Niger Gratitude Pipeline

Votes: 3
Views: 1055

The world is switching to green technologies by omitting oil power based technologies in favor of more renewable power technologies. But for those countries like Niger that only have oil to generate income for their country, this might be a very dangerous concept that threatens their survival. So to balance the scale of safety of the environment with the economics of these countries, we have to make the oil business green instead of omitting it. One of the main environmental risks of the oil business is its transportation. Crude-oil pipelines when ruptured will pollute waters and soil. Natural gas pipelines and product pipelines that contain highly volatile liquids such as gasoline explode in a spill. About half of all pipeline accidents are caused by a third party, builder damaging a pipe while digging. The second leading cause of pipeline failure is corrosion caused by the contact of metal pipe with wet soil or if the fluid is corrosive. The detection of leaks is done by computer monitoring of abnormal flow rates and by flying aircraft along pipelines for visual inspection which is not an immediate diagnosis and usually when there is an accident the damage will be done before it is under control.

This project is about building a new kind of oil pipeline that avoids immediate oil spillage and give immediate warning to pipe damage with exact location coordinates making the transportation sector of the oil business green. This is done by a combination of partitioning, pressure sensor and layering. Meaning this new oil pipeline has a layer (green) in its outer surface with a larger diameter than the pipe (red) which transports the oil. Between the two layers of the pipes there will be nothing but compressed air. The outer layer is separated by a series of partitions (yellow) which are welded with the inner layer of the pipeline with some kilometers. Inside each partition there will be one pressure sensor which has a distinguishing digital signatures based on their sequence of installation. When there is small hole or a crack on the inner pipe at location A due to corrosion, the compressed air will push the oil back to the pipe acting as a first defense system from spillage. In that process the compressed air will start to lose its pressure which will trigger the pressure sensor X that is installed at location A which will be used to locate the coordinate of the damage for immediate response. When the pipeline is damaged because of third party, there will not be any immediate spillage because of the layering and the pressure sensor will be automatically triggered since the compressed air will lose the pressure which will be used to locate the coordinate of the damage for immediate response. The downside of the design is the cost addition for the pipeline because of layering and partitions but considering how much money oil companies lose because of spillage, you will understand how this solution is worth the cost.

https://hackaday.io/project/178573-niger-gratitude-pipeline

https://solve.mit.edu/challenges/resilient-ecosystems/solutions/40651 

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Anteneh Gashaw
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Software used for this entry:
    Catia V5
  • Patent status:
    pending