Posted on 10/04/2017 8:30:37 AM PDT by who knows what evil?
My wife just called to report an explosion at the Eastman Chemical Plant, located in Kingsport, Tennessee. She said that the blast shook the building she works in, roughly two miles away. Media just arriving on scene, so no details as of yet.
This is a HUGE chemical plant originally built by Eastman Kodak. They make so many products, one of which is the intermediate polymer that is converted to photo film (the Kodak connection), Scotch brand “invisible” tape, screw driver handles etc.
There are many more.
Knoxville never gets any respect. My birthplace.
The Eastman plant is enormous, giganitc, yuge and every other synonym there is. It’s impressive to say the least.
Reporting it as a “process upset” but everyone is sheltered in place and the company requests citizens in the area to do the same.
But everything is OK.
What a bunch of mixed signals when the chemical plant is about to explode!
Eastman has it’s own fire department and security. The explosion was in one of the coal gasification units that convert coal to syn gas to acetic feed stocks used to produce various plastics and polyesters.
Eastman was able to handle the emergency with it’s own forces. People at the plant and at schools were told to shelter in place.
The event was described by Eastman as a process upset that produced a loud noise and visible plume. There were no injuries.
There are memories of the 1960 Eastman explosion that shattered widow for miles around and resulted in multiple deaths.
"Around 10:00 a.m., Eastman experienced a process upset in the coal gasification area of its Kingsport manufacturing site. The upset created a loud noise and a visible plume. No one was injured."
Always enemy islamism until demonstrated otherwise.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Eastman used to be a customer of mine.
Some the nicest people I've ever met live in that part of TN. Was a good customer too
I hope all are safe and OK.
“experienced a process upset”
—
Sounds like what happens when a guy has had more than his fill of beans instead of an industrial explosion!
Kim Jong just wants to make process upset and loud noise.
Lockout/tagout fail.
“Kim Jong just wants to make process upset and loud noise”
—
He does that every time he opens his mouth. But he’s so ronery.
ROTFLMAO! Did any of corporate see the same video as the rest of us? ‘Loud noise’...LOL!
“Always enemy islamism until demonstrated otherwise.”
—
Always the possibility, but chem plants accidents aren’t too uncommon. I believe the plant convert coal to gas - I don’t know much about what that all involves, but it sounds like it’s something that could go “BOOM” without any outside help.
Eastman Kodak was once one of the largest and most skillful chemical companies in the world. George Eastman was a very far-sighted business leader, who set up many chemical subsidiaries to ensure supplies of the basic chemicals he needed for his photographic film business. Over time, he branched into other areas as he leveraged his corporate intellectual capital into other profitable areas, among which were explosives and other things of interest to the government.
During the Manhattan Project, Tennessee Eastman operated the gigantic Y-12 plant that was used to purify the U-235 that was used in the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. This plant used mass spectrometry at industrial scale to separate the 235 isotope from the far more common 238 isotope. One of the many remarkable things about this plant was that the enormous electromagnets that made the process work used windings made of pure silver; a substantial fraction of the US Treasury’s silver bullion reserves were used as electrical conductors to make these magnets (395 million troy ounces, according to Wikipedia). It was all returned when electromagnetic processing became obsolete; about 0.036% was unaccounted for.
When Kodak was in the process of shutting down their operations at their corporate headquarters, it came to light that down in the bowels of one of their chemical laboratory buildings was a pretty large chunk of weapons-grade U-235, obviously taken from Y-12 some time long ago when controls on such things were far less rigorous than they’ve become in recent years. Federal authorities were called, and the chunk was taken away.
“Businesses in the area being advised to shut down air conditioning so ‘nothing’ gets sucked in from the outside.”
—
Do they call AC something else down that way? Watching the livestream it sounds as if they’re saying something like ‘ace-vac” or the like.
Probably they are saying HVAC or H-Vac (Aitch-Vac).
They’re saying ‘H-VAC’...’Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning’.
HVAC.
I just spoke to my Father in Kingsport. He worked at Eastman as a chemical engineer for 38 years before retiring back in 1997. The coal gasification unit on the island between John B. Dennis Hwy and Wilcox drive is where this happened. The good news is that it is a fairly self-contained area away from the main plant. He spoke to some friends that are still working at the main plant and they were told to “shelter-in-place” due to possible fumes from the coal gasification byproducts being released (the black plume if you look at the photos).
He has not heard any confirmation of injuries or, God forbid, fatalities.
After the 1960 disaster (he was there for that one!), Eastman and Kingsport worked out a plan to share fire and medical resources as well as to protect local citizens just in case something were to happen again. Out of an abundance of caution, they have shut down the two closest roads and have asked people to stay inside with the windows closed until the all clear is given.
I worked at the main plant two summers during college and I’m praying that everyone is safe and sound as there are thousands of people that work there.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.