Late last week two Praxair hydrogen tanks at a hydrogen fueling station in Rochester, NY partially exploded and caused a fire. The person closest to the explosion is in the hospital in satisfactory condition and another person was treated for minor ear pain and released.
Now, if you’re a hydrogen detractor as they apparently are at Cars.com you’ll run a headline such as this: “Hydrogen Explosion Deals Blow to Fuel Cell Advocates”. Of course they relate this event to the Hindenburg fallacy that so many hydrogen haters will latch onto.
According to Cars.com, “During a swap of hydrogen tanks by a company that supplies GM with tanks for its fuel-cell fleet, one tank exploded, and the resulting fire led to a second tank exploding.” Now, this sounds pretty bad, having two hydrogen tanks fully exploding creating all sorts of fire and chaos such as a mini Armageddon. People must have been running to and fro yelling about the End of Days, getting on their cell phones and telling friends and relatives to leave town, now.
But, here is another report about the same event from 13wham.com, “Friday morning, Praxair crews were on the scene surveying their tanks and beginning the process of emptying those tanks of the remaining hydrogen gas. Upwards of 2,500 pounds of compressed gas remained in the tanks and it was slowly released through a small hose.”
They go onto say, “A preliminary investigation conducted by Monroe County Fire Officials and Praxair is giving a lot of credit to a one-inch thick steel plate that separates the hydrogen tanks from the manifolds nearby. That plate and other safety features on the trailers prevented potentially much more serious, and subsequent, explosions according to fire officials.”
So, who to believe? Do we believe Cars.com with the apocalyptic view that the sky is falling for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and this is the last gasp for this industry? Or do we believe a neutral news agency without an agenda who reports that yes, there was an explosion, no one died and in fact the person closest to the explosion will survive and the event could have been much worse if it wasn’t for the safety features in place to prevent further explosions?
Cars.com failed to report was that there was a substantial amount of hydrogen left in the tanks that did not explode or catch on fire because of the safety features. What they also failed to report is that gasoline carrying trucks and gasoline fueling stations do experience fires and explosions which can be much more devastating than this incident. In fact in the 5-plus years I’ve been writing about hydrogen this is the first time I’ve come across a story about an explosion at a hydrogen fueling station.
Here is a video of the explosion taken from a security camera at the nearby Rochester, NY airport. The explosion and fire are in the upper left hand corner of the screen. The video seems a bit shocking when you play it for the first time and not so shocking the second time. You’ll see the camera shake from the shock wave of the explosion and some fire that quickly shuts down. Trucks, cars and other vehicles continue to drive by.
I don’t want to understate that hydrogen has the potential to catch fire and explode because it does. It is both combustible and flammable. I also don’t want to hype hydrogen incidents such as this are akin to the Hindenburg explosion with fear mongering that says “Oh, the Humanity” this could shut down the entire hydrogen industry.
Chalk this one off to yes, fuel sometimes does catch fire and explode. Yes, we need to be careful in handling fuel. Yes, hydrogen fuel like any other fuel needs safety precautions in place for handling, storage and transportation.
And because of this false paranoia by some of the public and detractors about hydrogen, the manufacturers of hydrogen fueling equipment have created safety features that far exceed that for other fuels. The incident that happened in Rochester should be a wake-up call that handling hydrogen fuel will have accidents and incidents.
But these accidents and incidents will be no scarier than those involving other fuels. In fact, there are so many safety features in place, such as automatic shutoff valves and one-inch thick steel plates, that one would expect the incidents that do happen will be of a much smaller scale that incidents involving other fuels.
So, to recap, the whole fuel cell industry is not in jeopardy because of this one incident. The one person closest to the flames is in the hospital in satisfactory condition. Another person was treated and released for minor hearing problems after the explosion. There is nothing more to see here folks, now let’s move on.
Do we know what the orange flames were? Hydrogen doesn’t produce visible flames in daylight and the orange color suggests carbon. Was a hydrogen-methane blend involved?
No flammable hydrogen gas, no explosions. This is possible, laser metal hydrides come to mind as well as hydrogen on demand technology.
I agree that cars.com is biased. Honestly, I hope a move away from large tanks
of compressed hydrogen gas is in the works. Hydrnol is an option, a hydrogen carrying fluid that is non flammable and non toxic. The beauty of both hydrnol and laser metal hydrides is that remote refueling may become possible and stations might be cheaper to build.
Barring a major discovery that results in a fast charging ultra high capacity
battery based on common materials, battery only electric is not the answer.
Even if batteries get a lot better, there’s the issue of limited infrastructure
where advanced hydrogen storage technologies offer the possibility of getting around the infrastructure problem.
How many serious gasoline/diesel station accidents are there and do people typically walk away from these accidents in fair to good condition? Higher gas mileage is not a road leading to zero emissions, BHEVs (battery hybrid electric vehilces) still burn fossil fuels.
I’m not sure why the flames were orange or why there was black smoke afterward.
Here is another article about this event, however.
http://rocnow.com/article/local-news/20108280332
Hey, Kevin. I think it’s important to point out that the tanks did not explode. Although the airport officials stated that at the press conference, it was later confirmed that the tanks were in tact.
It’s also important to point out that the safety systems put in place worked as designed. Only minor property damage and minor injuries.
Chris
That was so much worse than the Gulf spill and the war that’s going on or the thousands that are dying from air pollution everyday!
Actually genuinely great weblog article which has received me considering. I by no means looked at this from the stage of look at.
Great article. You made some useful points.