On Fri, 4 Apr 2003, Timo Janhunen wrote: > Natural gas is volatile, hence not a good option in earthquake prone > areas - earthquake + natural gas line = big smelly leak - big smelly leak + > spark = big fire They're already there. Whether or not you use it doesn't affect the likelihood that it'll break in an earthquake. And FWIW, I've been throught a lot of earthquakes, and I've been through a lot of gas-line cuts, but the two have never coincided. Backhoes always so far. > - The gas gets cut off immediately in any fire situation, usually > affecting a few city blocks at a time When was the last time you saw a fire that affected a few city blocks? I'm sure gas would be cut off in the event of a fire of that magnitude, but are you arguing that diesel delivery would continue? Trucks rolling through the maelstrom? I'm not sure what your point is here. > Diesel generators come in both turbocharged and naturally aspirated > models, which can easily be serviced Hey, and engine is an engine, regardless of what you dump in the top. Doesn't make any difference to the mechanic, or the parts guy, or whatever... It's all the same parts. -Bill