Hydrogen station explodes

she's happier with her hydrogen fuel vehicle that she can't drive, than one of those electrics that take 10 hours to charge at home while you're sleeping.
uh-huh, makes sense to me

 

I think it is just aesthetic paneling to cyclone fencing to hide the equipment.

 

Ohoh - that's going to skew the gas station vs hydrogen accident ratio stats I posted earlier.
.

 

Or not. The explosion was at a production plant. We use hydrogen for other things besides expensive Camries.

 

Temporary as in, "this things are expensive, and netting little profits, so let's put up the cheapest thing to hide the ugly grey equipment," then yes.

 

There are some aerial photos.

Looks like it is pre-fab, with the delicate stuff build into shipping containers.

I'm guessing local codes would require venting of some kind. The safety factor of hydrogen floating away doesn't apply in an enclosed space.

 

We used a lot of H2 inside lab buildings no probs but much ventilation and big spaces, tall ceilings, and probably some way to detect flow rate spikes...not sure.

California probably has a number of H2 plants but sounds like only one was selected to fuel the few FCV vehicles they have. Sounds like the truck loading rack had a problem. Again it is a little hard to comprehend as H2 has been loaded onto trucks probably 100-years now, buit I do not know if they are trying some new methods or whatever.

 

Here is the Norway H2 company Nel ASA...apparently suppliers of renewable source H2.
I am not aware of Nel ASA like say for example Lurgi who I think probably has a robust H2 filling station offering.

Nel ASA - Wikipedia

 

Right?

But then again its no more irrational that people who say electric cars are too dangerous after a Tesla fire while happily driving a vehicle full of a highly flammable and explosive liquid fuel.

 

A commenter to the Jalopnik article on this posted these.
How Not To Do It: Hydrogen Gas Mixtures | In the Pipeline

That was once a micro lab. Hydrogen is used to scavenge oxygen in anaerobic chambers. Well, some ended up with oxygen in a place it shouldn't be, and four people were injured, with at least one sent to the hospital.
This seems to a be a case of poor training, and hydrogen cars and public stations should have a higher degree of idiot proofing, but hydrogen is flammable and explosive over a wide range of concentrations in air, and doesn't take much to ignite.

These are lessons in why you should never defeat pressure relief systems.
How Not to Do It: Liquid Nitrogen Tanks | In the Pipeline
How Not to Do It: Liquid Oxygen Cylinders | In the Pipeline
The top one was at an estimated 1200psi.

 

Yes there are potential hazards that have to be properly addressed

 

"An assembly error of a specific plug in a hydrogen tank in the high-pressure storage unit has been identified as the root cause of an explosion to a hydrogen station in Norway."
Cause of hydrogen station explosion identified | News | gasworld

 

Good, at least we are getting some information now.
I also wonder why the H2 was allowed to acculmate (not vented properly?) and why they did not find this leak in pressure testing. It also sounds like some kind of unique design not used by USA, others. I have to guess the more reputable H2 filling station design vendors might be able to critique the Norway design.

Now if Air Products would kindly tell what happened in Ca., that would help too.

 

One detail I caught somewhere about the European explosion was that the pressure wave was enough to set off the airbags in some cars passing by at the time of the event. I hadn't ever thought about that before. A little scary all by itself.

 

Anytime you have a explosive mixture of air and any flammable gas or vapor (including gasoline vapor inside your pistons) -- if ignited -- you get an extremely powerful explosion technically known as a "detonation". Detonation implies shock waves etc. So this is why air/vapor mixtures can be so hazardous. And ignition source can just be static electricity. Explosion-proof equipment is equipment which does not accidentally iginite gas mixes, and is another question for Norway.

To demonstate this, you could fill one balloon with methane and another balloon with methane/air mixture. Then ignite those ballons, and you will see the methane/air explosion is much more rapid and powerful.

Even dust like grain elevator dust in air can detonate.

 

Hydrogen can get explosive at a low concentration in the air, so venting alone may not be enough to prevent an accident. Safety measures aren't guarantees. Still have plenty of fires and explosions with gasoline and natural gas.

Parts can fail after passing testing. Then hydrogen can act like a halogen and degrade materials.

I heard the cars were Teslas.

 

Yes there are potential hazards that have to be properly addressed...if you are using correct materials of construction/maintenance for H2, there should not be problem with unexpected degradation of materials.

 

Because it’s hydrogen everybody is getting all riled up. Between 2014 and 2016, FEMA estimated 171,500 vehicular (>83% were passenger vehicles) fires occured (https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v19i2.pdf) that caused 345 deaths and $1.1B in damages. About 5,000 gas station fires happen per year according to National Fire Protection Association.


Unsupervised!