Subject:
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Re: Unexplained power outages in New York, Toronto, and other cities
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 18 Aug 2003 18:01:47 GMT
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Viewed:
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469 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz wrote:
> Mike Petrucelli wrote:
> > No they would simply be dead. If an oil power plant were hit by an airplane or
> > earthquake or something as you suggest for a reason against breeder reactors, it
> > would cause a comparable explosion. Heck a simple propane storage facility about
> > 16 miles from my house would level everything in 20 miles if it were somehow
> > accidentally detonated. The odds of that happing are about the same as a breeder
> > reactor suffering an extraordinary accident, which is to say the odds are better
> > that I will be struck by lightning and survive.
>
> Natural gas storage is a pretty serious one. Back a while ago, the Navy
> wanted to station some nuclear vessels in Boston. People were all up in
> arms about the dangers. Someone pointed out that the natural gas
> facility in South Boston was an easier target, and if it all went up at
> once was the equivalent of a several megaton nuclear warhead...
>
> Here's a cite with some information on the energy equivalent of an LNG
> storage facility, see page 7 of 21:
>
> http://www.rmi.org/images/other/S-EnergyJugular.pdf
>
> Frank
A long while back, I was driving home one night and I just happened to be behind
a rig hauling propane. Well, the light goes red up ahead of the rig so he
starts putting on his brakes. The trailer full of propane starts skewing
sideways so he released the brakes and just kinda drove thru the intersection.
I happened to have a CB set up in my car at the time and chanced ch. 19 to see
if he was on. We had a quick chat about ice and snow and such, and then he
mentions to me that, had the trailer hit a telephone pole or something, and if
there was a spark (high probability of that), the resultant explosion would have
leveled the city block.
Yeah, I tend to shy away from transports hauling propane now.
But, like most sources of power, there are safety issues--we could start
discussing the intelligence of hauling crude oil across the seas in tankers that
seem to be prone to smashing up on shores or rough weather. The environmental
and human costs of all these modes of power are high, but are they too high?
And who decides that?
On a tangent, I heard years ago that during the Vietnam war, ships were
transporting that Agent Orange defoilant from America to the troops in Vietnam.
Some guy figured out that, had just one of these boats sunk and released the
agent orange on board, most plant life in the oceans would be killed.
Could be an Urban Legend, but still, it makes you have a second look at what
we're doing to the place in which we have to live.
Dave K
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