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Fertilizer facility blast in Texas claims multiple lives, destroys homes

by DonnieaBlevins Posted on April 18, 2013

Fertilizer facility blast in Texas claims multiple lives, destroys homes

By John Upton

A fertilizer mixing and storage facility exploded in rural Texas on Wednesday evening, killing at least five people, injuring more than 160 others, destroying homes, and filling the air with noxious fumes.

Reuters / Mike Stone

As many as 15 are feared dead, including five firefighters who responded to the fire that preceded the extraordinary blast at the facility in the small town of West, near Waco.

From The New York Times:

Homes and businesses were leveled in the normally quiet town of West, and there was widespread destruction in the downtown area, Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton of the Waco Police Department said Thursday morning.

“At some point this will turn into a recovery operation, but at this point, we are still in search and rescue,” he said.

Five to 15 people were killed and more than 160 people were being treated at area hospitals, Sergeant Swanton said, while also emphasizing that those early estimates could change. As many as five firefighters are still missing, he said.

There is no evidence indicating criminal activity, Sergeant Swanton said, “but we’re not ruling that out.”

It began with a smaller fire at the plant, West Fertilizer, just off Interstate 35, about 20 miles north of Waco that was attended by local volunteer firefighters, said United States Representative Bill Flores. “The fire spread and hit some of these tanks that contain chemicals to treat the fertilizer,” Mr. Flores said, “and there was an explosion which caused wide damage.”

Agricultural fertilizer is a big business — and it’s a notoriously dangerous business, involving vast volumes of ammonium nitrate.

From The Guardian:

One of the most common ingredients found in fertilizer is ammonia — made out of nitrogen and hydrogen — which is created by sending natural gas, steam and air into a large container. The nitrogen and hydrogen is isolated before an electric current is sent through to turn it into ammonium, which in this case was mixed with nitric acid to create the potentially explosive ammonium nitrate. This and all the other components of fertilizer have to then be whittled down and then mixed together before the final product is created.

Ammonium Nitrate is a strong oxidant — and is highly flammable in its raw state.

From Newstalk 1010:

The plant uses ammonium nitrate in fertilizer production, the same chemical used in 1995′s Oklahoma City Bombing. 2 tons of ammonium nitrate were used in Oklahoma City to set off a blast that killed 168 people & hurt hundreds. The West Fertilizer plant may have had as much as 100 tons of the chemical on hand.

From Slate:

The West blast comes one day after the 66th anniversary of the deadliest industrial accident in U.S. history: the Texas City disaster of 1947, a fertilizer explosion that killed more than 580 people when a French-flagged vessel hauling ammonium nitrate caught fire, resulting in a chain reaction of fires and explosions that destroyed much of the port city.

UPDATE: The Dallas Morning News takes a look at the plant’s record:

Texas regulators knew in 2006 that the fertilizer facility that burned and exploded Wednesday night had two 12,000-gallon tanks of anhydrous ammonia and was near a school and neighborhood, documents show.

However, West Fertilizer Co., of West, Texas, told Texas Commission on Environmental Quality permit reviewers that emissions from the tanks would not pose a danger.

That assertion was based on expected routine emissions, not the possibility of a catastrophic failure.

The AP raises more concerns:

The Texas fertilizer plant … was cited for failing to obtain or to qualify for a permit in 2006.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality investigated West Fertilizer on June 20, 2006, after receiving a complaint June 9 of a strong ammonia smell. Agency records show that the person who lodged the complaint said the ammonia smell was “very bad last night” and lingered until after he or she went to bed.

And from The Washington Post’s Wonkblog: “The Texas fertilizer industry has only seen six inspections in the past five years – and the West Texas Fertilizer Co. plant was not one of them.”

—

Watch an absolutely chilling video of the West fertilizer explosion here, about 30 seconds in. Be warned that it includes audio of a terrified girl in pain after the blast:

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Texas cities roping in more wind energy

by Guadalupe Williams Posted on April 3, 2013

Texas cities roping in more wind energy

By John Upton

Shutterstock / Brandon SeidelThe electricity that powers Dallas is about to get a whole lot windier.

Something refreshing is about to blow into Dallas, Houston, and other oil-soaked Texan cities: wind energy. Lots of wind energy.

A wind-farm boom has been brewing in the blustery Texas panhandle, where wind turbines now provide 9.2 percent of the state’s electricity. That figure is growing quickly, with more than $3 billion expected to be spent on new wind generation during the next two years alone. Meanwhile, Sustainable Business reports that the world’s most powerful battery system is helping to store wind energy produced during off-peak times so that it can be sold when demand for electricity is highest.

But the state’s biggest cities are in the east, far away from the graceful wind turbines and snazzy batteries of the west, making it difficult to deliver the renewable energy into most of the state’s homes and offices.

That bottleneck will ease by the end of the year, when the state completes a scheduled $6.8 billion effort to double the capacity of power lines from western wind farms to its eastern municipalities. That will provide an even bigger market and new incentives for potential wind power developers eying opportunities in the Panhandle.

Again from Sustainable Business:

Texas leads the nation in installed wind capacity and grew 18% last year, adding over 1800 MW for a total of 12.2 gigawatts across more than 40 projects. Wind supplies 9.2% of all electricity generated in the state.

Texas is #3 in the country for the green jobs, with 227,532 in 2012.

Until now, utility Excel Energy has bought most of Texas’ wind energy, but the new transmission lines will finally be able to carry power from wind plants in the western part of the state to all metropolitan areas, including Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.

So forget black gold, Texans! Your future is paved with … invisible gold. Or something.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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America’s wildlife to get some moving help as climate changes

by Mark Q Manning Posted on March 28, 2013

America’s wildlife to get some moving help as climate changes

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Wildlife corridors could help birds find new homes.

The climate is changing, and flora and fauna the country over are on the march, on quests for hospitable new homes.

And hey, here comes Uncle Obama in his metaphorical truck, ready to lend a hand.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The Obama administration Tuesday announced a nationwide plan to help wildlife adapt to threats from climate change.

Developed along with state and tribal authorities, the strategy seeks to preserve species as global warming alters their historical habitats and, in many cases, forces them to migrate across state and tribal borders.

Over the next five years, the plan establishes priorities for what will probably be a decades-long effort. One key proposal is to create wildlife “corridors” that would let animals and plants move to new habitats. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Daniel M. Ashe said such routes could be made through easements and could total “much more than 1 million acres.” The plan does not provide an estimate of the cost.

The effects of climate change are already apparent, the plan notes. Oyster larvae are struggling off the Northwest coast. In the Atlantic, fish are migrating north and into deeper waters. Geese and ducks do not fly as far south. In the West, bark beetles destroy pines because winters are not cold enough to kill infestations.

The plan is called, appropriately, the National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy; NOAA’s got a summary.

The L.A. Times notes that while some politicians have been resisting efforts to brace their human constituents for climate change, so far the obstructionists have left plans to help wildlife alone:

Recently, some state-level efforts to adapt to global warming have been stymied by politicians who reject climate science. In North Carolina, for instance, planning to build infrastructure along the coast that could withstand storm surges worsened by sea-level rise has been delayed. State politicians dismissed scientific models that predicted the rise by the end of the century.

But efforts to help wildlife adapt have not provoked a backlash so far, state and administration officials said in a conference call.

“With coastal communities, there are challenges with coral populations, with changing dynamics in fish population,” said Eric Schwaab, assistant administrator for fisheries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “So people are less focused on why and more focused on what’s next.”

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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America’s wildlife to get some moving help as climate changes

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China’s pollution reaches Japan. Next stop: California

by Obeey99 Posted on February 4, 2013

China’s pollution reaches Japan. Next stop: California

By Philip Bump

Sam_BB

Smog in China.

My wife and I used to have an annoying neighbor. There were various ways in which he was annoying — he would holler every Sunday during the Saints games and would stand outside talking on his cell phone at all hours of the night. But most annoying was the smoking. He’d stand under our bedroom windows and smoke, the smell drifting into our apartment. Of all of his infuriating tendencies, this was the worst.

But at least what wafted into our clothes and lungs while we slept wasn’t toxic smog. That’s the problem Japan is having with its neighbor to the west. From Agence France-Presse:

The suffocating smog that blanketed swathes of China is now hitting parts of Japan, sparking warnings Monday of health fears for the young and the sick.

The environment ministry’s website has been overloaded as worried users log on to try to find out what is coming their way. …

Air pollution over the west of Japan has exceeded government limits over the last few days, with tiny particulate matter a problem, said Atsushi Shimizu of the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES).

Prevailing winds from the west bring airborne particles from the Asian mainland, he said.

These particulates are the same sorts of dust and soot that set records two weeks ago in Beijing. They’re deeply unhealthy, leading to asthma, other lung afflictions, and even heart attacks. While the pollution in China has inspired a cottage industry of solutions — canned air, house-sized domes, special face masks — such innovation is likely little consolation to the Japanese.

Nor is China’s pollution likely to stop in Japan. We’ve noted before that perhaps as much as a quarter of particulate pollution in California originates in China. It’s not entirely clear how much of the state’s air pollution, often detected by satellites, ends up at a breathable height. Today NASA is flying over the state’s Central Valley at various altitudes in an effort to determine how much particulate (and other) pollution is at ground level. The planes probably won’t detect China’s most recent pollution, given that it has just reached Japan, but some particulates from across the Pacific can certainly be expected.

NASA

A NASA plane flies over Fresno.

There’s actually a straightforward solution to this. I would encourage Japan and California to send a doctor’s note to their landlord (the U.N., I guess?) saying they’re allergic to China’s pollution. And, if that doesn’t work, simply move. It won’t be easy, but trust me, it works.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Pirates on Africa’s west coast have a new target: Oil

by dfonis5 Posted on January 31, 2013

Pirates on Africa’s west coast have a new target: Oil

By Philip Bump

The rate of piracy off the coast of Somalia in East Africa has dropped significantly over the past few years. The International Chamber of Commerce maintains a live map of attacks; the plurality at this point are off the coast of India. Earlier this month, a Somali pirate kingpin announced his retirement using that traditional pirate tool: the press conference.

ooocha

A rocket-propelled grenade fired by Somali pirates is buried in the side of a cruise ship.

At the same time, attacks along the western coast of Africa have increased. One key target? Oil. From Quartz:

The East Africa attacks were also sometimes on oil tankers, but with the goal of squeezing out large ransoms from the cargo-owners. The difference now is that the West Africa attacks are after the oil itself. On Jan. 21, for example, a tanker called ITRI was captured by pirates near Cote d’Ivoire; it has not been heard from since. Most of the oil attacks are off the coast of Nigeria, where pirates ply the Niger Delta.

The ICC’s tool provides more detail on that attack (which it places on the 16th).

Pirates boarded and hijacked the tanker and sailed her to an unknown location. They stole her cargo. The 16 crew members and tanker were released unharmed on the 22.01.2013. The vessel proceeded to Lagos port.

That the crew of the tanker was released suggests that personal ransoms aren’t the intent; that the vessel ended up in Lagos, Nigeria, suggests that the thieves intend to actually process the oil. As we noted last year, some $7 billion worth of oil is stolen in Nigeria each year. The country is home to black-market refineries of the sort that could handle the tanker’s cargo; the country’s government recently considered bombing them.

This oil piracy is driven by the market. Lots of oil leaves Nigeria (often bound for U.S. refineries), and it and other countries along Africa’s west coast don’t have robust safety systems. When on-the-books oil companies can make $62 million a day in profits, it’s no surprise that lightly guarded oil tankers within a short distance of illegal refining facilities should prove a tempting target.

Source

These pirates are not after ransom, but oil, Quartz

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Western Antarctica is warming three times faster than the rest of the world

by Myrna Posted on December 26, 2012

Western Antarctica is warming three times faster than the rest of the world

By Philip Bump

We’ve known for a while that temperatures on the western Antarctic Peninsula are warming rapidly, resulting in huge ice loss. That peninsula, south of South America, was believed to be an outlier; Eastern Antarctica has actually seen its ice mass increase.

But, as is so often the case with our climate predictions, the outlier is just the leading edge of the problem. New research suggests that temperatures in Western Antarctica overall have spiked since the late 1950s.

From the Times:

[T]he temperature at a research station in the middle of West Antarctica has warmed by 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1958. That is roughly twice as much as scientists previously thought and three times the overall rate of global warming, making central West Antarctica one of the fastest-warming regions on earth.

“The surprises keep coming,” said Andrew J. Monaghan, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who took part in the study. “When you see this type of warming, I think it’s alarming.”

pathfinderlinden

This is a significant rise — though relative to how cold Antarctica is overall, it doesn’t mean that you should start booking a cruise for the continent’s sunny beaches. Not yet, anyway. Mostly because once the western portion of Antarctica melts, sea levels will rise at least 10 feet, meaning the beaches won’t be where you’d expect.

Why do scientists think this happened? Surprisingly, not because a giant space dragon flies above the South Pole exhaling fire.

Much of the warming discovered in the new paper happened in the 1980s, around the same time the planet was beginning to warm briskly. More recently, Dr. Bromwich said, the weather in West Antarctica seems to have become somewhat erratic. In the summer of 2005, the interior of West Antarctica warmed enough for the ice to undergo several days of surface melting.

Dr. Bromwich is worried that this could eventually become routine, perhaps accelerating the decay of the West Antarctic ice sheet, but the warming is not fast enough for that to happen right away. “We’re talking decades into the future, I think,” Dr. Bromwich said.

And if a scientist says it will be decades, we can apparently expect this to happen by 2020.

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Gas line break creates massive fireball in W. Va.

by Myrna Posted on December 11, 2012

Gas line break creates massive fireball in W. Va.

By Philip Bump

WOWKTV

A natural-gas transmission line in West Virginia ruptured this afternoon. From WOWKTV:

[An] explosion rocked Sissonville shortly before 1 p.m. today, setting several homes on fire and forcing officials to issue a shelter in place for local residents.

The explosion caused huge flames to race throughout the area, lapping both sides on Interstate 77, which has been closed to all northbound and southbound traffic.

Sgt. Michael Bayless with the West Virginia State Police said the investigation into the cause of the explosion is still ongoing and very preliminary. He said crews with Columbia Gas are working to shut off the pipeline to control the fire. However he said that process is very delicate because they don’t want to reignite the explosion.

So far, no injuries have been reported.

The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward is tweeting updates; we’ve compiled information about the blast below.

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Go skiing now, while you still can

by Myrna Posted on December 7, 2012

Go skiing now, while you still can

By Philip Bump

nonanet

Hopefully this lady also enjoys walking down mountains.

From the Denver Post:

A new study says a warming climate could cost the country’s winter tourism industry as much as $2 billion a season as snowpack dwindles.

The analysis — authored by a pair of doctoral students from the University of New Hampshire — concludes that rising winter temperatures since 1970 are threatening winter tourism in 38 states. The report said the difference between a good snow year and a bad snow year from 1999 to 2010 cost the industry between $810 million and $1.9 billion; 13,000 to 27,000 jobs; and 15 million skier visits.

Looking forward, the researchers estimate snow depth could decline to zero at lower elevations in the West and that the ski season in the East could shrink by as much as half in the coming decades.

Over the past 40 years, almost all of the nation’s winter resort areas have grown hotter. Heat and snow, you may remember from school, are a bad mix.

NRDC

Click to embiggen.

If you are looking for something on which to spend the $14,800 you had set aside for a new ski jacket, please allow us to suggest, instead, a mountain bike.

Hat tip: Bill McKibben.

Source

Report shows warming weather may cost winter tourism $2 billion a year, Denver Post

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