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posted by martyb on Thursday August 31 2017, @03:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the mount-generators-on-a-barge? dept.

Residents near a chemical plant in Crosby, TX — approximately 25 miles (40km) northeast of Houston — have been evacuated due to the possibility of an explosion:

Arkema SA expects chemicals to catch fire or explode at its heavily flooded plant in Crosby, Texas in the coming days because the plant has lost power to its chemical cooling systems, a company official said on Wednesday.

The company evacuated remaining workers on Tuesday, and Harris County ordered the evacuation of residents in a 1.5-mile(2.4-km) radius of the plant that makes organic peroxides used in the production of plastic resins, polystyrene, paints and other products.

Richard Rowe, chief executive officer of Arkema's North America unit, told reporters that chemicals on the site will catch fire and explode if they are not properly cooled.

Arkema expects that to happen within the next six days as temperatures rise. He said the company has no way to prevent that because the plant is swamped by about 6 feet (1.83 m) of water due to flooding from Harvey, which came ashore in Texas last week as a powerful Category 4 hurricane.

"Materials could now explode and cause a subsequent and intense fire. The high water that exists on site, and the lack of power, leave us with no way to prevent it," Rowe said. He said he believes a fire would be "largely sustained on our site but we are trying to be conservative."

From the company's web site:

Our Crosby facility makes organic peroxides, a family of compounds that are used in everything from making pharmaceuticals to construction materials. But organic peroxides may burn if not stored and handled under the right conditions. At Crosby, we prepared for what we recognized could be a worst case scenario. We had redundant contingency plans in place. Right now, we have an unprecedented 6 feet of water at the plant. We have lost primary power and two sources of emergency backup power. As a result, we have lost critical refrigeration of the materials on site that could now explode and cause a subsequent intense fire. The high water and lack of power leave us with no way to prevent it. We have evacuated our personnel for their own safety. The federal, state and local authorities were contacted a few days ago, and we are working very closely with them to manage this matter. They have ordered the surrounding community to be evacuated, too.

Also at ABC and The Washington Post.


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  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:01AM (25 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:01AM (#561952)

    Why the hell wasn't that plant shut down before the storm hit? More importantly, why was it even built in the first place? Who in their right mind allows a chemical plant that is fail deadly?

    Arkema should be forced to pay a fine of at least $10 billion if that plant goes up. There's absolutely no excuse for this. If it were up to me there would be criminal charges leveled against a few C level sociopaths.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:08AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:08AM (#561954)

    This plant has been there 40+ years, and the storm that hit is two orders of magnitude higher than the previous largest recorded storm to hit the region.

    While there are many places that are commonly hit with major storms, this region of texas is not usually one of them.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:14AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:14AM (#561956)

    Go back to the cave and die, fool.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by edIII on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:27AM (15 children)

    by edIII (791) on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:27AM (#561959)

    1) You can't shut it down. It's like Megatron at Hoover Dam. If he gets hot, the shit hits the fan. You want them to ship in ice cubess?

    2) It was built to store certain chemicals

    3) It really wasn't fail deadly. Dual backup generators, and I promise you, that they had high priority for the diesel fuel in emergencies. None of that means dick when the whole place is underwater.

    I've lived about 30 miles away from there. Nobody ever thought that place would flood.... plus everywhere else... plus emergency services being tapped and nearly immobile... plus being reliant on the freakin' Cajun Navy to get around. During the last floods and big hurricane I bet you the water never even got the to the level of the generators and their onsite fuel storage was sufficient for days.

    This ain't normal.

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:50AM (3 children)

      by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:50AM (#561965)

      This ain't normal.

      You can say that again. Not just Harvey but there is also an "Extreme heat warning" for the San Fransisco Bay Area. A friend I have in the area says it is the first in his lifetime, and he is pushing 50. I have taken his advice and postponed my trip to visit family in the area until things cool down.

      --
      "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
      • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:58AM (2 children)

        by captain normal (2205) on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:58AM (#561984)

        Extreme heat?... Predicted 29 C in San Francisco on Friday (that's ~84 F). Up To 40 C inland (that's ~104 F). Warm, Yes but not unusual This Time of year. Yes I live in central California near the coast...no big deal. By Saturday the temps will be dropping back to normal.So why cancel your trip, it will be the best weather you could find in this area. Unless you like to bundle up like living in Alaska in the winter. Remember Mark Twain was quoted to say "the coldest winter I even spent was summer in San Francisco".

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
        • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday August 31 2017, @07:22AM

          by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Thursday August 31 2017, @07:22AM (#562001)

          https://www.google.org/publicalerts/alert?aid=5ea630b4d1d2669f&hl=en&gl=US&source=wweather [google.org]

          That is what my friend was talking about. He didn't say it had never been that hot before in the state, just that it was the first warning he remembers seeing that covered where he lives on the shoreline. Every time I've visited over the last 10 years or so the weather has been really strange, had to wear short sleeve Ts in the middle of winter and my parka in the summer, the reverse of what I remember from growing up there.

          As to why I'm postponing my trip it is simply that my car doesn't have AC, nor does my brother's place, in an area that will easily hit 100+ during this weekend His place hit 97 when I was there first week of this July, not fun. I would rather not get poached in my own sweat again if I can avoid it. Thank you very much.

          PS: I grew up hearing that MT quote, sadly he didn't actually say it. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/twain.asp [snopes.com]

          --
          "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
        • (Score: 2) by Geezer on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:36PM

          by Geezer (511) on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:36PM (#562089)

          True enough. I grew up in Rancho Cordova, where 100+ F in summer is perfectly normal. OTOH, I lived in The City for about eight years and if it ever got above 80 F in the Richmond or Sunset districts the .gov would issue health advisories and local pagans would start sacrificing small animals.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:29AM (2 children)

      by Whoever (4524) on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:29AM (#561974) Journal

      Nobody ever thought that place would flood

      Then they are idiots. Storms in the Gulf are reasonably common and this area is very flat.

      • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 31 2017, @03:45PM (1 child)

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Thursday August 31 2017, @03:45PM (#562158) Journal

        Congratulations! I am sure you thoroughly researched your place of residence to ensure there is zero possible chances of a natural disaster.

        • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday September 01 2017, @02:20AM

          by Whoever (4524) on Friday September 01 2017, @02:20AM (#562388) Journal

          No natural disaster could make my house a danger to people within a mile of it.

    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:43AM (6 children)

      by anubi (2828) on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:43AM (#561977) Journal

      If I knew this thing was that sensitive to a thermal situation with that kind of consequences for a fail, I guarantee you my backup would be some sort of diesel engine directly turning the refrigeration compressor with a geothermal heat sink. No electricity, as anything short of battery backup is subject to fail, and even that I won't have much of. Everything should be driven from the mechanical shaft work provided by the engine. That being the refrigeration compressor and circulation pumps, ( which might be on a sealed hydraulic loop for energy transfer ).

      I could snorkel the air from an intake way high, like on the roof of a building or support structure. One thing about some of these diesel engines... they run underwater. I don't like mounting heavy things high in the air. They tend to get toppled.

      The entire shebang should run even if completely submerged. Yes, way overkill, but if I have to design knowing the ramifications for failure, overkill it is.

      If I am going to have a backup, after seeing what happened at Fukushima, having some critical system short out is out of the question. Design it so its simple as possible and relies on as few of things as possible. I do not need to automate everything. People are amazingly adept at knowing what to do if they have the facilities existing to do it. I want to make sure they have the access to manually start the thing up even if there isn't enough electrical power around to run a flashlight.

      If they have to fire off the glow plugs from a truck battery, give access for that.

      Truck-mounted air compressors could recharge the starting tanks should that be necessary.

      Imagine if Fukushima had a few diesel-pump setups hooked into the coolant system, knowing how disastrous coolant failure is to a reactor? Electricity and water don't mix very well, but a shaft rotates underwater almost as well as it rotates in the air. I would probably want to have some way of starting the engine with compressed air.

      Well, I was able to buy a van with this kind of engine.... as I intend to take trips to nowhere in the desert. An engine failure could well kill me. Hence, my purchase of that kind of technology. Old mechanical diesel. No computer. Everything gear driven. Gear train submerged in oil. Its not the most efficient thing I could get, but I feel its probably the most reliable thing I could get.

      After seeing Houston's woe, I would like to snorkel mine up high as well. I live next to a river which I feel may well overflow given a major rainfall, or failure of an upstream dam due to earthquake... especially being the homeless have been camping on its banks, and a mild overflow will quickly escalate to a major flood when tents and other belongings get caught up in bridge supports and dam the river.

      But then, I have to make decisions based on what the factions above me will tolerate. Often the powers that be have found an insurance company which will mitigate the peril cheaper than I can minimize the impact of that peril. This kind of extreme overdesign is only for extreme ramifications in the event of fail.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 4, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday August 31 2017, @07:43AM (4 children)

        by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Thursday August 31 2017, @07:43AM (#562006)

        I would suggest you read up on Fukushima. There were THIRTEEN back up diesel generators for the cooling system. Three of them above the high water line and operational after the tsunami. What caused the problem was not with the engine/generators. It was with the power switching setup that got flooded. The power was there but they couldn't get it to the cooling pumps.

        If they had had a system as you described things might have been different, just like if the wall had been a few meters higher. Hind sight is always 20/20. Hopefully we will learn and improve the safety at other plants.

        Interesting to note that had Fukushima been running Thorium salt based reactors there would not have been any problems, even with everything that went wrong.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Backup_generators [wikipedia.org]

        --
        "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday August 31 2017, @09:17AM (2 children)

          by anubi (2828) on Thursday August 31 2017, @09:17AM (#562027) Journal

          I guess the point I am trying to make is in the event of extremely critical things, any additional complexity is another point of failure.

          If its something as critical as coolant, I feel a direct-drive diesel powered pump is in order. No switchgear. Manual access to start if the electrical means fail. Something like compressed air and means to refill the starter tank - even if divers have to do it with a scuba tank. Have fittings compatible and procedures in place. Test it occasionally to make damned sure it works. And, of course, big wheels on the valving just in case the motors can't actuate them.

          Its been my experience that when things go wrong, things go horribly wrong. Even though I am an electronic engineer by training, I flat do not trust electronic circuits to maintain integrity during extreme conditions. One conduit rupture and I am apt to lose the whole circuit served by that conduit. Or why do people always seem to run conduit through an area prone to fire, shifting infrastructure, and falling beams? I don't even trust the pipes not to spring a leak. The more stuff I can cut out of the loop of emergency systems, the better.

          I used to work for an oil company, and studied quite a few whopper fails. Big-time fails. We had lots of talks using our 20/20 hindsights from what we saw.

          At this point I am not after optimization. Its all about getting the system shut down safely. And having as little in common as possible. At the time this thing gets called into service, I am apt to have no idea what the problem is... I just want everything to stop NOW, and I'll pick up the pieces later. I know I have major unknown system damage, but having massive energy releases and chemical spills is even worse. If I can just keep the stuff in the tanks, I'll be a happy man. I can always build another refinery, if it comes to that, but having a massive loss of life or lingering medical problems over an area for generations to come is something I cannot make go away.

          I like to see things like my brother's trawler. All hell can break loose, but that mechanical Fairbanks-Morse diesel is going to run till its out of fuel, or water gets into the air intake or fuel - both of which are minimizable risks. Even if the bilge is flooded, that engine will keep going and keep the trawler's propeller active. It *will* get you home if you can keep the thing afloat.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @02:52PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @02:52PM (#562136)

            Organic peroxides are very touchy chemicals in any circumstances. Standard practice is to keep them diluted in an organic solvent. They are a regular cause of lab explosions when some noob lets all the ether evaporate and the peroxide residue gets too concentrated.
            By the time your extreme precautions come into play, they will probably already have gone bang. Better to design your process to have minimal amounts of peroxides added as needed and accept the occaisional small boom.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:58PM

            by bob_super (1357) on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:58PM (#562186)

            "What are the odds that this will break before I retire in 5 years? Under 20%, save on the building cost and buy insurance. I've got stock to sell."

        • (Score: 5, Interesting) by TheLink on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:42PM

          by TheLink (332) on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:42PM (#562176) Journal

          Hind sight is always 20/20.

          But hindsight was not necessary. There was another nuclear plant closer to epicentre, where a stubborn guy managed to convince people to build it robust enough to handle such a tsunami:
          http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/08/how_tenacity_a_wall_saved_a_ja.html [oregonlive.com]

          Hirai said the plant should be built almost 50 feet above sea level. He called for a unique cooling system that would provide water even if a receding tsunami temporarily left the plant high and dry. And Hirai said the plant should be protected by a seawall 49 feet high, not 10 feet as originally designed.

          Colleagues told Tohoku Electric's president that 39 feet would be sufficient. But Hirai, trained by the formidable Yasuzaemon Matsunaga, known as Japan's king of electric power, disagreed.

          "Matsunaga-san hated bureaucrats," Oshima said. "He said they are like human trash. In your country, too, there are probably bureaucrats or officials who never take final responsibility.

          Thing is, it cost a president's job and higher electricity rates to do so:

          Finally, Oshima said, Tohoku's president agreed to spend more for the higher wall -- before resigning to take responsibility for an electricity rate increase. The wall ended up at 46 feet, according to the team's recent inspection.

          The plant shut down so safely that it served as an evacuation center in Onagawa, where 827 died. The fishing town, where I spent a few days reporting after the tsunami, escaped a far worse fate, thanks to Hirai.

      • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday September 01 2017, @02:13PM

        by linkdude64 (5482) on Friday September 01 2017, @02:13PM (#562507)

        "If I am going to have a backup, after seeing what happened at Fukushima, having some critical system short out is out of the question. "

        "If I was going to design something with hindsight on my side, this is how I'd do it...."

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 01 2017, @02:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 01 2017, @02:15AM (#562386)

      Actually, it's fairly trivial to make organic peroxides not explode: dilute them with water or other solvent they are soluble in. Most The problem is that makes them useless for synthesis. I bet the company has insurance to cover fire, but not deliberate destruction of their product, for safe guarding the environment and neighborhood. Several first responders did inhale noxious fumes, described as an irritant. If you read the safety docs for the plant, the evac is based an a plume model that assumes the toxicity will be diluted down after approx a mile and a quarter.

  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday August 31 2017, @08:05AM (4 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Thursday August 31 2017, @08:05AM (#562009) Journal

    What good would shutting down have done? They would still have the dangerous chemicals on site. The problem is that the chemicals are actually needed yet are intrinsically unfriendly when not kept cool.

    I am all for holding corporations thoroughly accountable for their actions, but it's not like they built a nuke plant on the coast line. The current crisis is a > 500 year flood. Let's see how it plays out before we decide if anyone needs to be charged with something.

    Naturally, if there are any damages to other people's property, they should make sure to fully compensate the loss.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by choose another one on Thursday August 31 2017, @10:10AM (1 child)

      by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 31 2017, @10:10AM (#562047)

      > Naturally, if there are any damages to other people's property, they should make sure to fully compensate the loss.

      Happily (for them) that won't be necessary as everything nearby is already apparently under 6ft+ of water and any damage from fire/explosion will be difficult to prove to be separate from the flood. The flooding should also reduce the size of the fire and dilute the chemicals to untraceable levels too.

      There's no really good time to announce "our plant's about to blow and trash the neighbourhood", but the time when the neighbourhood is already totally trashed is about as good as you get.

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:09PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:09PM (#562191)

        Actually, a flooded neighborhood can be dried and (slowly) repaired, especially when people don't build houses out of wood.
        Add an explosion's shockwave to that deep water, and nothing's left standing. The air blast will only blow the windows and damage roof, but the water shockwave will rip everything off their foundations and leave you with wet matchsticks.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday August 31 2017, @02:29PM (1 child)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 31 2017, @02:29PM (#562127)

      The problem is that the chemicals are actually needed yet are intrinsically unfriendly when not kept cool.

      Which? I know of chemicals that explode when warmed but not in context directly of peroxide mfgr. Indirectly in a research lab or quant lab, maybe, maybe.

      Note that chemical plants are run very paranoid. A fellow chem student who actually completed his chem degree shut down a major expressway a couple years back when a reaction went weird. Obviously there is not a giant hole in the expressway or the metro area, but they exclude people up to the theoretical blast radius to minimize lawsuits... When I was in the army at the ammo depot we had spacings for ammo bunkers of like one KM to the nearest civilian not because 100% of civilians die at 999 meters but because theoretically that one time someone saw a piece of shell fragment land 750 meters away once, so round up to one km and call it good. Likewise for about a mile everyone was evac'd for my buddies little incident because theoretically if every barrel perfectly detonated or burned behind one manhole cover, that manhole cover at a perfect 45 degree launch angle could land a mile away, although in reality he was probably the only human being at risk. Turn on the sprinklers activate the emergency plan get everyone the F out. My buddy didn't get fired BTW, supply contamination catalysed some side reaction. Sometimes stuff just happens.

      My gut level guess is in the quant analysis lab or a research lab they have a couple ether containers in the ether fridge and they're worried a couple days of room temp could result in ether peroxides forming (which is why you keep ether cool to begin with...) and blowing an ether fridge to bits was designed not to ignite the peroxide tanks HOWEVER some engineer is paranoid the water will focus the shockwave of the ether fridge going up into cracking a production tank resulting in a rather impressive release and fire. Or they're relying on ether floating on water, normally if the ether fridge blew up or otherwise leaked burning liquid ether, it would incinerate the lab (whoopsies) but they have a nice trench and berm around the production facilities to protect them, unless of course ya got 6 feet of water for the burning ether to float over the trench and berm. The burning ether is not going to incinerate all of Houston BTW because ether is kinda volatile, much like dumping gasoline on the driveway, it'll evaporate at normal temperatures in a couple minutes-ish. But it'll be an impressive fire up close for a short amount of time.

      A third theory I have is 6 feet of water will randomly mix stuff and randomly mixing stuff at a peroxide factory is probably not recreationally safe, so they're worried a theoretical and unlikely very small fire will turn into a very large fire. A giant flood is like the 10 kilomonkeys at typewriters, there's plenty of opportunity for bottle A to smash into bottle Z which could never happen under controlled circumstances but will happen in a flood and bulk peroxides will burn. Not to mention gas leaking out of flooded cars in the parking lot having the misfortune to ignite right next to a flammable bulk storage tank, so a pint of gas leaking out of someone AMC Gremlin in the parking lot floats over to and ignites next to a 50000 liter tank of solvent and after a small bbq starter sized fire you get a somewhat bigger "boom".

      Ironically the CYA is strong in the chemical industry so "protect the public at all costs" is causing some panic when simultaneously as per the company press release "largely sustained on our site but we are trying to be conservative." Not every can of ether exploded instantly in the "bad old days" before lab refrigeration, so if my theory is correct they have a huge cleanup problem in their future but there is almost certainly not going to be an explosion. Of course 1 in 9999 means its not likely to happen but it sure could, so CYA requires evac.

      Of course as a disclaimer I am very sleepy right now and there's probably a "duh" I'm forgetting. Peroxide chemistry is moderately interesting and I'm too sleepy to pull it up, but I seem to recall the worst of it is the low molecular weight stuff like ether turning into explosive peroxides and the higher molecular weight stuff is generally more tame, sorta. Using ether in the lab always freaked me out, like working with detonators in explosives, the odds of something happening are low but technology still hasn't found a way to make it perfectly zero. I suspect they don't let undergrads play with ether anymore. We were all told not to sniff it so logically we all sniffed it and I don't remember what it smelled like. Probably smelled like brain damage making us forget the details of peroxide chemistry a quarter century later. I know there's chemists here on SN and I'm curious what a peroxide plant would have that's unstable at room temp...

      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday September 02 2017, @02:57AM

        by sjames (2882) on Saturday September 02 2017, @02:57AM (#562823) Journal

        Organic peroxides themselves will decompose exothermically. If they are in concentrated form, the reaction will run away since the heat can't dissipate fast enough.

        From the hindsight is 20/20 department, it looks like the fireworks have started [arkema-americas.com] now. Good info in that link.

  • (Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:24PM

    by Nobuddy (1626) on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:24PM (#562338)

    Welcome to the benefits of deregulation. Who is gonna put their emergency generators on a platform if its cheaper to leave them in the basement? Sure as hell not these guys.