Explosion in Texas
 

I'm sure you've already heard, but ...

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/natio...o-texas/64337/

A fertilizer plant went up in West, Texas with the media speculating about 60 to 100 "casualties", who may be dead or injured depending on your preferred news service.

Given that it was a fertilizer plant, it was *probably* ammonium nitrate, and this was quite likely a non-malicious industrial accident.

What a shitty thing to happen.

There is a video of the explosion near the bottom of the page. Crazy.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/natio...o-texas/64337/

That's a big explosion.

What a mess. Horrible for everyone there. For the company to have claimed that their 'worst-case scenario' would be a 10-minute ammonia leak is ludicrous. They were fined only $2300 in 2006 for not having a risk management plan meeting federal standards.

Unfortunately the process for developing federal standards and exposure limits is mandated to include industry input, so the fox gets a say in how the fence around the henhouse is built. Congress voted in that requirement. It's yet another reason to adopt Warren Buffett's recommendations for Congress and get rid of career politicians.

A lot of people in my group therapy have family or know people in that area. It is very scary.

Nature of this explosion is interesting. Its force was so great as to create a cloud similar to a tactical nuclear weapon (ie a nuclear artillery shell). Did most energy go upward?

Well, a nearby apartment building only had its outside walls and roof removed. IOW it could have been much worse had energy not been channeled upward.

How much energy? Well, authorities are being very careful to not release information. Maybe an entire fire company, that was attacking that fire, may have disappeared. Not just killed. There may be no remaining bodies.

Also curious are what some residents said. Pressure felt in their ears was so great that they got into cars and drove away. And were about 1 mile away when the plant exploded. Why would nearby air pressure be that large for that long before an explosion? Indeed a curious report.

Fire may have started in one of many tanker trucks containing adrogenous ammonium hydroxide. Am not familiar with that material. Do not know if it is combustible. Or even if it becomes explosive when exposed to water. Have never see its safety datasheet. But suspect the column that says how fast to run says, "As fast as possible".

A truck fire somehow got into the plant or storage towers. But again, few hard facts are provided. So everything here only speculates as to how destructive that explosion was - and why.

Also curious is the date of Waco and Oklahoma City. Causing some to speculate about terrorism as revenge for Waco - that also inspired Oklahoma City. Doubtful. But currently we only have speculations.

Here's a very good article about Ammonium nitrate.

It tells how safe the stuff really is, compared to explosives.

It also explains how one of the byproducts of an Ammonium nitrate fire is oxygen. Thats why when a big pile of it burns, some of it can melt forming a closed container, where the fire supplying it's own oxygen won't smother, and builds up tremendous pressure until it detonates.

It also explains why this was a detonation, and not an explosion.

edit, sorry, it was this article that explained the explode vs detonate thing.

Human beings are hard wired to see patterns. It helps us in most instances, but sometimes, it hurts us.

It's safe. Like (cough...hexavalent) Chromium!

Better living through chemicals!

Anhydrous? Prolly.

:)

This short video caught reality for one kid...
Fortunately, they stayed in their car.

There has been some anecdotal evidence already that the West explosion is causing a review of local zoning. Zoning is at the local level, where politicians are more answerable to their constituents. While a lot of people complain about NIMBY (not in my backyard), the truth is that there are some things that should be kept far away from residential areas.

One thing that the 'pro-business' wing of the Republican party never seems to get is that businesses never seem to have to pay the full cost of their actions. From the Exxon Valdez spill to the owners of the West plant, victims will never be made whole. And when trial lawyers make the attempt, Congress tries to set limits.

This is why regulation is needed, because the relationship between consequences and risks has become unbalanced. From a balance sheet perspective, the savings will always trump the risk to others, since the business will never fully be made to feel the consequences.

My exposure to this goes back to 1984 and the Haunted Castle fire. I remember one fire or police official lamenting that because it was a corporation, there was noone to put in jail.

I'm still waiting for facts, but I have a similar view forming.

However, I've heard that the plant was there first, and the school and nursing home were built later. Who made/allowed those decisions? Or did the plant change it's practices and become more dangerous.

In general, you're right - corporations pursue the line of greatest profit, and managers on annual bonuses have incentives to gamble with public safety. Add in the Texan love of "self-regulation", and you get this.

Initial reports suggest that attitude did not exist. This facility had no serious safety problems.

However this facility was built in 1962. Grandfathering meant it did not need many safety solutions currently required in newer facilities.

Another question. 540,000 tons of ammonia nitrate were in that facility. At what point is so much in one place too much?