Robert Bushnell wrote in USMA18015 > 2002 February 7 >I just received this note from R. Schulte, President of ASTM. >At one time I was employed in the gas utility industry. I related to you the >difficulties that this one business sector, the natural gas and propane >distribution industry, faces in moving to the use of SI units. Gas utilities >in the U.S. are delivering fuel to an estimated 200 million gas-fired >appliances installed in residences and commercial buildings. The industry >has not been able to figure out how it could switch pipe and thread sizes to >metric units without introducing large gas leak (safety) problems into the >gas distribution networks where service and installation technicians would be >dealing with a mix of metric and IP threads. This one, narrow example has >led me to understand why the adoption of metric units in ASTM standards >remains a committee-by-commitee and sector-by-sector issue.
I believe that both European and American plumbing use British pipe threads. In Toronto our gas is billed in cubic metres, although the old cubic feet metres have not been replaced. New metres record cubic metres. Customers with cubic feet meters receive bills with the cubic foot readings, but with an arithmetic conversion to cubic metres for calculating the amount owed. I suspect that the American gas industry is using false, or at least ultra purist, arguments against metrication. I have not met such arguments from South African, Australian, New Zealand, British or Canadian gas industries. Joseph B.Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 TEL. 416-486-6071
