Fire and Explosion At Hydrogen Station Near Rochester Airport 357
RossR writes "There was a hydrogen fire and explosion at a renewable fuel station used by government vehicles near Rochester's airport. The nearby freeway and airport were closed resulting in diverted flights. This may the first major incident at a hydrogen vehicle refueling station. GM has their major fuel cell development center nearby, in the town of Honeoye Falls. The fire occurred when the 18-wheeler tractor truck was transferring hydrogen to the station. The airport press conference reported that airport firefighters responded first and initially waited on the scene deciding how to respond. No news yet if the hard to see flames of hydrogen combustion contributed to this delay. The fueling station is also adjacent to a NY State Trooper station, and a firefighting training facility is a few blocks away."
RossR also provides a Police/FD Radio transcript. Luckily, no one was killed, and only two injured, including the driver.
Re:Burger King worker? (Score:4, Informative)
Considering the usual size of a BK worker, I'd be more worried about the ground being hurt if she fell out of the window.
Re:What is the idea (Score:4, Informative)
This term, "renewable", you keep using it, I do no think it means what I think you think it means.
A "renewable" fuel is a fuel that we can make more of when we need it. It doesn't mean it's something we have to find in a ready state in nature. Hydrogen IS renewable. 100% renewable. We can make shitloads more of it, and you can't differentiate manufactured hydrogen from the stuff you'd find if we ever found it.
Unfortunately, renewable does not mean readily-available. It just means we can make more. All we need is an energy source. And that is the problem with hydrogen.
Hydrogen is, in essence, a battery with infinite recharges. You can separate it from water all day long, then burn it and re-integrate it with oxygen and have water again. It just takes shitloads of energy to separate it.
Hydrogen is not a freely-available fuel in any quantities that make a difference, but it is a completely renewable one. It is not, has never been, and will never be an energy source, but no renewable fuels are energy sources. They are ways to store energy in such a way that it can be practically used for fuel. You still need the energy.
Re:Felt this from 2 miles away (Score:3, Informative)
Weird, I'm about 1.5 miles away and didn't feel / hear anything. Didn't even know it happened until I read this story on ./
Re:Felt this from 2 miles away (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What is the idea (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, but hydrogen doesn't explode or even burn! Half a million slashdotters insisted as much, and profusely insisted that the Hindenburg really burned because of a "thermite" or "rocket fuel" skin. ;)
The reality is that hydrogen is an exceedingly flammable gas, much moreso than hydrocarbons, with 1/10th the ignition energy required many times the fuel-air combustible mixture range, and -- unlike hydrocarbons -- readily undergoes deflagration-to-detonation transitions in unconfined spaces. It's also extremely prone to leaks, burns largely clear, and tends to pool in fuel-air mixtures underneath overhangs. To top it all off, it's stored under immense pressure.
Re:What is the idea (Score:3, Informative)
As a side note making hydrogen is easy, it's a major by-product of a lot of a lot of refining processes. If there was money to be made from hydrogen so much of it probably wouldn't be sent up the flare, a process called economic flaring which everyone frowns upon when done with hydrocarbons, but no one cares less about since hydrogen burns quite cleanly.
Re:What is the idea (Score:3, Informative)
WOOOOSH...
Try again.
The "logic" is that petroleum based products are made from a source that we find, separate, treat, and distribute. Compared to hydrogen which we separate and concentrate from naturally replenishing sources. We won't run out in our timescale. And not just for the abundance but for how we are using it. Look up a fuel cell and compare it with an ICE. Different methods are used for the extraction of energy. One is a storage system like a rechargeable battery; the other is a one way rapid oxidation. The battery is actually the hydrogen itself, not the tank. You invest in concentrating the hydrogen and compressing it.
Re:"Hard to see flames" (Score:1, Informative)
Presumably, burning hydrogen doesn't give off the same distinctive orange/yellow/green/blue/white light that other combustibles do, but does still give off infrared (heat) radiation that would show up on the goggles.
Re:"Hard to see flames" (Score:3, Informative)
Infrared goggles, not amplified light goggles. Both can be considered "night vision" as they allow vision in low-light situations.
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:4, Informative)
Nobody ever said otherwise... but surely you'd agree there are safer ways to store energy?
Most of everything else you said falls into the "not quite" category of truthfulness, too. For example, gasoline explosions are fairly rare in practice, and diesel fuel spilled on a roadway is not exceptionally slippery (and if it is, my experience is this is the diesel dissolving the tars and heavy oils in the asphalt - which happens with gasoline too.)
=Smidge=
Re:Burger King worker? (Score:4, Informative)
The press conference said she had ear pain.
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:3, Informative)
As to the Hindenburg, not a single person was harmed by the burning hydrogen which was up and away moments after the storage cells ruptured.
Well, seeing as it was up and away in a FIREBALL that melted metal in under a minute before dissipating, causing molten beams to fall on people, one could argue it was the falling molten girders that killed people, not the fireball that molten-ed the falling girders. http://www.airships.net/hindenburg/disaster/myths#advocates [airships.net]
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
All combustible gases I know of are stored without their oxidizers mixed in. (Not so for all solid fuels I know of, but we're not talking about solid fuels.) Probably because people who store combustible gases like to live.
And they all burn in roughly the same way, with a plume of fire as the oxygen mixes with the fuel, usually as it rises.
Hydrogen is the same, but since hydrogen is very light it rises very fast. Like your average hollywood explosion, played back at 2-3X normal speed.
And while it's a light-yellow flame, it's not invisible.
I can still see a couple of reasons for firemen to stay away from it after the initial explosion:
1. there might be other tanks that could explode, and shrapnel of any size can ruin your day
2. there might be other chemicals and materials involved making using just one firefighting method unworkable
3. there might be more hydrogen in the tank that's still leaking out, if the tank had a leak and not a big rupture
4. there might not be anyone on the truck who's allowed to fight a hydrogen fire, even if everyone knows how to
5. the safest thing may be to let it burn out the supply in the leaking tank
6. it might backfire into the leaking tank as the tank runs low, and then you're looking at shrapnel issues again
Okay. More than a couple.
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:3, Informative)
Huh? Were you referring to hydrogen?
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:3, Informative)
Autoignition temperature != energy of ignition. H2 = 0.017mJ. Gasoline: 0.20mJ. They're two different parameters. You can put a vial of nitroglycerine in a pot of boiling water and it won't go off (autoignition temperature = 270 [google.com]C -- similar to gasoline), but it only takes the tiniest amount of ignition energy to set it off.
Hydrogen is *incredibly* sensitive to being ignited by tiny static charges.
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:3, Informative)
Hey, a Beryllium slurry stores way more energy than gasoline. Should we all drive cars powered by burning a beryllium slurry?
The best argument against hydrogen is aluminium. Aluminium stores energy slightly more efficiently, has no explosion hazards, has similar energy densities to gasoline, and is made on a large scale. The aluminium fuel cell is also 100 times cheaper than a hydrogen fuel cell. And that's with what? Probably less than a 1000th the money spent on the hydrogen boondogle.
But overall, I think electric will win out. Have you seen the new Sanyo Eneloop NiMH? 2 times the volumetric energy density of an A123 lithium-ion, if my math is correct.
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:3, Informative)
Huh? Liquid fuel is a hell of a lot safer. Seriously, how often do you hear about massive fires and explosions involving gas stations and/or gasoline-fueled vehicles?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire [wikipedia.org]
(I used to work sufficiently close to this plant that I could see these tanks from my desk)
A hydrogen leak probably wouldn't have ignited (would have dispersed too quickly). If it had ignited would probably not have exploded (outside so it's pretty hard to get enough H2 in one place) and would probably have just destroyed the one leaking tank and burned out within minutes.
The only reason Buncefield didn't have dozens to hundreds of fatalities was that it happened very early on a Sunday morning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsey_Oil_Refinery [wikipedia.org]
IIRC this caught fire the day the Judgement was being released into the Buncefield disaster.
Tim.