Re: Envisat sees smoke from Europe's worst peacetime fire


"Aidan Karley" <doIlookDAFTenoughTOpost@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote in message
news:VA.00000b64.3d0cca5b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> In article <%Smnf.641831$xm3.317471@attbi_s21>, George wrote:
>> I was thinking earlier that
>> perhaps something that was supposed to be grounded, had a faulty ground,
>> which may have caused an electrostatic buildup somewhere, and when fumes
>> became present, for whatever reason, spark boom wallop. I've heard
>> reports
>> of this kind of thing happening before. A former employer of mine is a
>> chemical engineer, and he recounted a similar incident that happened at
>> a
>> chemical plant he once worked at. In that incident, there wasn't the
>> catastrophic explosion, thankfully. Unfortunately, a plant employee who
>> was working in the area at the time was killed.
>>
> Man due to take an oil sample from a process line.
> Walks up to take-off tap with steel bucket in his hand.
> [misses part of procedure here]
> Puts on rubber glove to protect his skin from the crude oil.
> Turns on tap to fill bucket.
> Oil flows from tap into bucket, putting static charge onto bucket.
> Man turns off tap.
> Walks off to production chemistry lab carrying sample.
> Bucket touches earthed metal wall plate and sparks ; gas above oil
> ignites. Man drops bucket, spilling oil.
> Man raises alarm ; platform begins blowdown ; crew evacuated to TSR
> ;
> helicopters scrambled from shore to evacuate POB ; fire team assembled ;
> fire
> contained then extinguished. Most POB evacuated to shore pending
> investigations.
>
> Acromnyms : POB - Personnel On Board ; TSR Temporary Safe Refuge.
>
> Missed part of procedure : attaching grounding strap of bucket to
> earth
> point on sample tap.
>
> True story. Piper Bravo, May 1997. Location 150m WNW of the
> wreckage of
> Piper Alpha and the graves of 167 men.
>
> --
> Aidan Karley FGS
> Aberdeen, Scotland,
> Location: 57°10'11" N, 02°08'43" W (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233

Yep. I believe that is essentially what happened at the chemical plant
where my former employer used to work.

George


.

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