Maritime terrorist act imminent, experts warn

ASia Pacific Port Focus ^ | Feb. 20, 2004 | Australia News

[raloxk]

"Foes of LNG development point to the fact that the potential energy content of a single LNG tanker, which contains natural gas that is supercooled to 260 degrees Fahrenheit and concentrated to 1/600th of its normal gaseous volume, is equivalent to 700 tons of TNT or about 55 times the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima."


this is not correct. If you believe this, you believe that Little Boy was only 13 tons of TNT. in fact it was more like 20,000 tons

[steve86]

I'm not so sure that those Coast Guard vessels would be allowed to fire automatic weapons within miles of a LNG or volatile petro tanker. But they do look intimidating.

I am convinced that Al Qaeda hasn't again attacked the U.S. for two reasons:

1) Better homeland security

2) They know George Bush will be re-elected if another attack occurs between now and the election, and they see him as tougher.

The bad news is that once the election occurs, #2 goes away, regardless of who is elected.

[armed_in_sydney]

Isnt this about a maritime attack in Australia?Though our navy outguns most others in the region,a port attack like this would be very hard to prevent without doing anything short of restricting half of all entry to our ports.

I believe we're only slightly behind US/Israel when it come to the hate of muslims....Iraq,Afghanistan,East Timor,Mosques firebombed after 9-11,severe anti-muslims sentiment in the community,deporting almost all muslim refugees etc etc.

May not be the great satan,but we're at the very least his smaller,smartarse of a brother.

[archy]

"Foes of LNG development point to the fact that the potential energy content of a single LNG tanker, which contains natural gas that is supercooled to 260 degrees Fahrenheit and concentrated to 1/600th of its normal gaseous volume, is equivalent to 700 tons of TNT or about 55 times the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima."

this is not correct. If you believe this, you believe that Little Boy was only 13 tons of TNT. in fact it was more like 20,000 tons

Depends on how you figure it. While the Hiroshima explosion did indeed achieve around a 20KT yield from a physicists standpoint, you'll find the effects as calculated in *Effects of Nuclear Weapons* classes to have been somewhat less spectacular.

Just as with any other weapon, nuclear weapons effectiveness is highly dependent on target selection. That's true too of terrorists contemplating the use of LNG or other material to obtain mass casualties.

-archy-/-

[raloxk]

yes, that last part is definitely true

[timetogo]

There was an episode of Threat Matrix where terrorists stole a plane and were planning on flying it into a cargo ship carrying LNG near Baltimore. On the show, they shot the plane down and it just missed hitting the tanker.

[timetogo]

I think your thinking about the Threat Matrix episode. See post # 86

[Rebelbase]

Yep, that was the one.