Bush Administration Prevents Another Terror Attack on U.S. Soil

Kerosene has a lower flash point than diesel. However; once started they both have the capability of a fire hot enough to cause steel supports to fail.
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Their flashpoints are very close and not significant enough to argue but neither is anywhere as low as gasoline. btw, gasoline isn't stored in pressurized or sealed containers either so they are unlikely to explode also. Those gasoline tanker trucks that crash and burn, is all they do. No explosions like on tv.

There's steel supports in large fuel storage tanks?

But I agree with your statement. A fuel fire can cause steel supports to fail usually by expansion and contraction causing the connectors to fail first. As a matter of fact, gasoline or a highly volatile fuel would burn off faster so the jet fuel fire would burn longer and probably hotter because of that longer duration of available product.
 
"Jet fuel is basically diesel or kerosene. It does not need to be contained in a pressurized state or container so there would be NO POSSIBILITY of a BLEVE."

Jake,

Wrong.

BLEVE explosions are NOT restricted solely to pressurized gasses.

BLEVE explosions can, and do, occur when a closed container of a liquid petroleum product, such as jet fuel, kerosene, or gasoline.

BLEVE explosions have occurred where the tank product is cooking oil.

And, BLEVE explosions have also occurred when the contents of the tank are non-flammable, including water.

Pressurized gas BLEVES tend to be far more destructive than liquid-based ones because the released gasses tend to expand more rapidly and have a higher energy signature.


BLEVE explosions of non-pressurized tanks occur when the tank is heated externally for a longer period of time.

There have been a number of BLEVE explosions at liquid petroleum product tank farms where the tanks are in close proximity. One tank will begin to burn and it heats an adjoining tank to the point where the contents being to boil, causing the tank to rupture and creating the BLEVE effect.

Tank farm.

You know, the kind of tank farm where JFK stores its petroleum products.


"There's steel supports inside a tank?"

Depends on the tank design, its age, and its construction.

Large flat-top tanks often have pillars inside to support the top. Otherwise the top would tend to collapse in once the product level dropped.

Some tanks, normally tall cylinders with domed tops, are generally self supporting.

Here's a drawing of a tank that shows an "umbrella" type internal support.

wastewater1.jpg




"IF thet could even get the explosives in the first place or even gain access to the area where the storage tanks are kept in a guarded, fenced area."

You mean like if a bunch of guys with box cutters could gain control of 4 jetliners all at the same time?

Are you familiar with tank farms? They aren't exactly heavily guarded. Sure, there are guards at the gates, but the rest of the "security" system generally consists of a fence or two (no one can breach a fence, right?) and maybe some video cameras if you're lucky.

And, with all due respect (cough cough) to the "experts," I've seen a lot of experts over the years say something is impossible only to have that very thing come very, very true.
 
No, you are wrong. Please stop spreading your fear propaganda! Please give us the source of your statements. And please clue us into how and what THESE morons would have used instead of refering to a rare industrial accident that involved alot more than just large kerosene storage tanks.

"boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion"
BLEVE, pronounced /ˈblɛvi/, is an acronym for "boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion". This is a type of explosion that can occur when a vessel containing a pressurized liquid is ruptured.
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Steam explosion
Pressure vessels that operate at above atmospheric pressure can also provide the proper conditions for a steam explosion.
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"There's steel supports inside a tank?"
Sorry, that was sarcasm because I don't think he was refering to fuel storage tanks and even if he was the outer skin is designed to melt away before damage is done to the "gusset supports" that your diagram shows and btw the top on most of those tanks moves up and down with the contents to significantly reduce the vapors, you know, the flammable part.
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Tank farm.

You know, the kind of tank farm where JFK stores its petroleum products.
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yeah, the tank farm at JFK. In NY. The one that probably has the most security than any other in the country. [sarcasm]It's pretty far out in the sticks and they probably only have one or two guards at the gate no less.[/sarcasm] OK? If you say so.

It's common sense. If you want to believe that you can hold a candle to the side of a million gal unpressurized kerosene storage tank and it will BLEVE you have that right. or maybe a blow torch or haul in a thousand pounds of wood combustibles to dump next to the tank so their fire they start with their candle doesn't go out

An alleged plot to blow up fuel tanks and pipelines at New York's JFK airport had little chance of success, according to safety experts, who have questioned whether the plot ever posed a real threat.
John Goglia, a former member of
National Transportation Safety Board, said that if the plot had ever been carried out, it would likely have sparked a fire but little else, and certainly not the mass carnage authorities described.

"You could definitely reach the tank, definitely start the fire, but to get the kind of explosion that they were thinking that they were going to get... this is virtually impossible to do," he told AFP.
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Be afraid! Be VERY AFRAID! THEY are coming for you! :barf:
 
I worked at a Standard Oil Co. tank farm. Each tank was about 1.5 million gallons. They had floating roofs. That is the roof was always on top of the fuel. This is to prevent vapor areas. When you weld on a tank you normally have it full..not empty. It is the almost empty tank that is dangerous and can explode. Also, large gas tanks have a water bottom. You cannot prevent water from collecting on the walls, so it just goes to the bottom of the fuel. The bottom line is that actual explosions are rare. Normally you have a fast burn. But that is not to diminish the dangers of a volatile fuel fire. Now MEK or Acetone and you have some real volatile problems. I have seen flash fires from Acetone that went the height of a two story building in an instant.

But, I feel a catastrophic explosion is hard to have using normal fuels. Not impossible, but not likely.

BTW, I have never ever seen a fire inside of a large gas line. You need oxygen not just fuel vapor. A semi-open container that allows fuel vapor and oxygen to mix is where you get an explosion.
 
"No, you are wrong. Please stop spreading your fear propaganda! Please give us the source of your statements."

You're getting hung up on the term pressurized, Jake.


Open this file, and search down to BLEVE (http://www.oregonlepc.org/HAZMAT_AWARENESS/HMOsm02H.DOC)

You'll find this:

"A BLEVE is defined as “a major container failure, into two or more pieces, at a moment in time when the contained liquid is at a temperature well above its boiling point at normal atmospheric pressure.”

The definition does not mention fire, LP gas, heat or flammable liquid. A BLEVE is not necessarily accompanied by fire. The most dramatic BLEVE’s will involve flammable liquids because of the accompanying fireball.


"1. The substance in the container must be in a liquid form, not gas
The most highly publicized BLEVE’s have involved flammable liquids and liquefied flammable gases. Flammability is not required for a BLEVE potential. Any liquid, even water, can produce a BLEVE...."


From Oklahoma State University's Environmental Health & Safety website (http://www.pp.okstate.edu/ehs/hazcom/manual/Hc--a-e.htm#B)

"Condition in which liquids are excessively heated, which may result in the violent rupture of a container, and the rapid vaporization of the material. The possibility of a BLEVE increases with the volatility of the material."

Note again the lack of anything stating that the liquid must be a prepressurized gas.



Please also note that ANY vessel can, by its very nature, become a pressure vessel.

People assume that BLEVEs are restricted to vessles that are already pressurized and which contain a gas that has been reduced to liquid either through cooling or pressure. That's wrong.



Since, though, you seem to have very definite opinions on the matter, what are YOUR facts that absolutely refute that a BLEVE can occur in a non-pressurized tank containing a liquid petroleum product?


But, to get to the absolute bottom of this, I'm sending some e-mails to the American Petroleum Institute, NIOSH, and NFPA or another more applicable fire prevention association.
 
You're getting hung up on the term pressurized, Jake.
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2. The liquid must be in a tightly-closed or otherwise confined container.
The container may be an aerosol can or a railroad tank car. Size isn’t the important factor. The fact that the container is closed is the essential condition. Don’t overlook the possibility of a BLEVE in a vented tank, especially if the vent is inadequate to relieve increasing internal pressure under fire conditions. A BLEVE cannot occur in an open pan, vat or dip tank.
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Ok, I concede it doesn't have to be pressuized but but most vents ARE sized properly and note the last sentence which appears to be the storage tanks in question and do you realize the temp and duration it would take to boil 1.5 million gals of product. It wouldn't just be these dupes firecrackers.


and
I worked at a Standard Oil Co. tank farm. But, I feel a catastrophic explosion is hard to have using normal fuels. Not impossible, but not likely.
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Mr. Madmad sounds like a reliable first hand experience to add to the other pipeline experts that have denounced this "plot". Not that he has but he appears to find it highly unlikely as do I and alot of other people.
 
A big explosion unlikely? Maybe, but even an unsuccessful attempt would cause:

JFK to be shut down
A disaster at all of the other airports and their flights to/through JFK
Further economic damage to the travel industry
The entire area would be evacuated
The stock market would take a dive
Lots of "offended" people whining about the President failing to protect them
 
Some more indications that BLEVE events do occur with non-pressurized vessels full of liquids (not pressurized liquids).

http://www.fireworld.com/ifw_articles/boat_valves.php


http://gaussling.wordpress.com/2007/04/29/bleve-boiling-liquid-expanding-vapor-explosion/


This one seems to be mainly modeling, prediction, and response to a BLEVE event, but if you search, you'll find BLEVE modeling scenarios involving very large storage tanks for ethanol and gasoline.

http://www.aqmd.gov/ceqa/documents/2001/nonaqmd/mobil/final/ch4_f.doc

This appears to be a fire facts sheet from Alberta, Canada's, municipal affairs office.

http://www.municipalaffairs.gov.ab.ca/fco/docs/Flammable_liquid.doc


DOT Hazard Classifications, category 3.

http://ci.redding.ca.us/solwaste/hwclass.htm


And this. Holy crap, 160 pages of liquid and gasseous hazards are charted out, and they're not even talking about chili night at my house...

http://www.risoe.dk/rispubl/SYS/syspdf/ris-r-1504.pdf

Search it using BLEVE as your search term. Interesting reading.


Yes, I realize how long it would take to boil 1.5 million gallons of product in a tank. It can take awhile.

Ever hear of a boiling pool fire?

That's a fire where a large quantity of flammable material has gathered in a pool -- on the ground, in a moat, whatever -- and the heat of the material burning on top causes everything beneath it to boil.

This does two things...

It greatly intensifies the heat of the fire, and it also makes it one hell of a lot harder to put out to the point where the material can maintain enough residual heat that it simply keeps self igniting.

Interestingly enough, one of the places where boiling pool fires are seen are places where there are large quantities of liquid fuels...

Like tank farms.

Rupture one tank and set the contents to blaze, and you can have a fire that is simply too large to be contained quickly and easily.

In other words, a fire that, if the liquid surrounds or abuts an adjacent storage tank, can provide more than enough heat to cause a BLEVE explosion.

Tank farm fires, whether at an oil refinery, a petrochemical facility, or a end user storage facility, are scary scary ****.

About 20 years ago when I was a volunteer fire fighter I had some experience with a boiling liquid pool fire. About 300 gallons of diesel fuel were set alight in a large open pan; the fuel was about 8 inches deep.

We left it burn for about 20 minutes, at which time it started to boil, and things got REALLY interesting. It was hot before, but when that diesel started to boil it felt like someone turned on a blow torch full blast and aimed it at us.

We tried extinguishing the fire with a large dry chemical extinquisher mounted in our rescue truck. We'd knock it down, put it out, and within 2 to 3 minutes it would reignite because the metal in the pan was super heated. That happend 4 or 5 times. We were trying to use up the chemical in the extinguisher (it held about 750 pounds) because it had to be recharged.

When we decided that we were ready to get serious, we set up two high volume foam hoses and the dry chemical extinguisher. It still took us another 10 minutes to get that tank of oil out to the point where it wouldn't reignite.

That was just a very small, very contained pool fire. Large pool fires can be almost impossible to fight effectively.


"but most vents ARE sized properly

Properly sized for what?

Vents currently aren't sized with an eye towards releasing the pressure generated by a catastrophic fire.

If they were sized to provide absolute protection against a BLEVE situation, then they would be far larger than they already are.

Some have proposed in the past to include blow out panels in storage tanks that would take over where the tank vents fail. As far as I know, that's never been adopted/mandated at a national level.

"Not that he has but he appears to find it highly unlikely as do I and alot of other people."

A lot of people thought that 19 Muslims highjacking 4 airliners in a coordinated fashion would be unlikely, as well.

It's always unlikely.

Until it happens.

And then you're ****ed.
 
Mike

To prove your point you need to simply find some real world scenerios where this has happened. Endless links to stories or articles that pose hypothetical situations do not increase the likelihood of the even happening.

It seems to me that every single expert that I have seen weigh in on the likelihood of this being successful has rated it somewhere along the same chances of Hillary getting the NRA endoesement for president.

That seems to be how most of these cases go.

They seem to get tons of press and huge amounts of attention in the very early stage and then suddenly disappear from the media once the reality of the situation starts to leak into the illusion.

They are fixated on just long enough to stir up hysteria and then pulled before real information gets to most people.
 
Mike, it appears you have your mind made up. Nothing will change it. Good for you. I'm from Missouri and you would have to show me something as tall taled as as this plot. So, how did they plan to do this diabolical plan of "unthinkable destruction"?

A satchell charge to blow a hole in the side of one and wait for it to all leak out and while the firefighters and police arrived, sneak in and light it up and hope they don't put it out before it bleve's the next tank over? Wow, cool, straight outa counterstrike. :cool:
 
WOW. You guys are actually arguing about weather this twarted terrorist attack had merit based on the scope of damage? SERIOUSLY ?????

And furthermore, some feel that stopping the enemy from having a "WE GOT EM AGAIN !!!" headline to prop up ISN'T to the credit of leadership??????

Guys, NO terrorist attacks have been successfully executed on US soil, territory, or Embassy since September 11th. This is not dumb luck. Leadership on every level from a family to a nation has authority and accountability inseparably tied together. Leadership is due the credit for success as well as the consequence of failure.

If this attack were successfull and only resulted in a big, slow burning fire would leadership been accountable for any less then thier heads on a stick?

BLEVE or no BLEVE......please

Let us never forget, your enemy (yes YOUR enemy) wants us all dead. Not just Repulicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, citizens or politicians, ANY and ALL of us will do. Your enemy wants YOU dead. And as a result of the deligated authority of leadership....they failed again.

How is that NOT an American battle victory? And if you actually believe this didn't mean much, then know this, A LOT of good men have secretly died on your behalf, more will, and even more are willing to. Let's not trivialize thier work by measuring it's merit by the potential scope of damage prevented.
 
As I said, I have e-mails in to NIOSH, API, and the other organization that I mentioned.

My comments have been mainly directed at those who claim that a BLEVE explosion simply can't happen with a non-pressurized liquid in a shell storage tank.

Oh, and I've already posted a film of a non-pressurized liquid BLEVE.

This one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucs5qrR5X0w

That's a styrene BLEVE.

It's funny you should say I have my mind made up, Jake.

You're the one who was adamantly claiming that only pressurized liquid gasses could BLEVE and that no way no how never never never never ever could anything like that happen.

And if experts say it's true, well we don't have anything to worry about ever, right?

Anyone who says otherwise is just fearmongering, just like all those fire and public safety organizations that actually have plans in place for dealing with liquid BLEVE events.

Shame on them for disturbing the public.

Shame.


Now, I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Hopefully it gets through this time.

BLEVE events are MOST common with pressurized gasses like LPG and LNG. That's just the nature of the beast. You get a faster pressure rise and greater.... phase change?... with something that is naturally a gas and which has to be either cooled significantly or heavily pressurized. That's the nature of the beast.

Those kinds of BLEVE events are also by far the most spectacular because the gas is naturally flammable, so when the vessel ruptures you have a double-acting explosion -- a pressure explosion and a fuel-air explosion.

That, however, does not mean that a BLEVE is impossible when dealing with non pressurized liquid fuels.
 
I thought we were fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here?
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that's not real, think about it... does it make sense? how could we be "fighting them over there" when our own borders aren't secure? lies.
 
O.K. Ego, we'll stop fighting terrorists outside of the United States and we'll do nothing with the border. In fact, we'll stop all law enforcement inside the United States, too. Feel better now?

Lies? The fact that the Administration has repeatedly prevented terrorist attacks inside the United States is not a lie.
 
Bruxley said:
WOW. You guys are actually arguing about weather this twarted terrorist attack had merit based on the scope of damage? SERIOUSLY ?????

Let's not trivialize thier work by measuring it's merit by the potential scope of damage prevented.
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No, you said that. I gave a bunch of other reasons why I am skeptical of certain government alleged "terror plots".

Here's another, the "informant" in jfk was a two time loser that has avoided life in prison a second time for attempted murder and drug trafficking 2 million of cocaine with his stunning investigation of his "undescribable destruction" but "they really could have never acomplished this and the public was never in any danger."

You guys believe what you want but when the government starts keeping company like this and presents this kind of trash weak fabricated evidence I will have my doubts.

It seems alot of people no longer believe in, "Innocent until Proven Guilty" anymore.
 
Jake.....

Got Hostility?

Let's ask the Mountaineers where the scuba divers are planning to dive. After all.....who can believe a scuba diver. They can't be trusted. Keeping such company is damaging to one's credibility right? And heck....if thier dive dosen't pull the plug and drain the entire sea and set the bottom ablaze then forget it. Small is no biggy.

But PLEASE.....don't peg me as your BLEVE. We got that YOU know. We are merely the nieve.

And seletive editing in the Quote was bad form, allow me to fill in the HUGE gap you left

And furthermore, some feel that stopping the enemy from having a "WE GOT EM AGAIN !!!" headline to prop up ISN'T to the credit of leadership??????

Guys, NO terrorist attacks have been successfully executed on US soil, territory, or Embassy since September 11th. This is not dumb luck. Leadership on every level from a family to a nation has authority and accountability inseparably tied together. Leadership is due the credit for success as well as the consequence of failure.

If this attack were successfull and only resulted in a big, slow burning fire would leadership been accountable for any less then thier heads on a stick?

BLEVE or no BLEVE......please

Let us never forget, your enemy (yes YOUR enemy) wants us all dead. Not just Repulicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, citizens or politicians, ANY and ALL of us will do. Your enemy wants YOU dead. And as a result of the deligated authority of leadership....they failed again.

How is that NOT an American battle victory? And if you actually believe this didn't mean much, then know this, A LOT of good men have secretly died on your behalf, more will, and even more are willing to.
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GOOGLE UP Juliet.
 
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