Wednesday, March 14, 2007

A Spectacular Firestorm or a Spectacular Dud?


Lately, the City of Boston has been in the news regarding Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and the potential dangers that it represents for the “Hub.” Boston is fortunate or unfortunate enough to be the only city to have such a energy resource near its heart. Without LNG, the Northeast would be a bit frosty during the winter.

However, the energy source comes with a price. Out of the various LNG facilities throughout the country, the LNG facility near Boston is the only one located in a highly populated area. So, as you can imagine, after 9/11 it became a “potential terror target” as LNG could (and I stress could) cause a severe firestorm that would burn the city to the ground. Unfortunately, there have been no tests as to see what would really happen to either a tanker ship carrying the cargo or the facility itself if it were to be successfully attacked by terrorists. Just a lot of theoretical “what ifs” represented in congressional studies and white papers. So it could either cause a big boom and incinerate everything for a mile or just fizzle and pop and do nothing. The great unknown represents the terror itself. Regardless, if you enjoy reading end of the world type scenarios, take a look at these articles:

http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid35111.aspx

http://news.bostonherald.com/politics/view.bg?articleid=188445

Don’t forget to bring the marshmallow’s...............................

2 comments:

The Ten Angry Men said...

During Gulf War I, an LNG tanker was actually hit by a missile. Nothing happened, leading one to beleive

a) the risk of an explosion is very minimal, or

b) the missile was built by Raytheon.

boyski said...

Actually, I believe the missile was a Silkworm or also known as a "seersucker." Its Chinese made. Nuff said about that. Come on, give the boyz from Raytheon a bit more credit.