Conservation Committee Co-chair
Lower Rio Grande Valley Sierra Club
Texas LNG, one of the five companies that hope to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities along the Brownsville ship channel, recently held “open house” events in Brownsville and Port Isabel.
While Texas LNG did not hand out coloring books or have face painting for the kids, as Annova LNG had at their “open house,” the events were little more than elaborate sales pitches. Information that might hurt their case was conveniently missing, but they did have a table full of cupcakes and a raffle for a Samsung phone.
Emergency evacuation plans for Port Isabel, for example, were left unmentioned. Texas LNG’s storage tanks will be holding enormous quantities of natural gas, so in the event of a breach the results could be catastrophic.
When LNG is spilled it quickly converts back into a gas and forms a flammable vapor cloud that can drift for some distance. If the cloud encounters an ignition source it will burn back to the LNG spill. LNG fires burn so hot that first responders cannot approach.
Texas LNG’s liquefied natural gas plant will be built less than 2 miles from the Walmart in Port Isabel, and about three miles south of the Port Isabel Junior High and High School. Sandia National Laboratories has recommended a 2.2-mile outer hazard zone LNG tanker ships. Chemical engineer and LNG safety expert Dr. Jerry Havens recommends a three-mile hazard zone.
A March 2014 explosion at a smaller LNG plant in Washington State forced an evacuation of hundreds of people within a two-mile radius. Luckily the fire burned itself out, and the LNG did not ignite, but the local fire chief noted that if it had everyone within three-quarters of a mile would have been killed.
While the Texas LNG employees at the “open house” were eager to say that they would merely be refrigerating natural gas, not refining it, that is not true. The gas that they will receive via pipeline from the Eagle Ford fracking wells will only be around 91 percent or 92 percent pure methane. To supercool it for export they need to get that gas to well over 99 percent pure.
So they will be refining the gas before they refrigerate it, taking out impurities including carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, volatile organic compounds, and mercury. Some of these, they say, they will try to capture, though the details are still to be determined. But some will be released into the environment.
Texas LNG General Manager David Glessner told Channel 5 News that “we generate it in a stack and it gets dispersed in the air.”
Texas LNG, one of the five companies that hope to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities along the Brownsville ship channel, recently held “open house” events in Brownsville and Port Isabel.
While Texas LNG did not hand out coloring books or have face painting for the kids, as Annova LNG had at their “open house,” the events were little more than elaborate sales pitches. Information that might hurt their case was conveniently missing, but they did have a table full of cupcakes and a raffle for a Samsung phone.
Emergency evacuation plans for Port Isabel, for example, were left unmentioned. Texas LNG’s storage tanks will be holding enormous quantities of natural gas, so in the event of a breach the results could be catastrophic.
When LNG is spilled it quickly converts back into a gas and forms a flammable vapor cloud that can drift for some distance. If the cloud encounters an ignition source it will burn back to the LNG spill. LNG fires burn so hot that first responders cannot approach.
Texas LNG’s liquefied natural gas plant will be built less than 2 miles from the Walmart in Port Isabel, and about three miles south of the Port Isabel Junior High and High School. Sandia National Laboratories has recommended a 2.2-mile outer hazard zone LNG tanker ships. Chemical engineer and LNG safety expert Dr. Jerry Havens recommends a three-mile hazard zone.
A March 2014 explosion at a smaller LNG plant in Washington State forced an evacuation of hundreds of people within a two-mile radius. Luckily the fire burned itself out, and the LNG did not ignite, but the local fire chief noted that if it had everyone within three-quarters of a mile would have been killed.
While the Texas LNG employees at the “open house” were eager to say that they would merely be refrigerating natural gas, not refining it, that is not true. The gas that they will receive via pipeline from the Eagle Ford fracking wells will only be around 91 percent or 92 percent pure methane. To supercool it for export they need to get that gas to well over 99 percent pure.
So they will be refining the gas before they refrigerate it, taking out impurities including carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, volatile organic compounds, and mercury. Some of these, they say, they will try to capture, though the details are still to be determined. But some will be released into the environment.
Texas LNG General Manager David Glessner told Channel 5 News that “we generate it in a stack and it gets dispersed in the air.”
The prevailing wind will carry the emitted carcinogenic compounds and substances that trigger asthma attacks straight to nearby Laguna Heights, and to Port Isabel’s schools. Glessner said that “we don’t generate that much,” but no one at the “open house” could say exactly how much it would be, and even relatively small amounts breathed in day after day after day by children sitting in their classrooms has the potential to cause long-term health problems.
This is in addition to the gas flaring – burning excess natural gas to relieve pressure – that will periodically occur.
This is in addition to the gas flaring – burning excess natural gas to relieve pressure – that will periodically occur.
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7 comments:
Ooohhhh, what scary bull shit.
I met the owners from this company, they are staying at the hotel I work at, really awesome people... . really friendly.... They come down 3,times a week and stay for about 4 to 5,days.
What ever the COMMIE sierra club claims rest assure their interest is not for HUMANITY'S QUALITY OF LIFE. They value animals over human beings, I rest my case!!!!!!!
They value animals over human beings
Look around, some human beings are worth less than the animals.
Look at the politicians, look at the sell outs, look at the violence, at the character mud sling .
I would save shamu and flipper over any human being named above.
Are not Human Beings , "animals" of a higher " thinking order"? That includes the Koch Bros. of the carnivorous order.
the people who support LNG have jobs so we do not have time to dress up like ocelots or smoke stacks. Time to wash those cute costumes by the way. Nor do we have time to dream up ways to scare people with bullshit dooms day scenarios. I really like the one about the traveling fireball that is going to some how blow up SPI or Brownsville. You even talk about the ultimate catastrophe, a SpaceX rocket hitting the LNG transport ship. The local amature "environmentalist" wackos who live....get this.....IN THE PORREST AREA IN THE WHOLE U.S.A. are against job creation, progress and...wait for it....CLEANER ENERGY!!!!... Aren't you the same idiots who protested the local wind farms ? You better get your obama handout money together to buy off some democrats. I drove by the first protest on the island. There was barely 60 people there out of those 60 there was about 25 elementry kids who did not have a clue. The other LNG events had about 10 to 18 protesters. The save the what ever facebook page says double and triples that.
I have been very involved with the Sierra Club effort to engage the public in this effort, and our understanding is that lease options have already been granted to five companies (I believe they are renewable). Three companies have already filed pre-applications with FERC. If all five make it through the FERC approval process, we will have an LNG city stretching from the Jaime Zapata boat ramp to 1.6 miles behind the Port Isabel HEB.We learned last week that Texas LNG will use electric motors to power two refrigeration trains, each using 100 megawatts, which they will buy from the grid which will be fed by the new Tenaska gas-fired power plant. Sign up for their newsletter at saveRGVfromLNG.com and they have a Facebook page as well as monthly meetings. LNG cargo tankers with Coast Guard escorts, should not be floating very close to the public beach at Isla Blanca, but that is the plan. Register your comments and concerns at www.ferc.gov, look for eComments under Documents and Filings and use docket numbers PF15-14, PF15-15 and PF15-20. It's time to speak up.
P.S. The "children" were college kids.
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