Environment & Energy

NNadir

(34,654 posts) Tue Oct 1, 2024, 09:15 PM Oct 1

'Explosion after explosion' Three injured after truck towing 420kg of hydrogen crashes and explodes in Ohio

'Explosion after explosion' | Three injured after truck towing 420kg of hydrogen crashes and explodes in Ohio

Subtitle:

It was the second road accident involving the transportation of H2 in the US in the space of two days

An excerpt:

A pick-up truck and trailer carrying large cylinders of hydrogen crashed and exploded in Ohio yesterday, sending “balls of flames” ten metres into the air...

...Coincidentally, a day earlier, a hydrogen tanker crashed and overturned in the neighbouring state of Pennsylvania, trapping the driver.

The pick-up and trailer — belonging to North Carolina-based hydrogen fuel manufacturer and distributor OneH2 — collided with a Toyota Corolla in Orange Township, near the state capital Columbus, at around 2.30pm, before catching fire...

...“Everything went up in flames. There were balls of flames going up into the air and loud whistling noise,” he told local media.

“Explosion after explosion after explosion and it just didn’t stop...”

... And even without any ignition, high-pressure hydrogen leakage may cause spontaneous combustion and explosion, according to an academic paper published in the journal Energy Reports in 2022...

A link to the academic paper is here:

Hao Li, Xuewen Cao, Yang Liu, Yanbo Shao, Zilong Nan, Lin Teng, Wenshan Peng, Jiang Bian, Safety of hydrogen storage and transportation: An overview on mechanisms, techniques, and challenges, Energy Reports, Volume 8, 2022, Pages 6258-6269.

An excerpt of that paper:

...Hydrogen can easily cause material failure, which in turn can lead to leakage. Hydrogen leakage is followed by a mixture of air in a certain space to form a gas cloud; if it encounters an ignition source at this time, hydrogen cloud explosions easily occur. Even without ignition sources, high-pressure hydrogen leakage may cause spontaneous combustion and explosion. In 2019, there were several hydrogen explosions in Norway, the United States and South Korea. Among them, the explosion of a hydrogen fuel storage tank in South Korea caused 2 deaths and 6 injuries ( Yang et al., 2021). The causes of the accidents were hydrogen cloud explosions and chain explosions caused by hydrogen spontaneous combustion. These once again caused widespread public concern for hydrogen energy safety...

The material failure, which is well known, is called "hydrogen embrittlement." It's a big issue in chemical engineering and materials science.

The two deaths associated with the hydrogen explosion most probably exceed the deaths from radiation observed from the hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima reactors, since there is very little evidence that radiation leaks killed anyone, although fear of radiation related to unwise evacuations did kill people. The hydrogen generated at the Fukushima reactors was generated by steam at very high temperatures reacting with ziroconium metal alloys.

Comparison of mortality patterns after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant radiation disaster and during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Motohiro Tsuboi et al 2022 J. Radiol. Prot. 42 031502)

It's open sourced, but an excerpt is relevant:

However, in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant(FDNPP) accident, no direct health hazards due to radiation, such as acute radiation injury, were observed, while various indirect health effects were reported even in the acute phase [2, 3]. Major health effects are attributed to the initial emergency evacuation and displacement, deterioration of the shelter environment, evacuation from nursing homes, and psychological and social health effects. In addition, there were also the effects of medical collapse, where lives that could normally be saved by medical care could not be saved due to a lack of medical resources [4, 5]. It is known that these effects are particularly susceptible to the socially vulnerable [6].

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I added the bold.

Have a great day tomorrow.

7 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

'Explosion after explosion' Three injured after truck towing 420kg of hydrogen crashes and explodes in Ohio (Original Post) NNadir Oct 1 OP

If climate change is the threat we know it to be, we must lean on nuclear. The statistics are clear. texasfiddler Oct 1 #1

I was watching a tv show about the sinking of a russian sub Clouds Passing Oct 1 #2

Surprisingly, this effect has been known in structures, where hydrogen is generated by water reacting with metal. NNadir Oct 1 #3

I remember hearing about that. Clouds Passing Oct 1 #5

"Hydrogen is the vehicle fuel of the future... farmbo Oct 1 #4

Yeah, I've been hearing that line of bullshit since I was a young man, which was 50 years ago. Once upon a time... NNadir Oct 1 #6

"Until we build a safe, reliable pipeline system for hydrogen" Caribbeans Oct 2 #7

texasfiddler

(2,189 posts)

1. If climate change is the threat we know it to be, we must lean on nuclear. The statistics are clear.

Reply to NNadir (Original post)

Tue Oct 1, 2024, 09:19 PM

Oct 1

I believe in data and statistics, not headlines.

Clouds Passing

(2,267 posts)

2. I was watching a tv show about the sinking of a russian sub

Reply to NNadir (Original post)

Tue Oct 1, 2024, 09:21 PM

Oct 1

It sunk because of several explosions due to hydrogen corrosion.

NNadir

(34,654 posts)

3. Surprisingly, this effect has been known in structures, where hydrogen is generated by water reacting with metal.

Reply to Clouds Passing (Reply #2)

Tue Oct 1, 2024, 09:34 PM

Oct 1

A famous example is the "Cheese grater" skyscraper in London:

Fear of failure: Why bolts on London’s Cheesegrater tower began to break

Happily, the problem, revealed by falling broken bolts was discovered before the structure failed completely. The bolts were replaces with those of a different alloy

An excerpt:

...The reason for the replacement was that they were suspected of suffering from "hydrogen embrittlement", a process that lowers the ductility of fasteners. This then raised the question among those observers who were not metallurgists, materials scientists or structural engineers as to what hydrogen embrittlement actually was.Â

The answer is that it is quite scary …Â

The nature of the problem

"Hydrogen embrittlement causes fear among engineers," says Paul Lambert, the technical director of Materials and Corrosion Engineering at Mott MacDonald, "because it attacks the fundamental reason for using steel in the first place."Â

It is also the subject of intense interest and controversy among the materials science community, owing to the competing theories of what is occurring at the atomic level.

That said, there is a consensus on the basic mechanism, which is that single atoms of hydrogen enter the steel, migrate through the crystal lattice, and are attracted to the areas of highest stress. Here they cause tiny fractures to propagate and, in a worst-case scenario, a cascading effect can take place, as the stress increases and attracts more free hydrogen, leading to a sudden catastrophic failure – such as the shearing of a bolt.

One of the unpleasant peculiarities of this process is that it particularly affects very hard steel developed for high stress uses. Lambert says: "The problem is well known and there are magic numbers – such as 320 Vickers HV – above which the risk of hydrogen embrittlement becomes greater. The first thing to ask is whether the hardness of your bolt is above that value, and if it is, you’d expect an engineer to take certain precautions..."

Clouds Passing

(2,267 posts)

5. I remember hearing about that.

Reply to NNadir (Reply #3)

Tue Oct 1, 2024, 09:36 PM

Oct 1

farmbo

(3,139 posts)

4. "Hydrogen is the vehicle fuel of the future...

Reply to NNadir (Original post)

Tue Oct 1, 2024, 09:35 PM

Oct 1

... and always will be".

Until we build a safe, reliable pipeline system for hydrogen, the industry will not scale for cars and light trucks.

NNadir

(34,654 posts)

6. Yeah, I've been hearing that line of bullshit since I was a young man, which was 50 years ago. Once upon a time...

Reply to farmbo (Reply #4)

Tue Oct 1, 2024, 09:37 PM

Oct 1

...I was so poorly educated as to have taken it seriously.

Caribbeans

(975 posts)

7. "Until we build a safe, reliable pipeline system for hydrogen"

Reply to farmbo (Reply #4)

Wed Oct 2, 2024, 02:26 PM

Oct 2

"Until we build a safe, reliable pipeline system for hydrogen"

Like the H2 pipeline system on the Gulf Coast?

Just ONE company - Air Products- has >600 miles of Hydrogen piping there for years

The new, 180-mile pipeline expands our Gulf Coast hydrogen supply network
to more than 600 miles, stretching from the Houston Ship Channel in Texas
to New Orleans, Louisiana
https://microsites.airproducts.com/h2-pipeline/pdf/air-products-us-gulf-coast-hydrogen-network-datasheet.pdf

"WE" are more interested in shipping billions to the most corrupt country in Europe and blowing up Gas Pipelines built by others than actually building anything in the US.

There are other pipelines too, working as you read this, while many many people spout the lie that "Hydrogen cannot be piped because of Embrittlement".

So according to some, I'm a "Hydrogen Bot". On a "discussion board" for Environment and Energy. What the fuck is the point of posting anymore, instead of info, these places are mostly about trying to insult and belittle those one disagrees with. Said as one who started reading DU about 2003 and posting under a few different name since around 2007.

Probably time to sit back and watch China take over the H2 industry and laugh at the idiocy. Some of us were trying to alert the masses when China took over the Solar industry but DC's attention at that time was occupying Syria - like "we" still do (FOR THE OIL), not on anything that would actually make life better.

With any luck I'll be an ex-pat soon.

And speaking of explosions

There has been a deliberate attempt to ignore (or worse) H2 here in the US - just as in the UK. Bets by "stakeholders" (ROFL) are on batteries. One day their disgraceful methods will be made public. Probably few will care though.

Plans to make the UK the 'Qatar of hydrogen' could be 'torpedoed by civil servants' who have 'made a bet' on clean electricity to provide the nation's energy in shift away from fossil fuels

But civil servants are said to be opposed to the Prime Minister's hydrogen plans
Whitehall said to have 'made a bet' on clean electricity at expense of hydrogen
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10149821/Civil-servants-resisting-Boris-Johnsons-hydrogen-energy-plans.html

What is the current size of the hydrogen market? The current market size of the hydrogen market is USD 243 billion in 2023. It's as if this fact was completely ignored. LINK

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