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German Agency Suspends Approval Process for Russia Pipeline

FILE -- A Russian construction worker speaks on a mobile phone in Portovaya Bay some 170 kms (106 miles) north-west from St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, April 9, 2010 during a ceremony marking the start of Nord Stream pipeline construction. Dmitry Lovetsky/AP
FILE -- A Russian construction worker speaks on a mobile phone in Portovaya Bay some 170 kms (106 miles) north-west from St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, April 9, 2010 during a ceremony marking the start of Nord Stream pipeline construction. Dmitry Lovetsky/AP
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German Agency Suspends Approval Process for Russia Pipeline

FILE -- A Russian construction worker speaks on a mobile phone in Portovaya Bay some 170 kms (106 miles) north-west from St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, April 9, 2010 during a ceremony marking the start of Nord Stream pipeline construction. Dmitry Lovetsky/AP
FILE -- A Russian construction worker speaks on a mobile phone in Portovaya Bay some 170 kms (106 miles) north-west from St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, April 9, 2010 during a ceremony marking the start of Nord Stream pipeline construction. Dmitry Lovetsky/AP

Germany's network regulator said Tuesday that it has suspended its procedure to certify the operator of a new pipeline that would bring Russian gas to the country under the Baltic Sea because of an issue with the company's status under German law.

Construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was completed earlier this year, but it is not yet in operation. It is a contentious project that Ukraine and the United States have opposed, reported The Associated Press.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country could quickly boost natural gas supplies to the European Union once German regulators allow the new pipeline to start operation. Energy prices have soared in Europe, which imports much of its natural gas from Russia, and led to pain for businesses and households.

It wasn't immediately clear to what extent the move by the German network regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur, to suspend the procedure to certify Nord Stream 2 AG as an independent transmission operator might delay those plans. The step is required before gas can legally flow.

“Following a thorough examination of the documentation, the Bundesnetzagentur concluded that it would only be possible to certify an operator of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if that operator was organized in a legal form under German law,” the regulator said in a statement.

The operating company is based in Zug, Switzerland, and “has decided not to transform its existing legal form but instead to found a subsidiary under German law solely to govern the German part of the pipeline,” it added. That will become the owner and operator of the German section of the pipeline.

The agency said the certification will remain suspended “until the main assets and human resources have been transferred to the subsidiary” and it can verify the documentation is complete.

Owned by Russian-controlled gas giant Gazprom with investment from several European companies, Nord Stream 2 was built under the Baltic Sea and bypasses Poland and Ukraine, raising objections from those countries.

The US has strongly opposed the construction of Nord Stream 2, but it reached a deal with Germany in July to allow the pipeline's completion without imposing US sanctions on German entities.

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Fire Tornadoes are a Risk Under California's Extreme Wildfire Conditions

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
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Fire Tornadoes are a Risk Under California's Extreme Wildfire Conditions

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP
The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” - The AP

As if they aren’t already facing enough, firefighters in California also could encounter fire tornadoes — a rare but dangerous phenomenon in which wildfires create their own weather.

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” in which any new fire could explode in size. The advisory, which runs into Wednesday, didn’t mention tornadoes, but meteorologist Todd Hall said they're possible given the extreme conditions.

 

A look at fire tornadoes according to The AP.

What is a fire tornado? Fire whirl, fire devil, fire tornado or even firenado — scientists, firefighters and regular folks use multiple terms to describe similar phenomena, and they don’t always agree on what’s what. Some say fire whirls are formed only by heat, while fire tornadoes involve clouds generated by the fire itself.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s glossary of wildland fire terms doesn’t include an entry for fire tornado, but it defines a fire whirl as a “spinning vortex column of ascending hot air and gases rising from a fire and carrying aloft smoke, debris and flame,” and says large whirls “have the intensity of a small tornado.”

Wildfires with turbulent plumes can produce clouds that in turn can produce lightning or a vortex of ash, smoke and flames, said Leila Carvalho, professor of meteorology and climatology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“There is a rotation caused by very strong wind shear and a very hot, localized low-pressure system,” she said.

What is a fire tornado capable of? Fire tornadoes can make fires stronger by sucking up air, Carvalho said. “It creates a tornado track, and wherever this goes, the destruction is like any other tornado.”

In 2018, a fire tornado the size of three football fields killed a firefighter as it exploded in what already was a vast and devastating wildfire near near Redding, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) north of San Francisco in northern California. Scientists later described an ice-capped cloud that reached 7 miles (11 km) into the air and caused winds up to 143 mph (230 kph).

Research also suggests fire tornadoes can carry airborne embers, also called firebrands, over long distances, said James Urban, an assistant professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They also can change the fire’s behavior, he said.

“That’s also something that is dangerous and scary for first responders, or really anyone,” he said. “It can change and maybe go in a different direction.”

The interaction between wind, the fire plume and topography determines whether a tornado will develop, he said. For example, sometimes a certain topography will restrict airflow in such a way that a spiral pattern develops.

Can you make one in a lab? Together with San José State University, Worcester Polytech is part of a Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center. In the lab in Worcester, researchers have created small fire tornadoes by putting up walls around a fire or arranging a bunch of little fires that together restrict airflow. But that’s on a much smaller scale than what’s happening with the wildfires.

“We’ve got the biggest fire lab in the US for a university, but we cannot get something the size of what’s been reported at these fires,” he said. “You can’t really bottle that and put it in a lab.”