Irony of ironies....The BLM wants to study solar impact on desert land for at least 2 more years but LNG seems to just grind ahead. The only thing that slows it down is activism.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Watchdog Agency Slams LNG Science and Says Experts Can’t Assess Disaster Potential
•GAO Study Contends that All the Questions about Tanker Safety Haven’t Been Answered Yet•
BY HANS LAETZ
A Congressional study on liquefied natural gas tankers dangers concludes that safety agencies deciding about building LNG terminals do not have the tools to evaluate risk from terrorist attack, human error or natural disasters. And a portion of the study’s panel of scientific experts thinks that Cabrillo Port’s current worst-case fire scenario is underestimated.
The report, described by one industry critic as “stunning and scary,” says existing LNG safety guidelines are based on studies done in the 1970s and ’80s that only “examined small LNG spills of up to 35 meters in diameter. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, however, many experts recognized that an attack on an LNG tanker could result in a large spill—a volume of LNG up to 100 times greater than studied in past experiments.”
New large-scale safety tests are slated to occur next year. Federal and state officials are going to make their determination on BHP Billiton’s proposal for 13.8 miles off Malibu within 60 days.
The Government Accountability Office report said the current estimate of the effects if an LNG spill from a ship is limited to a hole just 39 inches in diameter, and does not take into consideration the fact that the failure of one tank filled with a -260 degree fluid might crack a ship’s structural steel, causing other tanks to leak in what scientists call a “cascading failure.”
“One expert suggested that a one-meter hole in the center tank of an LNG tanker that resulted in a pool fire could cause the near simultaneous failure of the other four tanks, leading to a larger heat hazard zone,” the report said.
The GAO report said a majority of its panel of 15 scientists disagreed with the earlier study, done by the Sandia National Laboratory, “Only nine of 15 experts agreed with Sandia’s conclusion that only three of the five LNG tanks on a tanker would be involved in cascading failure. Five experts noted that the Sandia study did not explain how it concluded that only three tanks would be involved in cascading failure.
“Three experts said that an LNG spill and subsequent fire could potentially result in the loss of all tanks on board the tanker,” the report said. The report focused on LNG transport tankers, and did not address BHP Billiton’s plan to have such LNG tankers with five tanks tie up to Cabrillo Port and its additional three larger tanks.
“The GAO report confirms every one of the points that our experts have been saying,” said Environmental Defense Center attorney Nathan Alley. “There is so much uncertainty about very important matters, and the federal government has now gone on record that the LNG industry is shirking the amount of detailed research that needs to be done to protect people and the environment.
Oxnard anti-LNG film producer Tim Riley said, “The GAO study shows the federal scientists are finally admitting that they do not know what the effects of millions of gallons of cryogenically-chilled liquid on a ship’s decks will be. We’ve been saying all along it would make the ship’s skin peel like a banana, and now they say they agree that more study has to be done.”
Officials from BHP Billiton and a Washington LNG lobbying group did not return phone calls or e-mails.
The GAO report said 10 major areas of study should be undertaken on how LNG spills would unfold on ships, but noted that only three areas are being researched at this time, and none of those new reports will be available to decision-makers until at least late 2008. New studies on large fire phenomena, large LNG spills over water, and large-scale fire testing will be funded in fiscal year 2008, which starts next October.
But the report says additional studies need to be conducted on cascading failures, the impact of wind and waves on a spill and pool fire, the effect of differing hole sizes, and other critical factors.
“Experts agreed that the most likely public safety impact of an LNG spill is the heat hazard of a fire and that explosions are not likely to occur in the wake of an LNG spill,” the report says. “However, experts disagreed on the specific heat hazard and cascading failure conclusions reached by the Sandia study.”
The report noted that a majority of its panel of scientists agreed with the Sandia study. Among the dissenters, half felt it overestimated the hazards proposed by LNG tankers, the other half felt it understated those risks.
The report also notes that “some safety incidents, such as groundings or collisions, have resulted in small LNG spills that did not affect public safety.” That contradicts past claims by BHP Billiton that LNG tankers have never leaked.
The GAO study calls into question the adequacy of safety assessments at LNG terminals elsewhere in the nation being written by the U.S. Coast Guard, which has to write official Waterways Suitability Assessments for U.S. harbors. Since Malibu’s Cabrillo Port would be offshore on the high seas, a WSA is not being drafted for that project, Coast Guard officials have said.
“Experts disagreed with the heat impact and cascading tank failure conclusions reached by the Sandia study, which the Coast Guard uses to prepare Waterways Suitability Assessments,” the GAO report says.
The City of Malibu and local contributors are partially funding the EDC’s legal study and possible challenge to the Cabrillo Port permit, and EDC attorney Alley said the new congressional study confirms every point on safety that EDC has made.
“Number one, it says the risk models used by the federal government to evaluate Billiton’s safety are inadequate,” he said. “Number two, every one of their expectations on how an LNG fire would go down is based on incorrect assumptions or guesses.
“And number three, there is so much uncertainty about very important matters,” Alley said.
Riley, an Oxnard Shores attorney, said the GAO study says the same thing that he was labeled an “extremist” for bringing up three years ago.
“And there are a lot of additional questions raised by the study, like who were the scientists who were interviewed?” he said. “A lot of those people may work for the LNG industry as safety consultants.”
Riley said the GAO study shows “an ever-changing worst-case scenario” and said Malibu residents cannot rest assured that the permanently-anchored Cabrillo Port would stay put in an emergency.
“BHP Billiton has a proven record of failure in that department, one of its natural gas terminals that was supposedly hurricane-proof came loose in a hurricane and traveled 200 kilometers (124 miles) upside down,” he said. “There is nothing to stop an LNG leak from snapping those anchors, and the wind from blowing that facility onto the shore.” |
