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Boiling liquid, expanding vapor explosions.

You might want to bone up on these things before assuming LNG ships are safe because you need some energy to vaporize the liquid.

Try Flixborough as a Google search if you want some idea of how bad one of these unconfined vapor cloud explosions can be.  I worked around refineries some.  People were very aware of how careful you had to be around propane/butane facilities.

If you had a shipping accident that split open an LNG ship you could put a lot of explosive material out pretty quickly.    Plenty of heat in the ocean to vaporize it too.

LNG is heavier than air and will form a low lying cloud near the surface.  Find an ignition source and away you go.

Do I think LNG terminals are too risky?  No.  But this assesment plays down the risks too much IMHO.

by HiD on Sat Jun 25th, 2005 at 07:43:45 PM EST
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