that has not been put into production is nitrogen, how can it explode? Even if the pipelines in normal gas transmission leak first underwater, there is very little oxygen underwater at a depth of 100 meters, and the leaked natural gas cannot self-destruct underwater. Unless these natural gas emerge from the sea and mixes with air in large quantities, it will explode when it encounters a fire source. But so far, the explosion waves are coming from underwater. A magnitude 2.3 earthquake equals the energy of a 48 kg TNT explosion. The warhead charge of the MK46 light torpedo is exactly 50 kg, which is completely within the error range. The routes of the two major underwater gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea are basically open, even if there is no need to find the smart torpedo. First, by positioning the water through GPS, and then throwing several sunken light mines from the water surface, it can also accurately blow up a certain section of the seabed pipeline. Both torpedo and mine can achieve delayed explosion. It is necessary to check the aircraft and ships that have passed the explosion leakage point in the past two weeks, and then the case can be solved directly.
