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.
Geeze (Score:1, Insightful)
It is pretty fucked up when slashdot gets this up before CNN or Fox News.
Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone will probably try to use this to say hydrogen is dangerous. I'd like to remind you gasoline is dangerous
What is the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
with calling Hydrogen "renewable fuel"? It still has to be generated - and most of the energy we use to extract Hydrogen comes from burning fossil fuels.
Now, if we could get electric generation down to solar/wind/geothermal/nuclear (and we NEED nuclear, because there's no way solar/wind/geothermal can equate to even 25% of our current use, let alone what increased population will need), maybe. But it's still lossy as fuck making hydrogen.
Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlike materials that contain their own oxidizers, pure hydrogen will do basically nothing outside of the conditions that the fusion kiddies are working with. It needs to mix with air first. However, it is also substantially lighter than air, and would thus rise fairly quickly out of any non-sealed area. If you had a big hydrogen leak, burning, you'd presumably have a rising column of hydrogen, gradually mushrooming, surrounded by localized pockets of combustion in areas where turbulence had created a critical mixture of fuel, air, and temperature. That must have been an odd sight.
The "explosion" bit suggests that either there are other chemicals on site in fair quantity(quite possible, if the hydrogen is being generated locally in some way) or somebody foolishly built a confined area for the hydrogen to build up in when it leaked...
Re:Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone will probably try to use this to say hydrogen is dangerous. I'd like to remind you gasoline is dangerous
Yes gasoline storage is dangerous, but it is magnitudes easier and safer, for now, to contain gasoline than it is to contain hydrogen.
Re:Danger is known (Score:3, Insightful)
What else would someone do upon hearing an alarm at a fueling station?
Re:What is the idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it's hard to make someone with less than an 8th grade understanding of science realize that hydrogen is a storage medium, not an energy source. That, sadly, leaves out a good bit of the US - and I suspect a large fraction of the rest of the world's population as well.
Re:Geeze (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What is the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it's hard to make someone with less than an 8th grade understanding of science realize that hydrogen is a storage medium, not an energy source. That, sadly, leaves out a good bit of the US - and I suspect a large fraction of the rest of the world's population as well.
By that logic there was only ever one energy source in existence, the Big Bang. Even the sun is just a huge ball of hydrogen and few other things that was all created long ago and will one day run out.
Re:Geeze (Score:3, Insightful)
Fox news needs to figure out how to blame Obama and CNN needs to find a way to blame the oil industry?
Re:Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:3, Insightful)
Gasoline has this unpleasant habit of spreading around at ground level even in vapor form. Hydrogen goes strait up.
Gas is defiantly cheaper and easier to store, but it is quite likely that in the event of a fire, it will be the more dangerous fuel.
Here's the station - a hydrogen boondoggle (Score:3, Insightful)
The fueling station has a web site. [greenmonroe.org] They offer hydrogen, compressed natural gas, bio-diesel, and ethanol options.
Only one (1) vehicle used hydrogen from that station - a fuel cell powered 2008 Chevy Equinox [chevrolet.com] from GM's now-concluded "Project Driveway".
Re:Danger is known (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Geeze (Score:4, Insightful)
yes, and they both want to blame BP separately.
Re:Danger is known (Score:4, Insightful)
What else would someone do upon hearing an alarm at a fueling station?
I'm sure some would reach for their phone/ipod to begin recording video.
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and if you inhale dihydrogen monoxide at room temperature, the effects can be lethal!
Look, if you want to store energy, there's going to be some energy in whatever you store it in. Gasoline burns pretty readily as well, explodes in confined spaces and it has this annoying tendency to pool around ground level when it's leaked rather than going up into the atmosphere. (It's also carcinogenic, unlike hydrogen). Diesel fuel doesn't explode, but it still burns, and worse, it doesn't evaporate at room temperature so when spilled, it stays there drastically reducing friction on the road surface until something washes it off. Lithium batteries can cause some nasty, difficult-to-extinguish fires. Nuclear fuel rods... well..
There's no perfectly safe way to store a bunch of energy. I don't think it's possible even in theory.
Where are the stats??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is the idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Fossil fuels themselves are a form of solar energy, from sunshine that hit the Earth over millions of years and got stored in a process involving plants growing, being eaten, and the plants and the critters that ate them both dying and decomposing into oil and coal. The only real problem with fossil fuels is that there is a limited amount of this conveniently pre-stored solar power lying about, and using it the way we do releases pollutants and many of the things like carbon dioxide that were sequestered by the processes that created it.
It's only our short worldview that makes us see these as different sources of energy. The Earth has conveniently stored millions of years' worth of solar energy in very energy-dense, easy-to-use forms. Given how long ago they were created, many of us don't think of those as originally created by solar energy.
Re:What is the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
By your definition gasoline is also a renewable fuel source. CO2 can be combined with hydrogen and oxygen to build hydrocarbons. The simpler the hydrocarbon the easier it is, but once you have methane it is just more steps to more complex hydrocarbons. It just a matter of how much energy you are willing to spend to create it.
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, if you want to store energy, there's going to be some energy in whatever you store it in.
Hydrogen gas, however, is a particular pain in the ass. It eats through rubber seals, and the energy density (at STP) is so low that you have to store it at immense pressure to be useful for transportation.
Storing hydrogen as a metal hydride with catalyzed release is a very different story, and might be one of the safest means of high density energy storage. I hope work on that technology is progressing (despise the fact that Bush once endorsed it), as it could well become the "magic battery" we've been looking for.
Re:Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's why gasoline stations blow up every day, right?
How many consecutive days have hydrogen stations exploded? What are we up to now, one?
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:5, Insightful)
See? SEE?! This is what happens when we politicize Science to Hell and back: some unpopular politician endorses it and we assume by default that this is grounds to discredit it. This is Slashdot, people. Evaluating the merits of the technology irrespective of politics should be the rule and not the exception.
Where are our values?
Re:Geeze (Score:5, Insightful)
You left out the more reputable news outlets:
Comedy Central: A hydrogen fueling station exploded, forming a huge *bleep* fireball! The most likely cause: Bears.
Onion News Network: Dick Cheney claimed responsibility for the destruction of a hydrogen fueling station. "After spending billions of dollars and thousands of lives getting the oil in Iraq, I didn't want those stupid hippies coming up with a cheap and safe alternative," said Cheney in a press conference this morning.
Re:What is the idea (Score:4, Insightful)
We can make oil, but it's not economical, at least not for use as a fuel.
We're actually closer to making economically viable, algae-produced "oil" than we are to making economically viable, safe-to-use hydrogen...
Re:Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:3, Insightful)
How many consecutive days have hydrogen stations exploded? What are we up to now, one?
If we put together some sort of useful metric, we might learn something... if we had useful data. Miles traveled on each, time period, number of explosions. I have a feeling that gasoline will compare favorably but I'm just making stuff up.
Re:Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:5, Insightful)
You really think that if it had been a gasoline tanker that blew up, the damages would have been even lighter?
This accident goes a long way towards showing how safe hydrogen is compared to the alternatives. Despite the much higher energy per volume, the damage caused is less, because of the WAY it explodes: When the oxygen in the air around the hydrogen is used up (which is almost immediately), there's no way for it to burn, and the much lighter than air gas rises up until it finds more oxygen to react with.
Which is why the truck driver is still alive. I am quite certain he wouldn't have been if this had been gasoline, propane or ethanol.
Re:Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone will probably try to use this to say hydrogen is dangerous. I'd like to remind you gasoline is dangerous
People are going to get killed. Hydrogen adoption will be blamed. Hydrogen advocates that have never condescended to cut the legacy fuels the least bit of slack will stand by quietly while the hydrogen industry makes the exact same excuses that the oil/coal/nuclear industries use to explain away their bodies. The real world is a nasty bitch. Welcome!
Re:Like there's never been a GAS STATION fire (Score:3, Insightful)
This accident goes a long way towards showing how safe hydrogen is compared to the alternatives.
Unfortunately, I don't think that is the message that most people are going to get from this. Likely they'll get the more sensational message of; "All they were doing is changing trucks and the whole thing exploded. See how dangerous that stuff is!"
Once upon a time I was a strong supporter of hydrogen powered cars, but not so much any more. The problem is that you have the danger of high pressure along with the dangers of energy storage. Maybe a better system would be using excess wind power to create hydrogen that could be used in stationary power generation. That would level out the peaks and valleys of renewable power without trying to transport hydrogen and expect the uneducated to use it in daily life.
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:5, Insightful)
1) CNG is much safer than hydrogen -- lower pressures, much greater ignition energy req, much narrower fuel-air burn ratios, no DTD transition in unconfined spaces, no metal fatigue, no seeping through almost anything, etc.
2) CNG vehicles *are* a lot less save than gasoline vehicles. Even with how limited use it's gotten so far, there are tons of reports of huge CNG-vehicle accidents (mainly on CNG busses). Here's what happens when a CNG car burns versus a gasoline car. [cleanmpg.com] Several cars were burned by arson here. Tell me if you can spot which one was CNG. ;)
Re:A close call but we made it this time (Score:3, Insightful)
See? SEE?! This is what happens when we politicize Science to Hell and back: some unpopular politician endorses it and we assume by default that this is grounds to discredit it. This is Slashdot, people. Evaluating the merits of the technology irrespective of politics should be the rule and not the exception.
Where are our values?
I agree, in general. But if someone is wrong 99 times, should I take the time to investigate the 100th claim?
Regardless, this becomes a none issue if we start listening to scientists about science, and not politicians. But scientists tend to have less public exposure than politicians, and public exposure leads to public policy decisions. And doesn't it seem pretty apparent that the far right gets science wrong way more often than the far left? It isn't unreasonable to totally disregard what a neo-con/tea-party type says in terms of science (and policy in general, but that is another conversation:))
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