-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Peter, I'm not going to get into a fisking match with you, but I didn't just make this stuff up, and I resent you saying I did. At 10:26 AM -0500 3/31/04, Trei, Peter wrote:
* Evaporating LPG (liquids do not 'sublimate') will burn at the interface where the proper mixture is obtains - and the heat from that will speed the evaporization of the rest.
Right. And, uncontained, it doesn't explode, either, which was my main point. It'll burn like hell, but that wasn't what the sanctified idiots at the Bulletin of the Atomic "Scientists" were FUDding on about. As for "sublimate", when you toss a cup of boiling water into the air at extremely cold temperatures it converts straight into a gas, all at once. That's what I was talking about. A chemist I bumped into with that story called it sublimation, and when I said I thought "sublimate" was meant for solids only, he said no, that instantaneous conversion to a gas is sublimation whether origin state is a solid or liquid. Go figure. As for
* LPGs (both butane and propane) are denser than air. Propane has about the same density as CO2. Butane is even denser. They will both travel downhill and pool in low spots.
I did actually look this up when I wrote my rant. LNG floats on water, and, as a gas, it's lighter than air by about half the weight of same. Here's my source, from the US Department of Energy: <http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:iM5Hh-010ksJ:www.borderpowerplan ts.org/pdf_docs/DOE_LNG_accident_impact_2002.pdf+distrigas+lng+tank+ev erett+ma+size&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8> See pages 12 and 13: LNG's density is 26.5 Lb/Cu.Ft. It's lighter than water, which is 65/lb/cuft The density of Natural gas is lighter than air, at .47, with air being 1. "Natural gas rises under normal atmospheric conditions"
* LPGs can most definitely asphyxiate you.
Duh? Did I say something about breathing the stuff? No. I said something about it pooling and causing asphyxiation that way. I got a better idea, Peter, read my source and tell me what you think. Maybe we can have an intelligent discussion without you pissing on my shoes about it.
"Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Safe Standoff Distance Cheat Sheet" which reccomends in the case of an 18 wheeler LPG truck to keep people at least 1996 feet away.
I would not want to be nearby when a tanker - or a massive storage tank - gets hit.
Right, and this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. In order to lay in enough explosive make *all* of a multi-million-gallon LNG tanker/storage-tank go up the same way you might be able to do with C4 to an LNG truck, you would need either air superiority and a bunker-buster nuke, or you would need a battalion of ground forces to defend the demolition operation. If you can't control your airspace or defend your turf against either one of those, you have bigger problems than The End Of Boston As We Know It, the apocryphal "blast radius from Boston to Billerica", or whatever, as Mr. Clarke, The Boston Globe, and the Bulletin of the Atomic "Scientists" would have us believe. So, yes, if you could instantaneously convert *all* the LNG at the Everett Distrigas terminal into an explosion, you'd get a big one. And if every chinaman gave me a dollar, I'd be a billionaire, too. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGr0y8PxH8jf3ohaEQLp4wCeNBakz9T0ovwJRO/KRSoS4C4XaVYAn3+o 5sAO2oXuCLnTjp1vG1Nuq7Cw =02WX -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'