LNG's explosive potential
01/25/2008
In a flier recently mailed to the residents of Ventura County, [backers of the proposed] Clearwater Port [liquefied natural gas facility] claimed that unconfined methane gas (natural gas) cannot explode. This statement is a travesty of truth and a dangerous disservice to the residents of Ventura County.
As any Vietnam veteran can attest, fuel air bombs are a devastating weapon. The fuel (in Vietnam, a small amount of gasoline) is first dispersed into the air and then ignited. Large swaths of jungle were cleared in this manner for troop landing zones, with the added benefit of killing all enemy combatants who happened to be in the way. There was not any confinement of the fuel.
BLEVE is an acronym for Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. As one wag put it, "Blast Leveling Everything Very Effectively." This is a real and scary possibility at the proposed liquefied natural gas terminal. First there would be a very hot fire on one of the tankers anchored at the facility or on the platform itself, which would then trigger a BLEVE, dispersing the LNG into the atmosphere. Then an unimaginably massive fuel air explosion would occur.
If you go online to www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf3WKTwHpIU, you can view a video of a BLEVE and fuel air explosion from an 80,000 gallon liquid propane tank. The explosion and fireball appear to be about one-half mile in diameter.
Depending on the LNG tanker size, there can be between 145,000 to 250,000 cubic meters of LNG at a terminal at any one time. There are about 256 gallons to a cubic meter. It's almost impossible for me to extrapolate an 80,000 gallon explosion to an explosion of millions of gallons of LNG, but I can tell you that the cities of Ventura and Oxnard would be in deep, deep trouble. I can't see how anyone with any integrity could lend their support to such a project and its blatant deceptions.
I am also of the opinion that such outright deceptions by this company, if believed, can put us all in extreme jeopardy. If we are to make informed decisions that might profoundly affect our lives, we are, at the very least, owed the truth.
Eugene D. Hubbard,
Oxnard
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