High on pentane
Seems I remember a “60 Minutes”(?) story sometime in the wake of Se[tember 11 on the vulnerability of U.S. chemical plants to terrorist attacks. Critics branded Bush Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s proposed security upgrades “toothless.”
“There are a lot of ways to skin a cat, and we’re going to let chemical operators figure out the right way, as long as the cat gets skinned,” Chertoff said.
So. Whatever happened with that?
Meantime, hazardous chemicals transported by rail seem to be having a bad 2023 so far (Newsweek):
On February 3, a tanker train derailed in the Ohio town of East Palestine, near the state border with Pennsylvania. The crash led to multiple explosions and chemical leaks, prompting the governors of both states to issue evacuation notices for the town and its surrounding areas. Controlled burns of the vinyl chloride from the train’s tanks were initiated, with residents warned that the air could be flooded with dangerous gases like phosgene and hydrogen chloride.
The fiery crash was one of more than a dozen train derailments reported in the U.S. this year, only 1 1/2 months in. Another wreck, on January 19, also occurred in Ohio, with several train cars stretching over miles derailing between the towns of Trinway and Adam’s Mill, according to the Times Recorder. It was considerably less destructive than the one in East Palestine, as the cars were empty, though cleanup efforts were projected to last for a week.
Derailment chemical spills are not as frequent as mass shootings, thank goodness, but still.
I’m reminded of another South Carolina derailment years ago, this one involving a tanker carrying ethylene oxide. It is used in small quantities in hospitals to sterilize instruments that cannot tolerate autoclave temperatures. It sterilizes effectively because it kills … basically everything. It’s not only toxic and carcinogenic, but explosive:
A site adjacent to a factory where my firm did some design/construct work sold EtO. Another engineer who’d had business there said one of his contacts had doodled out on his blotter how large a crater the explosion would cause if one of their EtO railcars blew up. Um, large.
Some years later, there was a derailment near Liberty, SC (IIRC). The state environmental agency’s press office statement over the radio said one of the overturned tank cars was leaking caustic soda, but that was contained. Another car, she said haltingly, contained “eth-yl-ene ox-ide.”
“I’m not sure what the properties of that are,” she went on, “but as a precuation they have ordered an evacuation of people living within a quarter of a mile.”
Maybe Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas can get on that.
(Dibromochloropane, cholorinated benzenes)
I went walking in the wasted city
(Two, nitropropane, pentrochlorophenol)
Started thinking about entropy
(Benzotricholoride, strontium chromate)
Smelled the wind from the ruined river
(One, two, dibromo, three, chloropropane)
Went home to watch TV