[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
RE: Hey, this doesn't seem fair...
For those who
might be wondering, Lysite is about in the middle of Wyoming, roughly
equidistant (air miles) from Riverton and Thermopolis, and a little
further from Casper.
Here
is an interesting news article that really illustrates ( for me, anyway...)
the unfair treatment given to NPP's..... This was published in USA
Today on 5-31-02.
" Crisis
Looms as Demand Booms for Natural Gas"
by George Hager
Lysite, Wyo. What looks odd in
this tiny town in the middle of Wyoming's vast Wind River Basin is all
the windsocks. There's no operating airport, here, so why all the
fluorescent orange wind direction indicators?
It turns out that
Burlington Resources want you to know where upwind is at any given moment,
because that's where you need to go, and fast- if there's a hydrogen sulfide
leak from any of the six ultradeep natural gas wells Burlington and others
have drilled here into the nearly 5 mile deep bedrock that holds one of the
most prolific gas fields in the USA.
Along with prodigious quantities of
natural gas, what boils up out of the wells' specially made high alloy tubing
is 126,000 parts per million of Hydrogen Sulphide, which can quickly kill you
in concentrations of as little as 500-1000 parts per million. Each
visitor gets a mandatory safety lecture and a portable tank of emergency air.
(end quote)
So where are the downwinders on this one?
Each well produces up to 30 million cubic feet per day, which
results in somewhere around 3.8 million cubic feet of H2S, certainly
enough to make a substantial plume of death should a major blowout occur.
OK, fine, it's Wyoming, not downtown Metropolis. But I doubt the
ranchers would consider their lives any less valuable than the city
folks near the NPP. What logical mind sees the NPP risk as so
much more deadly than a simple, friendly ol' gas well?
In a related article, just
down the page a bit, (Mr. Hager again) proclaims:
"Risks of Liquified
Natural Gas are Minimal"
( snipped...) The technology
isn't complicated. Williams (energy company -) Operations
Director Jim Shannon says the commonly used process that chills natural gas to
minus 260 degrees F and turns it into a liquid is " essentially an
industrial air conditioner." And storing it is likewise low tech.
A possible restraint on increase LNG use is a fear of its destructive
force. Cove Point sits 3.5 miles from the Calvert Cliffs nuclear
Power plant,. Anxiety about LNG accidents or terrorist attacks could
affect any existing or new terminals ( LNG Depots)
Shannon and Cove Point
district manager Michael Gardner downplay the risks. They note there
has been no accident at an LNG facility since a 1944 Cleveland accident
in which LNG tanks ruptured and poured liquified gas into a nearby sewage
system, where it collected, vaporized, and ignited.
Shannon says exhaustive
tests have shown that even if a tank at Cove Point ruptured, dikes would
contain the gas, and if the gas ignited, the effects would be confined to
plant grounds. " A home a half mile away would feel the heat, but the
fire would be contained in the plant, " he says.
Try to substitute
SNF for LNG in the text above, and tell me why it is that folks
are virtually fearless of thin-walled, fragile tank trucks running LNG all
over the country, while a multi-ton SNF cask strapped to a railroad car
presents the assured destruction of everyone on the planet?
Frankly, any fire that I can feel a half mile away is going to
scare the dinner out of me in a flash. OK, the fire would
"be contained in the plant"-- but isn't that essentially the
purpose of having a containment building around an NPP? I
realize I'm preaching to the choir, so to speak,
but I am simply amazed at the terrible job of public
relations the Nuclear Industry has done in controlling the unwarranted fears
that have been whipped up by the media and other anti-forces. I
do not mean to insult anyone who might be trying to promote the peaceful use
of the atom, but there is an incredible chasm between the perceived and
actual risks.
We trust our scientists
and engineers to toss hundreds of satellites into orbit over our heads without
knowing where they'll fall, yet we have no trust of those who
sucessfully design and operate NPP's that keep the lights and heat on in
our houses????
It is a strange world,
indeed! ( sorry for the extended rant.... too much caffeine
again!)
Bob Westerdale