Difficult to Detect Natural Gas Bypass Theft Using Typical Utility Theft Detection
Jan 11th
After a homeowner installed a gas meter bypass to supply natural gas directly through a separate bypass gas line to a new furnace in the basement, “The gas company had no way of knowing that the people had installed a new gas furnace because the meter was outside the house and nothing in that area had been disturbed. There was no change in the average gas consumption because the gas to the water heater and stove was still metered, same as before.” Read more …
Michigan to Become One of the First States to Consider Felony Charges for Energy Theft
Mar 10th
Eartha Jan Melzer of The Michigan Messenger reported on 3/9/10 (For more detail see http://michiganmessenger.com/35608/senate-committee-considers-new-penalties-for-energy-theft):
“One week after three Detroit children died in a home with an illegal electricity connection, the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee has scheduled a hearing on legislation that would create new penalties for people who illegally hook up gas or electric service or tamper with meters.”
For more details about the actual incident also see http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/22737426/detail.html.
Which is Better for Job Creation and Reducing Dependence on Foreign Oil? Weatherization or Stopping Energy Thieves?
Jan 31st
Why not do both? We can more efficiently deploy our weatherization dollars and more efficiently identify energy thieves, using the same fully integrated, bench-marking, high resolution, ortho-rectified, fully integrated aerial infrared images and analyses to improve the efficiency of the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), reduce costs of the planned “expenditures” per house, and look for natural gas theft at the same time.
Sometimes improvements do not have to be an “either or” proposition. Many, including President Obama and T. Boone Pickens, are pushing to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. The question remains “How?” and here is one answer. (Read more…)
PUC’s Have Fined Utilities for Employee Errors, Should the PUC’s Now Need to Become More Concerned about the Growing Safety Problems Associated with Natural Gas Theft?
Jan 31st
What are the PUC’s doing about enforcing safety associated with natural gas thieves using everything from garden hoses with clamps, to the installation of underground meter bypass lines installed of who knows what material with questionable number of leaks from new pipe joints?
If The Wrong Type of Pipe Can Cause a House to Explode, Imagine Whether Natural Gas Thieves are Using the Correct Pipe!
Jan 31st
“Federal investigators say a utility company used a wrong pipe to repair a gas line, leading to a deadly house explosion in a Sacramento suburb last year.” (Read more at http://cbs5.com/local/christmas.eve.blast.2.1377961.html)
President Obama and T. Boone Pickens Are Missing One Way to Help Cut the Equivalent of a Month’s Worth of Saudi Oil
Jan 30th
With natural gas theft rates approaching 20% in Detroit, let’s assume it might be possible to find an average of 5% natural gas theft in each of the top fifteen states ranked by consumption of natural gas in residences. (For more information about theft rates in Detroit read the article on this blog “DTE Energy [...]
Should Large Urban Utilities be Surprised when Natural Gas New Theft Rates Approach 20%?
Jan 30th
Before our aerial infrared survey, one large utility thought 5% of the households might be stealing natural gas, but they soon discovered that almost 20% of the households in a large survey area were natural gas thieves. The results of the survey also revealed that 80% of the households stealing natural gas were also stealing electricity.
Natural gas utilities have two primary categories of residential thieves:
1. Households stealing natural gas without paying any bills, and
2. Households underpaying their bills because they are bypassing the installed meters and paying for a portion of the gas they are using. (more…)
How Much Financial Exposure Does a Gas Utility Have for Unsafe Gas Piping? For Unsafe Illegal Piping? For Safe Illegal Piping connected to Unsafe Gas Utility Piping?
Jan 29th
If the National Transportation Safety Board found “significant amounts of gas in the ground in the vicinity of the pipelines” after the explosion describe above, we believe it is highly likely that underground leaking illegal gas bypass lines pose significant safety hazards for communities. (more…)
An Overlooked Way for Cities to Reduce City Budgets in Today’s Difficult Tax Revenue Climate
Jan 29th
Nearly every city, county and state across our nation has some sort of tax revenue shortfall, and many city managers are being forced to cut spending. We estimate the marginal additional cost to the aggregated fire and emergency response teams for a large metropolitan city could be as high as $1 million to $10 million per year, and the marginal additional cost to a city or county of about 200,000 residences could be as much as 5% of the cost of operating the fire and emergency organizations. (more…)
Sometimes Natural Gas Theft is Hard to Detect in Industrial Areas
Jan 14th
On 29 September 2009, “The Buffalo News” news staff writer, Matt Gryta wrote an article “Arts dealer admits natural gas theft” and highlighted “Jeffrey M. Weisberg, a widely known Buffalo arts and antique dealer, pleaded guilty Monday to a felony grand larceny charge linked to heating his West Utica Street home and warehouse for years with an illegal National Fuel gas meter…Weisberg, 61, pleaded guilty to a single count of third-degree grand larceny for the theft of the gas service.”
Breakthrough Technique and Process for Identifying Homes Needing Weatherization
Jan 11th
December 16, 2009 Gaithersburg, MD – RecoverIR, Inc. (RecoverIR™) announces the launch of its Targeted Weatherization Inefficiencies Survey (TWIS) Program, to help utilities, cities, counties, states, and the federal government most economically identify which houses, especially in disadvantaged areas, have the greatest need for weatherization and energy efficiency improvements. Read more…