Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
At 12:28 AM -0500 3/31/04, John Kelsey wrote: That's why the CEO has decided to move out of town. Actually, the ex-CEO, who commissioned the study, lives on a boat in a marina next door, :-), but, sure, point taken. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
RE: Liquid Natural Flatulence
R. A. Hettinga wrote: A *cryogenic* liquid, mind you, meaning that you'd have to heat the stuff up a lot, and very quickly, in order to set it ablaze, much less blow it up. A liquid which is busily sublimating directly into the gas that it is at room temperature, and diluting, accordingly, with the vast amount of normal air around it in the process. More to the point, as a gas, it's about half the weight of air itself, so it *rises*, as it dissipates, straight up, again, very quickly. It doesn't hang around, flowing down hill, and pooling like, say, C02 might, with the potential to asphyxiate people in the process. Bob: Get your facts straight: * Evaporating LPG (liquids do not 'sublimate') will burn at the interface where the proper mixture is obtains - and the heat from that will speed the evaporization of the rest. * LPGs (both butane and propane) are denser than air. Propane has about the same density as CO2. Butane is even denser. They will both travel downhill and pool in low spots. * LPGs can most definitely asphyxiate you. Check: http://www.lpga.co.uk/safe_handling.htm LPG can form a flammable mixture when mixed with air. The flammable range at ambient temperature and pressure extends between approximately 2 % of the vapour in air at its lower limit and approximately 10 % of the vapour in air at its upper limit. Within this range there is a risk of ignition. Outside this range any mixture is either too weak or too rich to propagate flame. However, over-rich mixtures can become hazardous when diluted with air and will also burn at the interface with air. LPG vapour is denser than air: butane is about twice as heavy as air and propane about one and a half times as heavy as air. Consequently, the vapour may flow along the ground and into drains, sinking to the lowest level of the surroundings and be ignited at a considerable distance from the source of leakage. In still air vapour will disperse slowly. At very high concentrations in air, LPG vapour is anaesthetic and subsequently an asphyxiant by diluting or decreasing the available oxygen.. The 'rise to the sky and disperse' stuff you're talking about applies to hydrogen, not LPG. A massive LPG spill will spread out over the surface of the ground and water, and when a source of ignition is found, the whole mass will burn at the interface where it mixes with air. You might also want to take a look at www.respondersafety.com/downloads/standoff.doc Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Safe Standoff Distance Cheat Sheet which reccomends in the case of an 18 wheeler LPG truck to keep people at least 1996 feet away. I would not want to be nearby when a tanker - or a massive storage tank - gets hit. Peter Trei
RE: Liquid Natural Flatulence
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Peter, I'm not going to get into a fisking match with you, but I didn't just make this stuff up, and I resent you saying I did. At 10:26 AM -0500 3/31/04, Trei, Peter wrote: * Evaporating LPG (liquids do not 'sublimate') will burn at the interface where the proper mixture is obtains - and the heat from that will speed the evaporization of the rest. Right. And, uncontained, it doesn't explode, either, which was my main point. It'll burn like hell, but that wasn't what the sanctified idiots at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists were FUDding on about. As for sublimate, when you toss a cup of boiling water into the air at extremely cold temperatures it converts straight into a gas, all at once. That's what I was talking about. A chemist I bumped into with that story called it sublimation, and when I said I thought sublimate was meant for solids only, he said no, that instantaneous conversion to a gas is sublimation whether origin state is a solid or liquid. Go figure. As for * LPGs (both butane and propane) are denser than air. Propane has about the same density as CO2. Butane is even denser. They will both travel downhill and pool in low spots. I did actually look this up when I wrote my rant. LNG floats on water, and, as a gas, it's lighter than air by about half the weight of same. Here's my source, from the US Department of Energy: http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:iM5Hh-010ksJ:www.borderpowerplan ts.org/pdf_docs/DOE_LNG_accident_impact_2002.pdf+distrigas+lng+tank+ev erett+ma+sizehl=enlr=lang_enie=UTF-8 See pages 12 and 13: LNG's density is 26.5 Lb/Cu.Ft. It's lighter than water, which is 65/lb/cuft The density of Natural gas is lighter than air, at .47, with air being 1. Natural gas rises under normal atmospheric conditions * LPGs can most definitely asphyxiate you. Duh? Did I say something about breathing the stuff? No. I said something about it pooling and causing asphyxiation that way. I got a better idea, Peter, read my source and tell me what you think. Maybe we can have an intelligent discussion without you pissing on my shoes about it. Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Safe Standoff Distance Cheat Sheet which reccomends in the case of an 18 wheeler LPG truck to keep people at least 1996 feet away. I would not want to be nearby when a tanker - or a massive storage tank - gets hit. Right, and this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. In order to lay in enough explosive make *all* of a multi-million-gallon LNG tanker/storage-tank go up the same way you might be able to do with C4 to an LNG truck, you would need either air superiority and a bunker-buster nuke, or you would need a battalion of ground forces to defend the demolition operation. If you can't control your airspace or defend your turf against either one of those, you have bigger problems than The End Of Boston As We Know It, the apocryphal blast radius from Boston to Billerica, or whatever, as Mr. Clarke, The Boston Globe, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists would have us believe. So, yes, if you could instantaneously convert *all* the LNG at the Everett Distrigas terminal into an explosion, you'd get a big one. And if every chinaman gave me a dollar, I'd be a billionaire, too. Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGr0y8PxH8jf3ohaEQLp4wCeNBakz9T0ovwJRO/KRSoS4C4XaVYAn3+o 5sAO2oXuCLnTjp1vG1Nuq7Cw =02WX -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
R. A. Hettinga (2004-03-31 16:41Z) wrote: At 10:26 AM -0500 3/31/04, Trei, Peter wrote: * Evaporating LPG (liquids do not 'sublimate')... As for sublimate, when you toss a cup of boiling water into the air at extremely cold temperatures it converts straight into a gas, all at once. That's what I was talking about. A chemist I bumped into with that story called it sublimation, and when I said I thought sublimate was meant for solids only, he said no, that instantaneous conversion to a gas is sublimation whether origin state is a solid or liquid. I very seriously doubt that. That chemist sounds full of shit. Boiling, evaporation, condensation, sublimation, melting, and freezing have nothing to do with the speed at which the phase change occurs. They refer to the qualitative aspect of state changes, notably the beginning, (transition,) and ending states. Sublimation is solid-gas with no intervening liquid state, that state being impossible due to prevailing pressure/temperature conditions. Haven't you ever seen a phase diagram? Furthermore, can you please explain how boiling water could change phase into a gas all at once? It takes energy for a compound to change to gas state, genius. Where's it going to get that energy, particularly when the surrounding air is at extremely cold temperatures? No macro-level events happen instantaneously in any reasonable sense of the word. Increase in atomic motion can only happen due to applied forces, and acceleration takes time. Even if one of those damned 50MT Russian thermonuclear bombs went off 100m away, a glass of water wouldn't vaporize instantaneously. -- If you don't do this thing, you won't be in any shape to walk out of here. Would that be physically, or just a mental state? -Caspar vs Tom, Miller's Crossing
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Justin wrote: As for sublimate, when you toss a cup of boiling water into the air at extremely cold temperatures it converts straight into a gas, all at once. That's what I was talking about. A chemist I bumped into with that story called it sublimation, and when I said I thought sublimate was meant for solids only, he said no, that instantaneous conversion to a gas is sublimation whether origin state is a solid or liquid. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_(chemistry) Sublimation of an element or substance is a conversion between the solid and the gaseous states with no liquid intermediate stage. -- http://www.britannica.com/search?query=sublimationct=fuzzy=N sublimation: in physics, conversion of a substance from the solid to the vapour state without its becoming liquid. An example is the vaporization of frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) at ordinary atmospheric ... -- I very seriously doubt that. That chemist sounds full of shit. Boiling, evaporation, condensation, sublimation, melting, and freezing have nothing to do with the speed at which the phase change occurs. They refer to the qualitative aspect of state changes, notably the beginning, (transition,) and ending states. Sublimation is solid-gas with no intervening liquid state, that state being impossible due to prevailing pressure/temperature conditions. Yep. -- Jim Dixon [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel +44 117 982 0786 mobile +44 797 373 7881 http://jxcl.sourceforge.net Java unit test coverage http://xlattice.sourceforge.net p2p communications infrastructure
RE: Liquid Natural Flatulence
Bob wrote: Justing wrote: Haven't you ever seen a phase diagram? Sigh. Yes. Here's one, for water: http://wine1.sb.fsu.edu/chm1045/notes/Forces/Phase/Forces06.htm And your point is? Let's see, if we rapidly cool boiling water by dispersing it in supercold air... somewhere past the triple-point, it goes straight through the solid state, do not pass go, and *sublimates* directly into the air. Now, maybe, it freezes at the molecular level, or something, first. But to the observer, it never reaches a solid state, and it turns directly into a gas. It sublimates. My understanding is that it has something to do with the extreme temperature differential. Like you get with a bunch of boiling LNG floating on the Mystic River under the Tobin Bridge. Which is what that guy from the USDOE said. The argument here is over your use of the word 'sublimate'. Liquid water can't sublimate by definition, since its a liquid. We're saying that your chemist friend is using the word incorrectly. That's all. Peter
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 6:16 PM + 3/31/04, Justin wrote: Haven't you ever seen a phase diagram? Sigh. Yes. Here's one, for water: http://wine1.sb.fsu.edu/chm1045/notes/Forces/Phase/Forces06.htm And your point is? Let's see, if we rapidly cool boiling water by dispersing it in supercold air... somewhere past the triple-point, it goes straight through the solid state, do not pass go, and *sublimates* directly into the air. Now, maybe, it freezes at the molecular level, or something, first. But to the observer, it never reaches a solid state, and it turns directly into a gas. It sublimates. My understanding is that it has something to do with the extreme temperature differential. Like you get with a bunch of boiling LNG floating on the Mystic River under the Tobin Bridge. Which is what that guy from the USDOE said. Furthermore, can you please explain how boiling water could change phase into a gas all at once? I don't have to explain how. It, in fact, *happens*. This is a common school-science trick in Alaska when it's cold enough: http://www.efieldtrips.org/Climbing/05d_ate_answer_detail.cfm?recordI D=1219 http://kinder.cmsd.bc.ca/pipermail/kinder-l/1999-February/020295.html I went to middle-school in Anchorage, but I didn't know about it myself until my sister-in-law told me the story, when I'd moved back to the Lower 48 years later. She heard about it from an (astronomer?) friend from *Fairbanks* (the real Alaska, you see, they don't call it Los Anchorage for nothing :-)) who used to do it at -60+ below, or something. The first example, above, is from Mt. McKinley, at 100 below. Anchorage, being in the banana-belt and warmed by the Humbolt current just like BC, usually only gets down to -40 or so. Hence the second example, some water, as ice, hits the ground. So, if you'll stop humping my leg, I'll finish my lunch now... Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGsX58PxH8jf3ohaEQLgrQCg4Z9EWmFJdK0vV+2OeLO9G2dOyeMAn1NT g4QopKYk93AZikgHznCRAEO9 =c/Ag -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
RE: Liquid Natural Flatulence
RAH wrote: Peter, I'm not going to get into a fisking match with you, but I didn't just make this stuff up, and I resent you saying I did. OK, I agree I was a bit snarky. Mea culpas below. At 10:26 AM -0500 3/31/04, Trei, Peter wrote: * Evaporating LPG (liquids do not 'sublimate') will burn at the interface where the proper mixture is obtains - and the heat from that will speed the evaporization of the rest. Right. And, uncontained, it doesn't explode, either, which was my main point. It'll burn like hell, but that wasn't what the sanctified idiots at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists were FUDding on about. Not only that, but it doesn't burn that fast: http://northstarind.com/lngfaqs.html Natural gas is only combustible at a concentration of 5 to 15 percent when mixed with air. And, its flame speed is very slow. These facts may best be experienced by a simple demonstration often done at LNG fire schools. A large pit, i.e., 20' x 20', is filled with LNG, allowing the vapor cloud to drift with the wind. The cloud is ignited with a torch from a downwind side. Ignition typically occurs near the visible fringes of the cloud. The resulting flame front moves back toward the pit at a speed only slightly faster than a walk. As for sublimate, when you toss a cup of boiling water into the air at extremely cold temperatures it converts straight into a gas, all at once. That's what I was talking about. A chemist I bumped into with that story called it sublimation, and when I said I thought sublimate was meant for solids only, he said no, that instantaneous conversion to a gas is sublimation whether origin state is a solid or liquid. Go figure. Well, I tried. Every dictionary I checked refers only to direct solid-gas transition. I'm aware of the effect you describe, but its not sublimation. See: http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/antarctica%20environm ent/weather.htm If you throw boiling water into the air at -32C, much of it evaporates instantly (the humidity is near zero), and some of the larger droplets freeze, falling to the ground as ice. No liquid will hit the ground. Volcabulary flames are about as pointless as they get, so I apologize for starting this one. As for * LPGs (both butane and propane) are denser than air. Propane has about the same density as CO2. Butane is even denser. They will both travel downhill and pool in low spots. I did actually look this up when I wrote my rant. LNG floats on water, and, as a gas, it's lighter than air by about half the weight of same. Mea culpa. I was confusing LPG and LNG. (Some of the sources I looked at refered to liquid propane and butane is LNGs.) Those gases are denser than air. Correctly speaking, they are referred to as Liquified Petroleum Gases (LPG), not Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). LNG is primarily methane, which, as you say, is lighter than air. Peter
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 7:56 PM +0100 3/31/04, Jim Dixon wrote: Sublimation of an element or substance is a conversion between the solid and the gaseous states with no liquid intermediate stage. Yes, I know the common definition. But, like I said, I was told by someone who claimed to know better, and, thinking about it, I think he's right. Since some people, like Peter, hypothesize that it's an extreme example of evaporation and not sublimation, :-), I'm going to go poke my nephew the chemistry student and see if I can get a pointer to an authoritative explanation. How's that? Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGseAMPxH8jf3ohaEQJH5ACgmwJBUhFHzBjIbsj24nl1sQrftisAoLNO Uu4jEgpN9fff9IwL0GnMCM0H =oUN/ -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
At 03:30 PM 3/31/04 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: Uh...this is getting tiring...as far as I'm concerned this part of the discussion looks like semantics. RAH's main point, physical chemistry aside, was that various folks benefit from hyperbole and/or fearmongering. That point remains valid, in many domains. The only language the American people understand is dead Americans. -EC
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
Uh...this is getting tiring...as far as I'm concerned this part of the discussion looks like semantics. From a pure physics standpoint, there isn't a hell of a lot of diference between a noncrystalline solid and a liquid. One's moving faster. The gaseous state is of course where molecules have reached an escape velocity, overcoming the inter-molecular attraction. In the case of a noncrystalline solid (at room temp) it probably makes sense to include transition from the liquid state into gaseous as being describable by the word sublimation. If not, the word is probably not very useful outside of HS and pre-med physics courses. -TD From: R. A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 14:38:03 -0500 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 7:56 PM +0100 3/31/04, Jim Dixon wrote: Sublimation of an element or substance is a conversion between the solid and the gaseous states with no liquid intermediate stage. Yes, I know the common definition. But, like I said, I was told by someone who claimed to know better, and, thinking about it, I think he's right. Since some people, like Peter, hypothesize that it's an extreme example of evaporation and not sublimation, :-), I'm going to go poke my nephew the chemistry student and see if I can get a pointer to an authoritative explanation. How's that? Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGseAMPxH8jf3ohaEQJH5ACgmwJBUhFHzBjIbsj24nl1sQrftisAoLNO Uu4jEgpN9fff9IwL0GnMCM0H =oUN/ -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
RE: Liquid Natural Flatulence
R. A. Hettinga wrote: A *cryogenic* liquid, mind you, meaning that you'd have to heat the stuff up a lot, and very quickly, in order to set it ablaze, much less blow it up. A liquid which is busily sublimating directly into the gas that it is at room temperature, and diluting, accordingly, with the vast amount of normal air around it in the process. More to the point, as a gas, it's about half the weight of air itself, so it *rises*, as it dissipates, straight up, again, very quickly. It doesn't hang around, flowing down hill, and pooling like, say, C02 might, with the potential to asphyxiate people in the process. Bob: Get your facts straight: * Evaporating LPG (liquids do not 'sublimate') will burn at the interface where the proper mixture is obtains - and the heat from that will speed the evaporization of the rest. * LPGs (both butane and propane) are denser than air. Propane has about the same density as CO2. Butane is even denser. They will both travel downhill and pool in low spots. * LPGs can most definitely asphyxiate you. Check: http://www.lpga.co.uk/safe_handling.htm LPG can form a flammable mixture when mixed with air. The flammable range at ambient temperature and pressure extends between approximately 2 % of the vapour in air at its lower limit and approximately 10 % of the vapour in air at its upper limit. Within this range there is a risk of ignition. Outside this range any mixture is either too weak or too rich to propagate flame. However, over-rich mixtures can become hazardous when diluted with air and will also burn at the interface with air. LPG vapour is denser than air: butane is about twice as heavy as air and propane about one and a half times as heavy as air. Consequently, the vapour may flow along the ground and into drains, sinking to the lowest level of the surroundings and be ignited at a considerable distance from the source of leakage. In still air vapour will disperse slowly. At very high concentrations in air, LPG vapour is anaesthetic and subsequently an asphyxiant by diluting or decreasing the available oxygen.. The 'rise to the sky and disperse' stuff you're talking about applies to hydrogen, not LPG. A massive LPG spill will spread out over the surface of the ground and water, and when a source of ignition is found, the whole mass will burn at the interface where it mixes with air. You might also want to take a look at www.respondersafety.com/downloads/standoff.doc Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Safe Standoff Distance Cheat Sheet which reccomends in the case of an 18 wheeler LPG truck to keep people at least 1996 feet away. I would not want to be nearby when a tanker - or a massive storage tank - gets hit. Peter Trei
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
At 12:28 AM -0500 3/31/04, John Kelsey wrote: That's why the CEO has decided to move out of town. Actually, the ex-CEO, who commissioned the study, lives on a boat in a marina next door, :-), but, sure, point taken. Cheers, RAH -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
RE: Liquid Natural Flatulence
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Peter, I'm not going to get into a fisking match with you, but I didn't just make this stuff up, and I resent you saying I did. At 10:26 AM -0500 3/31/04, Trei, Peter wrote: * Evaporating LPG (liquids do not 'sublimate') will burn at the interface where the proper mixture is obtains - and the heat from that will speed the evaporization of the rest. Right. And, uncontained, it doesn't explode, either, which was my main point. It'll burn like hell, but that wasn't what the sanctified idiots at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists were FUDding on about. As for sublimate, when you toss a cup of boiling water into the air at extremely cold temperatures it converts straight into a gas, all at once. That's what I was talking about. A chemist I bumped into with that story called it sublimation, and when I said I thought sublimate was meant for solids only, he said no, that instantaneous conversion to a gas is sublimation whether origin state is a solid or liquid. Go figure. As for * LPGs (both butane and propane) are denser than air. Propane has about the same density as CO2. Butane is even denser. They will both travel downhill and pool in low spots. I did actually look this up when I wrote my rant. LNG floats on water, and, as a gas, it's lighter than air by about half the weight of same. Here's my source, from the US Department of Energy: http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:iM5Hh-010ksJ:www.borderpowerplan ts.org/pdf_docs/DOE_LNG_accident_impact_2002.pdf+distrigas+lng+tank+ev erett+ma+sizehl=enlr=lang_enie=UTF-8 See pages 12 and 13: LNG's density is 26.5 Lb/Cu.Ft. It's lighter than water, which is 65/lb/cuft The density of Natural gas is lighter than air, at .47, with air being 1. Natural gas rises under normal atmospheric conditions * LPGs can most definitely asphyxiate you. Duh? Did I say something about breathing the stuff? No. I said something about it pooling and causing asphyxiation that way. I got a better idea, Peter, read my source and tell me what you think. Maybe we can have an intelligent discussion without you pissing on my shoes about it. Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Safe Standoff Distance Cheat Sheet which reccomends in the case of an 18 wheeler LPG truck to keep people at least 1996 feet away. I would not want to be nearby when a tanker - or a massive storage tank - gets hit. Right, and this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. In order to lay in enough explosive make *all* of a multi-million-gallon LNG tanker/storage-tank go up the same way you might be able to do with C4 to an LNG truck, you would need either air superiority and a bunker-buster nuke, or you would need a battalion of ground forces to defend the demolition operation. If you can't control your airspace or defend your turf against either one of those, you have bigger problems than The End Of Boston As We Know It, the apocryphal blast radius from Boston to Billerica, or whatever, as Mr. Clarke, The Boston Globe, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists would have us believe. So, yes, if you could instantaneously convert *all* the LNG at the Everett Distrigas terminal into an explosion, you'd get a big one. And if every chinaman gave me a dollar, I'd be a billionaire, too. Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGr0y8PxH8jf3ohaEQLp4wCeNBakz9T0ovwJRO/KRSoS4C4XaVYAn3+o 5sAO2oXuCLnTjp1vG1Nuq7Cw =02WX -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
R. A. Hettinga (2004-03-31 16:41Z) wrote: At 10:26 AM -0500 3/31/04, Trei, Peter wrote: * Evaporating LPG (liquids do not 'sublimate')... As for sublimate, when you toss a cup of boiling water into the air at extremely cold temperatures it converts straight into a gas, all at once. That's what I was talking about. A chemist I bumped into with that story called it sublimation, and when I said I thought sublimate was meant for solids only, he said no, that instantaneous conversion to a gas is sublimation whether origin state is a solid or liquid. I very seriously doubt that. That chemist sounds full of shit. Boiling, evaporation, condensation, sublimation, melting, and freezing have nothing to do with the speed at which the phase change occurs. They refer to the qualitative aspect of state changes, notably the beginning, (transition,) and ending states. Sublimation is solid-gas with no intervening liquid state, that state being impossible due to prevailing pressure/temperature conditions. Haven't you ever seen a phase diagram? Furthermore, can you please explain how boiling water could change phase into a gas all at once? It takes energy for a compound to change to gas state, genius. Where's it going to get that energy, particularly when the surrounding air is at extremely cold temperatures? No macro-level events happen instantaneously in any reasonable sense of the word. Increase in atomic motion can only happen due to applied forces, and acceleration takes time. Even if one of those damned 50MT Russian thermonuclear bombs went off 100m away, a glass of water wouldn't vaporize instantaneously. -- If you don't do this thing, you won't be in any shape to walk out of here. Would that be physically, or just a mental state? -Caspar vs Tom, Miller's Crossing
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 6:16 PM + 3/31/04, Justin wrote: Haven't you ever seen a phase diagram? Sigh. Yes. Here's one, for water: http://wine1.sb.fsu.edu/chm1045/notes/Forces/Phase/Forces06.htm And your point is? Let's see, if we rapidly cool boiling water by dispersing it in supercold air... somewhere past the triple-point, it goes straight through the solid state, do not pass go, and *sublimates* directly into the air. Now, maybe, it freezes at the molecular level, or something, first. But to the observer, it never reaches a solid state, and it turns directly into a gas. It sublimates. My understanding is that it has something to do with the extreme temperature differential. Like you get with a bunch of boiling LNG floating on the Mystic River under the Tobin Bridge. Which is what that guy from the USDOE said. Furthermore, can you please explain how boiling water could change phase into a gas all at once? I don't have to explain how. It, in fact, *happens*. This is a common school-science trick in Alaska when it's cold enough: http://www.efieldtrips.org/Climbing/05d_ate_answer_detail.cfm?recordI D=1219 http://kinder.cmsd.bc.ca/pipermail/kinder-l/1999-February/020295.html I went to middle-school in Anchorage, but I didn't know about it myself until my sister-in-law told me the story, when I'd moved back to the Lower 48 years later. She heard about it from an (astronomer?) friend from *Fairbanks* (the real Alaska, you see, they don't call it Los Anchorage for nothing :-)) who used to do it at -60+ below, or something. The first example, above, is from Mt. McKinley, at 100 below. Anchorage, being in the banana-belt and warmed by the Humbolt current just like BC, usually only gets down to -40 or so. Hence the second example, some water, as ice, hits the ground. So, if you'll stop humping my leg, I'll finish my lunch now... Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGsX58PxH8jf3ohaEQLgrQCg4Z9EWmFJdK0vV+2OeLO9G2dOyeMAn1NT g4QopKYk93AZikgHznCRAEO9 =c/Ag -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Justin wrote: As for sublimate, when you toss a cup of boiling water into the air at extremely cold temperatures it converts straight into a gas, all at once. That's what I was talking about. A chemist I bumped into with that story called it sublimation, and when I said I thought sublimate was meant for solids only, he said no, that instantaneous conversion to a gas is sublimation whether origin state is a solid or liquid. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_(chemistry) Sublimation of an element or substance is a conversion between the solid and the gaseous states with no liquid intermediate stage. -- http://www.britannica.com/search?query=sublimationct=fuzzy=N sublimation: in physics, conversion of a substance from the solid to the vapour state without its becoming liquid. An example is the vaporization of frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) at ordinary atmospheric ... -- I very seriously doubt that. That chemist sounds full of shit. Boiling, evaporation, condensation, sublimation, melting, and freezing have nothing to do with the speed at which the phase change occurs. They refer to the qualitative aspect of state changes, notably the beginning, (transition,) and ending states. Sublimation is solid-gas with no intervening liquid state, that state being impossible due to prevailing pressure/temperature conditions. Yep. -- Jim Dixon [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel +44 117 982 0786 mobile +44 797 373 7881 http://jxcl.sourceforge.net Java unit test coverage http://xlattice.sourceforge.net p2p communications infrastructure
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 7:56 PM +0100 3/31/04, Jim Dixon wrote: Sublimation of an element or substance is a conversion between the solid and the gaseous states with no liquid intermediate stage. Yes, I know the common definition. But, like I said, I was told by someone who claimed to know better, and, thinking about it, I think he's right. Since some people, like Peter, hypothesize that it's an extreme example of evaporation and not sublimation, :-), I'm going to go poke my nephew the chemistry student and see if I can get a pointer to an authoritative explanation. How's that? Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGseAMPxH8jf3ohaEQJH5ACgmwJBUhFHzBjIbsj24nl1sQrftisAoLNO Uu4jEgpN9fff9IwL0GnMCM0H =oUN/ -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
RE: Liquid Natural Flatulence
Bob wrote: Justing wrote: Haven't you ever seen a phase diagram? Sigh. Yes. Here's one, for water: http://wine1.sb.fsu.edu/chm1045/notes/Forces/Phase/Forces06.htm And your point is? Let's see, if we rapidly cool boiling water by dispersing it in supercold air... somewhere past the triple-point, it goes straight through the solid state, do not pass go, and *sublimates* directly into the air. Now, maybe, it freezes at the molecular level, or something, first. But to the observer, it never reaches a solid state, and it turns directly into a gas. It sublimates. My understanding is that it has something to do with the extreme temperature differential. Like you get with a bunch of boiling LNG floating on the Mystic River under the Tobin Bridge. Which is what that guy from the USDOE said. The argument here is over your use of the word 'sublimate'. Liquid water can't sublimate by definition, since its a liquid. We're saying that your chemist friend is using the word incorrectly. That's all. Peter
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
At 03:30 PM 3/31/04 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: Uh...this is getting tiring...as far as I'm concerned this part of the discussion looks like semantics. RAH's main point, physical chemistry aside, was that various folks benefit from hyperbole and/or fearmongering. That point remains valid, in many domains. The only language the American people understand is dead Americans. -EC
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
Uh...this is getting tiring...as far as I'm concerned this part of the discussion looks like semantics. From a pure physics standpoint, there isn't a hell of a lot of diference between a noncrystalline solid and a liquid. One's moving faster. The gaseous state is of course where molecules have reached an escape velocity, overcoming the inter-molecular attraction. In the case of a noncrystalline solid (at room temp) it probably makes sense to include transition from the liquid state into gaseous as being describable by the word sublimation. If not, the word is probably not very useful outside of HS and pre-med physics courses. -TD From: R. A. Hettinga [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 14:38:03 -0500 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 7:56 PM +0100 3/31/04, Jim Dixon wrote: Sublimation of an element or substance is a conversion between the solid and the gaseous states with no liquid intermediate stage. Yes, I know the common definition. But, like I said, I was told by someone who claimed to know better, and, thinking about it, I think he's right. Since some people, like Peter, hypothesize that it's an extreme example of evaporation and not sublimation, :-), I'm going to go poke my nephew the chemistry student and see if I can get a pointer to an authoritative explanation. How's that? Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGseAMPxH8jf3ohaEQJH5ACgmwJBUhFHzBjIbsj24nl1sQrftisAoLNO Uu4jEgpN9fff9IwL0GnMCM0H =oUN/ -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
Anyway, about a decade ago, Distrigas, the company that owns the facility in question, ran several *military* -- not law-enforcement - -- anti-terrorism scenarios to see exactly what would be needed to take the place out. What I've heard, albeit second-hand, is that in order to get a useful amount of that halfway-to-absolute-zero natural gas actually *flammable*, much less explosive, someone would have to ring the whole tank with a *huge* amount of explosives themselves, I'm no big fan of science by press release, but when's the last time you heard of anyone saying Well, we looked at our security situation, and two teenagers with bottle rockets could set this thing off. That's why the CEO has decided to move out of town. The usual response after you've pointed out a devastating attack on someone's system is yeah, but who'd think of that or but you're being unrealistic--real attackers will do this other thing (that we just happen to have defended against) instead. Cheers, RAH --John Kelsey, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA F259
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
Anyway, about a decade ago, Distrigas, the company that owns the facility in question, ran several *military* -- not law-enforcement - -- anti-terrorism scenarios to see exactly what would be needed to take the place out. What I've heard, albeit second-hand, is that in order to get a useful amount of that halfway-to-absolute-zero natural gas actually *flammable*, much less explosive, someone would have to ring the whole tank with a *huge* amount of explosives themselves, I'm no big fan of science by press release, but when's the last time you heard of anyone saying Well, we looked at our security situation, and two teenagers with bottle rockets could set this thing off. That's why the CEO has decided to move out of town. The usual response after you've pointed out a devastating attack on someone's system is yeah, but who'd think of that or but you're being unrealistic--real attackers will do this other thing (that we just happen to have defended against) instead. Cheers, RAH --John Kelsey, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA F259
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 11:31 PM -0800 3/28/04, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Bob, stick with obfuscated economics and playing with boats. Yea, I know. Think of it as me clearing the pipes for more stuff, or something. I haven't written much lately, and I'm starting to do that again. They just pissed me off, is all, and the thing wrote itself. So, now I feel better for my own bit of spontaneous combustion, which I probably shouldn't have sent here, since, of course, it wasn't topical. ;-). It's like two things I saw every day for several years apiece collided in meme-space, and I didn't even know I was even pissed off until I saw just the barest hint of those idiots being re-deified in the Globe Sunday morning. Whole decades of their sanctimony just became too much to abide anymore. Like nuclear power (or nuclear weapons), genetically modified foods, air travel, and lots of other progress, LNG is safe enough even in the worst-case scenario, and FUD-mongers like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are the worst kind of Luddite charlatans. But I bet you figured that out, right? :-). The non-exploding fireball from a refinery or storage facility will be sufficient to destroy the facility, and make nice video, which is sufficient. If Allah smiles, maybe you get a big bang too. The trick is to do more than one place in the same day, so it can't be written off as an industrial accident. Like I said, you would need a full-on military operation to do the job, a battalion for the main tank, or a smart bomb and air-superiority for one tank on a ship, which would be kind of obvious. And, of course, if that's what happened, you'd have more problems than a whole bunch of flaming fart-gas lighting up the Tobin Bridge... Anyway, to paraphrase John Astin's character in Night Court, I feel *muuch* better now, though I can't promise there won't be more later. :-). Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGgt8MPxH8jf3ohaEQKrnQCgjOzwlyuCZRTivxeOggcK7GBqgiIAn1Z1 XoOV+pfZ2Yzl2Sj0Y94SBSp9 =Cffy -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 At 11:31 PM -0800 3/28/04, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Bob, stick with obfuscated economics and playing with boats. Yea, I know. Think of it as me clearing the pipes for more stuff, or something. I haven't written much lately, and I'm starting to do that again. They just pissed me off, is all, and the thing wrote itself. So, now I feel better for my own bit of spontaneous combustion, which I probably shouldn't have sent here, since, of course, it wasn't topical. ;-). It's like two things I saw every day for several years apiece collided in meme-space, and I didn't even know I was even pissed off until I saw just the barest hint of those idiots being re-deified in the Globe Sunday morning. Whole decades of their sanctimony just became too much to abide anymore. Like nuclear power (or nuclear weapons), genetically modified foods, air travel, and lots of other progress, LNG is safe enough even in the worst-case scenario, and FUD-mongers like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are the worst kind of Luddite charlatans. But I bet you figured that out, right? :-). The non-exploding fireball from a refinery or storage facility will be sufficient to destroy the facility, and make nice video, which is sufficient. If Allah smiles, maybe you get a big bang too. The trick is to do more than one place in the same day, so it can't be written off as an industrial accident. Like I said, you would need a full-on military operation to do the job, a battalion for the main tank, or a smart bomb and air-superiority for one tank on a ship, which would be kind of obvious. And, of course, if that's what happened, you'd have more problems than a whole bunch of flaming fart-gas lighting up the Tobin Bridge... Anyway, to paraphrase John Astin's character in Night Court, I feel *muuch* better now, though I can't promise there won't be more later. :-). Cheers, RAH -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQGgt8MPxH8jf3ohaEQKrnQCgjOzwlyuCZRTivxeOggcK7GBqgiIAn1Z1 XoOV+pfZ2Yzl2Sj0Y94SBSp9 =Cffy -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
At 06:44 PM 3/27/04 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: And, remember again, you have to *enclose* a burning gas to make it explosive first place. Bob, stick with obfuscated economics and playing with boats. Many gases are explosive in certain ratios to air. Gasoline vapor, acetylene, in a wide range of ratios to air. Others have narrower ranges. But within these ranges you don't need enclosures. Except maybe for shrapnel. You don't need enclosures for explosive gas mixtures any more than you need an enclosure to get a boom from nitro. (This is the diff between a brisant, like nitro, RDX, PETN, TNT, even NI3, etc and something that merely burns fast like black powder or smokeless, which indeed must be enclosed to explode.) PS: if a diesel vehicle is tailgating, acetylene will nicely stop its engine in a rather expensive way. Can you say predetonation? A pound of calcium carbide and some water makes a nice vehicle stopper BTW, the .mil has looked into it. The non-exploding fireball from a refinery or storage facility will be sufficient to destroy the facility, and make nice video, which is sufficient. If Allah smiles, maybe you get a big bang too. The trick is to do more than one place in the same day, so it can't be written off as an industrial accident.
Re: Liquid Natural Flatulence
At 06:44 PM 3/27/04 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: And, remember again, you have to *enclose* a burning gas to make it explosive first place. Bob, stick with obfuscated economics and playing with boats. Many gases are explosive in certain ratios to air. Gasoline vapor, acetylene, in a wide range of ratios to air. Others have narrower ranges. But within these ranges you don't need enclosures. Except maybe for shrapnel. You don't need enclosures for explosive gas mixtures any more than you need an enclosure to get a boom from nitro. (This is the diff between a brisant, like nitro, RDX, PETN, TNT, even NI3, etc and something that merely burns fast like black powder or smokeless, which indeed must be enclosed to explode.) PS: if a diesel vehicle is tailgating, acetylene will nicely stop its engine in a rather expensive way. Can you say predetonation? A pound of calcium carbide and some water makes a nice vehicle stopper BTW, the .mil has looked into it. The non-exploding fireball from a refinery or storage facility will be sufficient to destroy the facility, and make nice video, which is sufficient. If Allah smiles, maybe you get a big bang too. The trick is to do more than one place in the same day, so it can't be written off as an industrial accident.
Liquid Natural Flatulence
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Robert Hettinga The Geodesic Economy Liquid Natural Flatulence Boston, Massachusetts March 27, 2004 After more than a decade of thankfully irrelevant silence, the usual mathematical-reductionist ex-nihilo nonsense is again being emetted from the (whatever) minutes to midnight idiots at the Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This time it was amplified to pain-threshold decibels this morning in the echo chamber on the Boston Globe's editorial page (Boston's Ground Zero, The Boston Globe, Sunday, March 27, 2004 http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/article s/2004/03/27/bostons_ground_zero?mode=PF ). Precipitated, apparently, by the amplified feedback of a distant Home-Alone-horrors double-face-slap by Dick Hey, Sumner, where's my advance check? Clark, in a hearing-room somewhere on Capital Hill this week. This time, though, the usual horrors and foot-stomping Hyde Park hissy-fit is about about Boston's liquid natural gas (LNG) port, over in Everett. Personally, I love their mathematical reasoning, in the same way that I love hysterical paradoxes, contradictions and tautologies of all kinds. It turns out that, go figure, there is a stupendous amount of explosive energy in a very large tank of Liquid Natural Gas. Especially, experts say -- and, what would we do without experts -- if it were released all at once. Using the same logic, of course, if every Chinaman gave me a buck, I'd be a billionaire. Gosh. As a point of my own personal reference, I used to walk by the aforementioned Scientists' ridiculous minutes to midnight clock sign every day on the way to class in Chicago during the entire M-X missile, nuclear freeze, nuclear winter, Testament, Reagan's-President-and-We're-All-Gonna-Die garbage in the early to mid-1980's. Every time the Democrats won a vote in Congress, the clock would go backwards. Every time the Republicans won, it would go forwards, counting down to nuclear oblivion. Gee. What a coincidence. Isn't science amazing, that it could make a calculation with such mathematical precision based on how *Congress* voted... In hindsight, of course, if they'd had their way, we'd all be quoting Marx in Russian or Chinese by now, and we'd be doing it everywhere in the US, not just in Hyde Park, Cambridge or Berkeley, places where they still do it now, though in English, and only when they're sure nobody can laugh at them. At the very least, we'd be living in the same constant terror of another kind, that of the total nuclear annihilation of every living thing down to, say, a slime mold. These Scientists are living -- barely, by some of their ages -- proof that the only thing more comical than a physicist psychic-investigator is a sanctimonious physicist-cum-crypto-politician. Especially one whose every utterance is literally sanctified by a leftist press and parroted there ad nauseam, like we saw happening in the Boston Globe this morning. So, let's add a few facts to the discussion, shall we? First, a confession of extreme personal, if not exactly plutographic, interest in this matter. For more than a decade now, on Wednesday nights during the summer, I crew on a sailboat that races in Boston Harbor. We sail right *by* this place. Twice, coming and going. Yup. The very dock where they offload the LNG that has our Scientists' panties in such a severe bunch. Hell, before 9/11, we've even had to duck the tanker occasionally in the middle of the Inner Harbor on our way to the next mark in the racecourse. Anyway, about a decade ago, Distrigas, the company that owns the facility in question, ran several *military* -- not law-enforcement - -- anti-terrorism scenarios to see exactly what would be needed to take the place out. What I've heard, albeit second-hand, is that in order to get a useful amount of that halfway-to-absolute-zero natural gas actually *flammable*, much less explosive, someone would have to ring the whole tank with a *huge* amount of explosives themselves, requiring, I'd bet, a whole *company*, if not a *battalion* of army troops to secure it for the time allowed to rig it all up. A time probably measured more in days, rather than hours, of uncontested *military* control of a very large facility. Fat chance, even in the Clinton Administration, who would probably be more likely to negotiate than fight, since everyone just *knows* that terrorism is a law-enforcement, and not a military, problem. Even then, even if they blew that ring of very large charges around the circumference of a very, very, large LNG tank, dumping its contents into the Island End and Mystic Rivers, *all* they would have is a very-fast, moving, *wave* of flammable *liquid*, giving you a *fire*, and not an explosion. Roughly the same as if you dumped a bunch of gasoline into the river and lit it. A *cryogenic* liquid, mind you, meaning that you'd have to heat the stuff up a lot, and very quickly, in order to set it ablaze
Liquid Natural Flatulence
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Robert Hettinga The Geodesic Economy Liquid Natural Flatulence Boston, Massachusetts March 27, 2004 After more than a decade of thankfully irrelevant silence, the usual mathematical-reductionist ex-nihilo nonsense is again being emetted from the (whatever) minutes to midnight idiots at the Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This time it was amplified to pain-threshold decibels this morning in the echo chamber on the Boston Globe's editorial page (Boston's Ground Zero, The Boston Globe, Sunday, March 27, 2004 http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/article s/2004/03/27/bostons_ground_zero?mode=PF ). Precipitated, apparently, by the amplified feedback of a distant Home-Alone-horrors double-face-slap by Dick Hey, Sumner, where's my advance check? Clark, in a hearing-room somewhere on Capital Hill this week. This time, though, the usual horrors and foot-stomping Hyde Park hissy-fit is about about Boston's liquid natural gas (LNG) port, over in Everett. Personally, I love their mathematical reasoning, in the same way that I love hysterical paradoxes, contradictions and tautologies of all kinds. It turns out that, go figure, there is a stupendous amount of explosive energy in a very large tank of Liquid Natural Gas. Especially, experts say -- and, what would we do without experts -- if it were released all at once. Using the same logic, of course, if every Chinaman gave me a buck, I'd be a billionaire. Gosh. As a point of my own personal reference, I used to walk by the aforementioned Scientists' ridiculous minutes to midnight clock sign every day on the way to class in Chicago during the entire M-X missile, nuclear freeze, nuclear winter, Testament, Reagan's-President-and-We're-All-Gonna-Die garbage in the early to mid-1980's. Every time the Democrats won a vote in Congress, the clock would go backwards. Every time the Republicans won, it would go forwards, counting down to nuclear oblivion. Gee. What a coincidence. Isn't science amazing, that it could make a calculation with such mathematical precision based on how *Congress* voted... In hindsight, of course, if they'd had their way, we'd all be quoting Marx in Russian or Chinese by now, and we'd be doing it everywhere in the US, not just in Hyde Park, Cambridge or Berkeley, places where they still do it now, though in English, and only when they're sure nobody can laugh at them. At the very least, we'd be living in the same constant terror of another kind, that of the total nuclear annihilation of every living thing down to, say, a slime mold. These Scientists are living -- barely, by some of their ages -- proof that the only thing more comical than a physicist psychic-investigator is a sanctimonious physicist-cum-crypto-politician. Especially one whose every utterance is literally sanctified by a leftist press and parroted there ad nauseam, like we saw happening in the Boston Globe this morning. So, let's add a few facts to the discussion, shall we? First, a confession of extreme personal, if not exactly plutographic, interest in this matter. For more than a decade now, on Wednesday nights during the summer, I crew on a sailboat that races in Boston Harbor. We sail right *by* this place. Twice, coming and going. Yup. The very dock where they offload the LNG that has our Scientists' panties in such a severe bunch. Hell, before 9/11, we've even had to duck the tanker occasionally in the middle of the Inner Harbor on our way to the next mark in the racecourse. Anyway, about a decade ago, Distrigas, the company that owns the facility in question, ran several *military* -- not law-enforcement - -- anti-terrorism scenarios to see exactly what would be needed to take the place out. What I've heard, albeit second-hand, is that in order to get a useful amount of that halfway-to-absolute-zero natural gas actually *flammable*, much less explosive, someone would have to ring the whole tank with a *huge* amount of explosives themselves, requiring, I'd bet, a whole *company*, if not a *battalion* of army troops to secure it for the time allowed to rig it all up. A time probably measured more in days, rather than hours, of uncontested *military* control of a very large facility. Fat chance, even in the Clinton Administration, who would probably be more likely to negotiate than fight, since everyone just *knows* that terrorism is a law-enforcement, and not a military, problem. Even then, even if they blew that ring of very large charges around the circumference of a very, very, large LNG tank, dumping its contents into the Island End and Mystic Rivers, *all* they would have is a very-fast, moving, *wave* of flammable *liquid*, giving you a *fire*, and not an explosion. Roughly the same as if you dumped a bunch of gasoline into the river and lit it. A *cryogenic* liquid, mind you, meaning that you'd have to heat the stuff up a lot, and very quickly, in order to set it ablaze
