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Houston flood: 'No way to prevent' chemical plant blast or fire
BBC ^ | 30 August 2017 9:00pm | BBC Staff

Posted on 08/30/2017 9:21:04 PM PDT by blueplum

A chemical plant near the flooded city of Houston is expected to explode or catch fire in the coming days.

During heavy rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, the Arkema plant at Crosby lost refrigeration of chemical compounds which need to be kept cool, and there is no way to prevent a possible fire, the company said.

...The Arkema chemical plant shut down its production on Friday, before the storm made landfall.

But 40in (102cm) of rainfall in the area flooded the site and cut off its power, the company said in a statement. Backup generators were also flooded. The facility manufactures organic peroxides, and chemicals stored on site can become dangerous at higher temperatures.

"Materials could now explode and cause a subsequent...

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: arkema; crosbytexas; evacuations; hazmatemergency; texas
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Heads up! Potential issue here.
1 posted on 08/30/2017 9:21:05 PM PDT by blueplum
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To: blueplum

Related:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3582000/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3581682/posts


2 posted on 08/30/2017 9:25:12 PM PDT by upchuck (I speak my mind because it hurts to keep biting my tongue all the time.)
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To: blueplum

Sounds just like peroxide catalysts to me. Gotta keep that stuff cold or it will spontaneously go into an exothermic reaction and go boom!


3 posted on 08/30/2017 9:28:21 PM PDT by know.your.why
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To: upchuck; Sidebar Moderator

thanks, Upchuck :)

MOD sweetie, please kill my thread. It’s redundant and adds nothing to the two Upchuck was nice enough to point out.


4 posted on 08/30/2017 9:29:00 PM PDT by blueplum ( "...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you... " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017)
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To: know.your.why

This is the stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98jOeCr06Xs

commonly used in fiberglass polymer industries.


5 posted on 08/30/2017 9:33:42 PM PDT by know.your.why
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To: know.your.why

Stuff is called Lupersol.


6 posted on 08/30/2017 9:35:48 PM PDT by know.your.why
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To: blueplum
Sounds a lot like the Fukushima Japan nuclear reactor accident.

The Tsunami floods out the back up generators. The reactors over heat and blow up.

7 posted on 08/30/2017 9:39:57 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.L)
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To: know.your.why

why would something so corrosively explosive be manufactured so close to a major metro center? Is it primarily an export product?


8 posted on 08/30/2017 9:40:30 PM PDT by blueplum ( "...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you... " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017)
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To: blueplum

If that is the only plant that burns or blows up id say the odds have been beaten. The plants along the coast make all sorts of methyl ethyl bad chit that goes boom or just poisons you.


9 posted on 08/30/2017 9:43:27 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (It feels like we have exchanged our dreams for survival. We just have a few days that don't suck.)
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To: blueplum

It sounds like they have passed the point of no return. There is no way to deal with the problem other than let it explode. If it does not explode no one will go in.


10 posted on 08/30/2017 9:44:11 PM PDT by Dennis M.
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To: Dennis M.

I surely would not want to be one in the restart group.


11 posted on 08/30/2017 9:52:55 PM PDT by Mouton (The MSM is a clear and present danger to the republic.)
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To: know.your.why

It really is Methyl ethyl ketone death aka “Methyl ethyl ketone peroxide”. Still there had to be a way to degrade this stuff to non-explosive. Otherwise they had too much on hand.

https://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Methyl%a0ethyl%a0ketone%a0peroxide.html


12 posted on 08/30/2017 10:17:25 PM PDT by ClayinVA ("Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it")
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To: Pontiac

Yes. And there is a nuclear plant in the Texas flood zone they aren’t talking about.


13 posted on 08/30/2017 10:19:42 PM PDT by ransomnote
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To: ransomnote

NO; I saw a post on the nuke gen. It was off line with backup diesels functioning as designed.


14 posted on 08/30/2017 10:33:31 PM PDT by aumrl (let's keep it real Conservatives)
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To: ransomnote

NO; I saw a post on the nuke gen. It was off line with backup diesels functioning as designed.

worth repeating

and one would think an unusual event at the chem plant could be mitigated by draining tanks, moving rr cars away etc.


15 posted on 08/30/2017 10:38:11 PM PDT by aumrl (let's keep it real Conservatives)
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To: ransomnote
UPDATE 1-South Texas Project nuclear plant running despite Harvey (NRG) .
16 posted on 08/30/2017 10:53:57 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.L)
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To: blueplum

Any webcams on it?


17 posted on 08/31/2017 12:50:44 AM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: upchuck

surprised there are so few total comments.


18 posted on 08/31/2017 3:08:54 AM PDT by SMGFan (Sarah Michelle Gellar is on twitter @SarahMGellar)
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To: Pontiac

Sorry I am a cynic. After agencies across the world begged to assist Japan in the first hours of Fukushima, Japan assured the world that the plant was functioning properly and all was well. Even after the world watched footage of the Fukushima nuke plants blowing up, Japan assured the world that all was well.

The nuke industry, and the governments that serve them, have already decided that the public “can’t handle the truth.” When Chernobyl blew up, the government assured the public that all was well and so the populace held parades in the smoking fallout (”We didn’t want them to panic...). Soviets had never held procedural drills in case of nuclear event because they didn’t, “want the public to panic.”

You might say, well that was a long time ago. But, in 2011 TEPCO didn’t want the public to panic either. They assured the public they had advanced SPEEDI software that would predict direction of fallout in a nuclear event. But when SPEEDI produced grave predictions, the Japanese, “decided we didn’t feel like releasing the data” and so many people from Fukushima, sadly, fled in the direction of the plume and actually camped in the highest regions of fallout. Why? Because the officials didn’t want the public to panic. Prefectures had iodine pills but the mayors of the towns were instructed not to distribute the pills because they, “didn’t want the public to panic.”

Long history of suppression on the part of the nuke industry/gov. The nuke industry mocks legitimate concerns as unfounded “hysteria” and attacks any attempts to point out “The Emperor has no Clothes” as “fear mongering.” Win-win.

I can hope the Texas nuke plant got through the flood, but based on the historical record, I can’t take anything a nuke agency says as truthful. Keeping Texas in my prayers tonight.


19 posted on 08/31/2017 3:55:55 AM PDT by ransomnote
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To: Pontiac

Ah, thanks for the link. I meant to reply to the post above yours.


20 posted on 08/31/2017 3:57:31 AM PDT by ransomnote
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