Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Chapter Eight: Liquified Natural Gas 89mafrost, requiring the installation of heaters to maintain soil dimensions andloadbearing properties that are essential to the integrity of the tank.The potential hazards of LNG are illustrated by the only major LNG spillso far experienced in the U.S.—in Cleveland in 1944. 10 A tank holding fourthousand two hundred cubic meters of LNG, part of America’s first peak-shavingLNG plant, collapsed. Not all the spillage was contained by dikes anddrains. Escaping vapors quickly ignited, causing a second tank, half as large,to spill its contents. “The subsequent explosion shot flames more than half amile into the air. The temperature in some areas reached three thousanddegrees Fahrenheit.” Secondary fires were started by a rain of LNG-soakedinsulation and drops of burning LNG. 11 By the time the eight-alarm fire wasextinguished (impeded by high-voltage lines blocking some streets), one hundredthirty people were dead, two hundred twenty-five injured, and over sevenmillion dollars’ worth of property destroyed (in 1944 dollars). An area about ahalf-mile on a side was directly affected, within which thirty acres were gutted,including seventy-nine houses, two factories, and two hundred seventeen cars.A further thirty-five houses and thirteen factories were partly destroyed. 12 TheNational Fire Protection Association Newsletter of November 1944 noted that had thewind been blowing towards the congested part of the area, “an even more devastatingconflagration...could have destroyed a very large part of the East Side.”It is noteworthy that the plant’s proprietors had taken precautions onlyagainst moderate rates of LNG spillage. They did not think a large, rapidspillage was possible. “The same assumption is made today in designing dikes”around LNG facilities. 13 The Cleveland plant, like many today, was sited in abuilt-up area for convenience; the proximity of other industrial plants, houses,storm sewers, and so forth was not considered. Less than six thousand threehundred cubic meters of LNG spilled, mostly on company property, whereasa modern LNG site may have several tanks, each holding up to ninety-fivethousand cubic meters. And the cascading series of failures in two inner andtwo outer tanks was probably caused by a single minor initiating event. 14The future of LNG in the United States is highly uncertain, largely foreconomic reasons. LNG shipment requires highly capital-intensive facilities atboth ends and in between. Their coordination is a logistical feat that exposescompanies to major financial risks: “if any of [the system’s components is notready on time]...,the entire integrated system collapses.” 15 Like the nuclear fuelcycle, LNG projects require exquisite timing but often do not exhibit it—aswhen Malaysia was “caught with finished [LNG] carriers before their fieldsand facilities were ready to begin production.” 16 This uninsurable financialexposure by prospective LNG buyers provides a bargaining chip to sellers,who can simply raise the price and dare the buyers to write off their tankers,