Firefighters now hope to extinguish within a few hours the fire that has burned since a train derailed and exploded early today just south of the Ohio State Exposition Center, shooting flames that illuminated the night sky.
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Fire officials said three of the cars that derailed were tankers that each carried 30,000 gallons of ethanol. Those were the cars that were primarily involved in the explosion and fire.
via www.dispatch.com
I’m not sure exactly what the purpose of this post is. Is this meant as a “Ethanol can be spilled and burn—so it is too unsafe to use a fuel—we should ban the use of ethanol.”?
Really, is that so? Go to the original article and read what actually happened.
Three cars containing 90,000 gallons of ethanol derailed. Almost enough to fill an Olympic size swimming pool. The worst things that happened was two people were slightly injured and had to go to the hospital—and the article does not even detail what the injuries were—for all we know, they were not even fire related. Even if they were, they were obviously minor. The fires were contained, and the worst damages noted due to the crash and fire were, a couple of brush fires that were extinguished and the worst accident related results of the incident were some delays in local bus routes(due to the proximity to the transit terminal) and delays in some trash pick up routes.
Now, compare the results of this type of accident to the probable results if the cars had been carrying petroleum gasoline. You can put out an ethanol fire with water. Ethanol does not burn at a concentration of less than 57%. Hydrous ethanol is 70% ethanol. To put out a fire of 90,000 gallons hydrous ethanol, you’d only have to dilute it with less than 12,000 gallons of water. With 2 hoses carried by standard pumpers—you are talking less than 5 min. to deliver enough water to extinguish the blaze. You could not extinguish a gasoline fire with water at all. It would spread the fire. A 90,000 gallon gasoline fire requiring foam and retardant to extinguish could take up to 2-3 days to put out—–and cause enormous collateral damage because of the spread of burning fuel.
Ethanol burns with a pale blue nearly invisible flame—and produces no smoke. Gasoline burns with bright orange flames and produces huge clouds of black, acrid smoke. The smoke alone is far more dangerous than the fire—80% of people who die in fires die of smoke inhalation, not burns.
The most shocking thing about this accident, is not the accident—it is the absence of serious damages or injuries to report—-considering the type of losses that we have come to just expect and shrug when an accident of similar size and scope occurs involving petroleum products.
It seems to me a very clear picture—ethanol is far safer to handle and use than petroleum. Another plus—-ethanol has a higher vapor pressure than gasoline—by tomorrow—all that ethanol will be gone, evaporated into the atmosphere. And if people breathe it–it will not harm anyone. Ethanol is not absorbed by inhalation, unlike the VOCs in petroleum products.
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