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Re: RE: IP Takeover? -Politics, Paranoia, and Votes
Hi Jaro:
Thanks for your comment. I find it hard to understand why some folks on this list criticize even bringing
up the potential vulnerability of LNG shipping and storage in & near big cities. I used to live in
Cambridge, MA and drove by the LNG storage tanks in S. Boston and Everett, MA [just a mile or so north of
Boston] across some open water.
If either of these tanks were breached in a rather easy terrorist attack [or one of the LNG supertankers
damaged in unloading], the LNG would flash to gas and mix with air, eventually reaching an
explosive/burnable mix as it "dissipated". The potential is there upon this cloud of natural gas hitting
an ignition source for a fireball or explosion that could kill thousands or tens of thousands of people
in a city like Boston over a wide area [not 30 years later due to a theoretical increase in cancer
incidence] but instantaneously.
It strikes me as a short sighted comment that the LNG industry is "at least as heavily regulated an
industry as is the NP industry". The level of safety achieved with Nuclear Power Plants due to their
multiple layers of safety in design could never, ever be achieved in the LNG
supertanker/storage/distribution industry when viewed in terms of potential deaths per unit energy
producted [say per 1000 MW[e] plant operation per year]. To think otherwise is little more than
delusional thinking motivated by anti-nuclear activism and pure dogma from nuclear power's opponents.
Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
===================
5/26/04 6:32:13 PM, Jaro <jaro-10kbq@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>Saying that "LNG is at least as heavily a regulated industry as is the NP
>industry" seems to me to gloss over some pretty obvious technical aspects.
>
>But the solution to any discrepancies seems simple : the LNG regulations
>merely need to be modified slightly to make sure that all storage facilities
>and transport ships are constructed with three-foot thick, steel-reinforced,
>convex-shaped walls with a radius no greater than about 20 meters per
>installation........
>
>Of course that's only if you're really concerned about public safety, not
>just about scare mongering the public about nuclear power.
>
> Jaro
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
>[mailto:owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu]On Behalf Of Stewart Farber
>Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 2:33 PM
>To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu; LNMolino@AOL.COM
>Subject: Re: IP Takeover?
>
>
>Hi all:
>Since the politician who is proposing replacing IP's nukes with 2,000 MW[e]
>of natural gas generating
>capacity, and natural gas fired electric generating plants will force the
>imporating of huge quantities of
>LNG most likely, my comment is completely appropriate. True the LNG industry
>is regulated, but does anyone
>really think that LNG storage tanks or the huge incoming LNG tankers are
>less subject to successful
>terrorist attack which might lead to horrible consequences than an attack on
>a NPP? Valid issues, valid
>questions?
>===============
>5/26/04 12:59:35 PM, LNMolino@AOL.COM wrote:
>[Comment by S. Farber}
>>"Perhaps he [the politician involved] thinks docking LNG supertankers and the nearby storage tanks
>will make people feel safer than the operation of IP's nuclear plants."
>>
>>The LNG Industry is fighting the SAME types of enviro groups that the NP
>industry deals with. In some
>cases the SAME people even. So why does a comment like this need to be made?
>LNG is at least as heavily a
>regulated industry as is the NP industry and dare I say as misunderstood as
>far as risk is concerned.
>>
>>--
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