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After the West Texas fertilizer explosion
03-01-2014, 04:01 AM
http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/ ... ctive.html
What has me stunned is the mayor's "It's the will of God attitude." Quote:As Muska spoke from his office in downtown West, a freight train
rumbled past on the tracks that bisect the city’s business district.
Muska gestured. “Look at everything that’s going through this town…
Hydrochloric acid, ammonium nitrate, you name it,” the mayor said. “We
have a feed mill right here in town… It could catch fire and have a dust
explosion.”
His point: Hazards are everywhere, and regulation has to be balanced against cost.
Thank God, I'm not living around there. and explosion in the center of town..brrr!
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True, but it also leaves open if they're all being that lacks with ammonium nitrate, where's the other potential disaster scene? And what's going to be the source?
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*Shakes head* Thing is, towns like this are relics of the time when they would build schools next to facilities that handled hazardous chemicals just because it was a convenient place to do so.
So, after all this time, it becomes obvious that the best way to safeguard the public is to separate the community from the heavy industry that deals in these hazardous substances. And this community, like many of their kind here in Texas, is a bastion of conservatism. In other words, they don't like the idea of change. Change is messy. Change is expensive. Change is different.
Of course, so are fertilizer plant explosions, but we'd rather just deal with that instead, wouldn't we? ;p
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Somebody please tell mayor Muska abut what happened in Lac Mégantic last year. (They're just now starting the rebuilding - beginning with the funeral parlour. That's how bad it was.)
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Quote:Rod H wrote:
True, but it also leaves open if they're all being that lacks with ammonium nitrate, where's the other potential disaster scene? And what's going to be the source?
You want what other disasters can happen? 2 off the top of my head:
1. Train derailment, you can hydrochloric acid spill, oil or gas spill, name what chemical you want. And in the middle of town?
2. Combustible dust explosion and fire. They have a feed mill in town.
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ordnance11 Wrote:...1. Train derailment, ... oil ... spill, ... Yes, this is exactly what happened in Lac Mégantic last July.
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Yes, West has those things as a potential disaster - hopefully the railroad track's better maintained and they don't operate trains the same way than what they did though Lac Mégantic.
However I meant a more open: if it's occurred at x, hopefully they can do better at preventing y and if it gets to z, but with what BA posted I'm thinking it's likely that it's going to take something like three such event's, before they even contemplate a solution. Yet, if going by the 'disaster porn' History/Discovery put out -that I've seen- aren't we all ready up to or past event two for ammonium nitrate in Texas?
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Quote:Rod H wrote:
Yes, West has those things as a potential disaster - hopefully the railroad track's better maintained and they don't operate trains the same way than what they did though Lac Mégantic.
However I meant a more open: if it's occurred at x, hopefully they can do better at preventing y and if it gets to z, but with what BA posted I'm thinking it's likely that it's going to take something like three such event's, before they even contemplate a solution. Yet, if going by the 'disaster porn' History/Discovery put out -that I've seen- aren't we all ready up to or past event two for ammonium nitrate in Texas?
Rod, there are fertilizer storage facilities where there are farming communities. They would be common enough in the U.S. where you can look at the phone book. The ones at risk is where they store at least 500 pounds or more IIRC of the stuff and no sprinkler systems.
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Fair enough, as ammonium nitrate were I'm at, is now considered a restricted substance in concentrations over 45% and all I can find so far on it's safe storage is: less than 3kg minimal issues, but have a bucket of water or water-based fire extinguisher handy; 100kg to 50 tonnes, a fire hose is all ya need but you should be storing and treating it like a high explosive; over 50 tonnes, add more fire hoses; 500 tonnes - whilst you might have enough fire fighting equipment handy, if the fire's not controllable and you're within 150 meters, be somewhere else!
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Well the train derailment scenario is one that's going to be an issue for a while. Particularly when you consider that there is a lot of petroleum traveling in tanker cars across the U.S.. Petroleum traveling in tanker cars is just a fiery accident waiting to happen.
That is one reason why I think that the opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline aren't thinking through thoroughly. I've gotten into some arguments with some friends on this who in my opinion are not analyzing the situation versus going into this default ideologically blinkered view that the keystone XL is bad for the environment. This of course ignoring that as far as transporting oil is concerned a pipeline is by far environmentally safer than having it travel by rail...
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Quote:That is one reason why I think that the opponents of the Keystone XL
pipeline aren't thinking through thoroughly. I've gotten into some
arguments with some friends on this who in my opinion are not analyzing
the situation versus going into this default ideologically blinkered
view that the keystone XL is bad for the environment. This of course
ignoring that as far as transporting oil is concerned a pipeline is by
far environmentally safer than having it travel by rail...
Actually, besides whatever proportion of "make it pass through someone elses backyard" local protesters, most opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline want that oil to not be transported at all.Because leaving those canadian tar sands in the ground is MONUMENTALLY less damaging that any kind of transportation.You see, if the pipeline gets built that means that there is a cheap way to take the oil from where it is manufactured (and I use that word deliberately) to where it is sold. Therefore, it becomes rentable to exploit it, so it WILL be exploited. No pipeline, no (or at least much less) tar sands exploitation.
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Quote:nemonowan wrote:
Quote:That is one reason why I think that the opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline aren't thinking through thoroughly. I've gotten into some arguments with some friends on this who in my opinion are not analyzing the situation versus going into this default ideologically blinkered view that the keystone XL is bad for the environment. This of course ignoring that as far as transporting oil is concerned a pipeline is by far environmentally safer than having it travel by rail...
Actually, besides whatever proportion of "make it pass through someone elses backyard" local protesters, most opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline want that oil to not be transported at all.Because leaving those canadian tar sands in the ground is MONUMENTALLY less damaging that any kind of transportation.You see, if the pipeline gets built that means that there is a cheap way to take the oil from where it is manufactured (and I use that word deliberately) to where it is sold. Therefore, it becomes rentable to exploit it, so it WILL be exploited. No pipeline, no (or at least much less) tar sands exploitation.
From a safety and enviromental POV, there are two criteria to look at it:
1) Severity - You look at what the magnitude of a pipe line spill is going to be. It could be just a few droplets weeping out to a full blown rupture. Where? Above or below ground? How close to the ground aquifers? How any barrells are we talking about. What time of the year? How fast was the company's emergency action?
Worse case scenario, would be a large scale rupture that went on for several days that wasn't detected over a large scale area near water sources. Especially if it got into drinking water sources. If you don't think it has not happened before, believe me it has.
2. Probability - What is the likelihood of it happening That is going to depend on a lot of factors, from the physical intergrity of the pipe to how well the safety program is written out and implemented/ how well trained is the company to responding to emergencies and what their safety attitude is. The older the pipeline, the active surveillance a company has to do. Which costs money. and if profits are falling and cost cutting becomes the norm, gues what will happen?
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nemonowan Wrote:... those canadian tar sands ... Calling the oil sands "tar sands" is itself a political statement.
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Quote:robkelk wrote:
Quote:nemonowan wrote:
... those canadian tar sands ...
Calling the oil sands "tar sands" is itself a political statement.
If you want to be technical, the proper term is "bituminous sands" . Calling it "oil sands" would also be political in the context, because it implies that they are impregnated in liquid oil and if you just wring it out you get free-flowing light crude. Tar sands would actually be closer to reality, since by definition the hydrocarbons recoverable from those sands do not flow unless you heat or dilute them.
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Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.
In other news, water is wet.
Look, I feel that the Lac-Mégantic derailment is a poor example because, while poor regulation was a factor, the largest by far was simple human error. Observe:
Quote:Quoted from Wikipedia:
The engineer left the lead locomotive, #5017, running to keep air pressure supplied to the train's air brakes and also applied a number of manual hand brakes.[47] Yves Bourdon, a member of the MMA's Board of Directors, stated that the air brakes of all locomotives and freight cars had been activated, as well as manual hand brakes on 5 locomotives and 10 of the 72 freight cars.[48] The TSB found that the MMA's operating plan was to leave the train parked on the main line, unattended, with an unlocked locomotive cab, alongside a public highway where it was accessible to the general public, with no additional protection.[49]
After finishing his work, the engineer departed by taxi for a local hotel, l'Eau Berge in downtown Lac-Mégantic,[50] for the night.[51] While en route to the hotel, the engineer told the taxi driver that he felt unsafe leaving a locomotive running while it was spitting oil and thick, black smoke. He said he wanted to call the US office of the MMA (in Hermon, Maine) as they would be able to give him other directives.
The train had five head-end locomotives, not one locomotive and four slugs. (Slugs don't have the diesel engine component - they borrow power from a controlling engine, called a 'mother'. Otherwise, they have compressors, traction motors, and everything else). The obvious thing to do with a loco whose prime mover is in some sort of mechanical distress is to fire up one of the other locos, shift control to that one, and shut down the failing one. Only then would I have gone and called for more directives, let alone go and spend the night in a hotel first!
And of course, alter on that night the busted cylinder on the loco goes into catastrophic failure, setting fire to the thing and that necessitated the shutdown of the loco by the firefighters (to stop the flow of fuel). And then later that night when all the compressed air in the brake reservoirs ran out, that was apparently when the train started rolling.
Just read the article here. Pretty phenomenal amount of blundering in this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A ... derailment
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Quote:nemonowan wrote:
Quote:That is one reason why I think that the opponents of the Keystone XL
pipeline aren't thinking through thoroughly. I've gotten into some
arguments with some friends on this who in my opinion are not analyzing
the situation versus going into this default ideologically blinkered
view that the keystone XL is bad for the environment. This of course
ignoring that as far as transporting oil is concerned a pipeline is by
far environmentally safer than having it travel by rail...
Actually, besides whatever proportion of "make it pass through someone elses backyard" local protesters, most opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline want that oil to not be transported at all.Because leaving those canadian tar sands in the ground is MONUMENTALLY less damaging that any kind of transportation.You see, if the pipeline gets built that means that there is a cheap way to take the oil from where it is manufactured (and I use that word deliberately) to where it is sold. Therefore, it becomes rentable to exploit it, so it WILL be exploited. No pipeline, no (or at least much less) tar sands exploitation.
And that would be a perfectly legitimate argument to make, if the builders of the pipeline didn't already have an alternate pipeline, through a different country, planned. As it is, the choice isn't between 'no oil' and 'pipeline', but between 'pipeline to/through the US' and 'pipeline into Asia'.
Between the two, I'd say that even the environmentalists should favor it coming here... if only because we regulate harder than most Asian countries.
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Quote:And that would be a perfectly legitimate argument to make, if the
builders of the pipeline didn't already have an alternate pipeline,
through a different country, planned.
How do you make a pipeline from Canada to the USA pass through a different country than Canada and the USA? Quote:As it is, the choice isn't
between 'no oil' and 'pipeline', but between 'pipeline to/through the
US' and 'pipeline into Asia'.
How do you make a pipeline from Canada to Asia????I do hope you meant that they declared the intention to SHIP the extracted oil to interested asian states.
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I've seen proposals to go over the Bering Strait. Including a road bridge, so you could literally drive from London to New York if you were utterly insane (and willing to spend a couple of weeks trucking through backwoods Siberia in your car).
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Quote:nemonowan wrote:
Quote:And that would be a perfectly legitimate argument to make, if the
builders of the pipeline didn't already have an alternate pipeline,
through a different country, planned.
How do you make a pipeline from Canada to the USA pass through a different country than Canada and the USA?Quote:As it is, the choice isn't
between 'no oil' and 'pipeline', but between 'pipeline to/through the
US' and 'pipeline into Asia'.
How do you make a pipeline from Canada to Asia????I do hope you meant that they declared the intention to SHIP the extracted oil to interested asian states.
1. You don't. You make a pipeline to someplace other than the USA, which is the point.
2. Technically, you could probably have a floating pipeline, or an underwater pipeline.
I did two minutes of research, though, and found that the alternate proposal was for a pipeline from Alberta oil production to ports in British Columbia, for shipment by boat to Asia. My point- that denying the pipeline isn't going to stop oil production, and will, in fact, divert it to nations who don't regulate pollution as stringently- stands.
I apologize for the inexactitude of my earlier statement. I was working entirely off of memory in my last post.
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Although it would be interesting to see them make a pipeline through the Bearing Strait. The engineering implications alone are... interesting. To say nothing of the political ones. Putin would have a field day with it.
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Well, we'll find out later today whether Embridge will be allowed to reverse the flow in an existing pipeline from Québec to Alberta, and use it to send bitumen from the sands to the East Coast. (There's some concerns about the age of the pipeline, but approval is expected.) If that's allowed, then Keystone XL becomes less important - the refining jobs will stay in Canada instead of going to the USA.
EDIT: And the approval came through.
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There is a huge level of dogmatic fanaticism on the environmentalism side of things on this issue and when you point that out you get some really offended reactions.
I made the same argument as bluemage to a friend and basically told him that they were for all practical purposes wasting their time on a lost cause. End result was that he told me that given a choice he wouldn't get on a lifeboat with me and that the Canadians could dirty their own backyard...
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Yeah, the problem with some of these environmentalists is that they just don't understand the crunch we're in. Alternative energy technology is a lot better, and getting better all the time... but it's still not to the point were we can effectively power our cars with it, let alone cheaply switch over. Like in the Chevy Volt, fossil fuels are going to have to be a viable option in the long run. We simply just can't stop all development there.
And that's just here. If you try and run an electric car anywhere else besides Western Europe or Japan, people will look at you like you're stupid... and be correct for doing so. There's just no infrastructure for that sort of thing there - many countries are far too poor to afford it.
Or, in the case of China, your population is just too damn big. Seriously, if everyone in China, or at least the major metropolitan areas, drove electric cars then they'd go bankrupt trying to build the power plants to keep up with that kind of 'off-peak' power demand.
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I'll go on the record that quite a bit of the entire green energy business is not green. If you take a hard look at the European biodiesel policies they have lead to far more deforestation in tropical countries than would have been the case without them. Replacing a primary rainforest with a oil palm plantation does not fit my definition of a green energy source. Not that the U.S. has done much better with its misbegotten corn ethanol requirement.
The German's have managed to thoroughly shoot themselves in the foot with their Green energy policies to the point that a lot of their bigger companies are seriously considering moving out of the country. Solar and Wind power are not the most reliable of energy sources.
Also the fact that far too many of the Green and renewable energy initiatives in the current U.S. administration have proven to be more examples of rent seeking by politically connected corporations than serious attempts at developing new technologies or fostering green industries. Until the day energy storage technology can match the energy density of an equivalent amount of gasoline at an equal or lesser cost per unit, electrical cars will remain a toy of the wealthy.
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Dunno werehawk... a relatively cheap DIY conversion of a Pontiac Fiero to straight electric can yield a compact daily-driver with a range of 70 miles and will recharge completely overnight. That's enough range to get to work, run a few errands, and get back home.
And really, that's all most people need. Sure, there's soccer moms out there in America that need massive people movers with enough cargo space to haul home the daily output of a small farm... But if the daily commuters would just switch to a basic electric car to get them to work and back, it would kill so many of the emission problems we're having that you'll wonder why we never did it sooner.
Although I will side with you in saying that a lot of the 'green energy' companies that cropped up are nothing more than butchers looking to carve themselves a piece of the cash cow that Obama offered up. Why am I oddly reminded of Enron with this 'take the money and run' theme?
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