LCI is a member of two teams that recently were awarded muti-million dollar grants from the California Energy Commission to improve the seismic risk assessment of natural gas storage and pipeline infrastructure. As a member of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) and Slate Geotechnical team, LCI geologists will be providing geohazard input to the development of open-source software. During the 2.5-year project, the software will improve the ability of regulators and owners to better assess risks to natural gas storage and pipeline systems from seismic activity, and help direct seismic mitigation efforts to the most vulnerable components. As a member of the UCLA team, LCI geologists will contribute to seismic risk assessment efforts by developing improved methodologies for probabilistic fault displacement hazard analysis for California’s system of natural gas pipelines.
These grant awards follow previous work funded by the CEC for assessing the safety and integrity of underground natural gas storage infrastructure. As part of a team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , LCI personnel are providing geologic and hazard input for a study examining the Honor Rancho natural gas storage facility in southern California.