Jump to content


Photo

What Can We Learn From Shipping Ethanol to Improve Oil-By-Rail Safety?


  • Please log in to reply
No replies to this topic

#1 CNJRoss

CNJRoss

    Administrator

  • Admin
  • PipPip
  • 43390 posts
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Fairfax, VA

Posted 14 September 2016 - 07:35 PM

DESMOG blog, 9/14:
 

Bomb Trains: What Can We Learn From Shipping Ethanol to Improve Oil-By-Rail Safety?

 

Ethanol is significantly less volatile than crude oil or gasoline. However, when an unpunctured rail car full of ethanol is engulfed in flames for long enough, it too will explode with the signature “bomb train mushroom cloud” typical of those carrying Bakken crude oil. For example, after a BNSF train derailed in Montana in August 2012, eight of the 14 cars carrying ethanol caught fire in what was described by a BNSF spokesperson as a “chain reaction,” which included a mushroom cloud–shaped ball of fire.

 

Yet perhaps the main reason no one is referring to ethanol trains as “bomb trains” is that these trains have been involved in fewer accidents — which is by far the best way to avoid large fires and explosions.

 

According to information provided to DeSmog by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), from 2010 to 2015 there were seven accidents involving ethanol train derailments; half as many as the 14 accidents with oil trains. This lower number of accidents for ethanol trains is despite the fact that more ethanol was moved by rail during the same six year period. So far, 2016 has seen one oil train accident but none involving ethanol. 

 

Continue here.






0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users