Elections Disad – Core – Hoya-Spartan 2012
LNG IMPORTS BAD: ACCIDENTS
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- EXT: LNG ACCIDENTS = BAD
- LNG explosions could lead to massive fires and intense burns, even from far distances
- AFF STUDIES ARE WRONG – DATA CONFIRMS A SMALL LNG SHIPPING ACCIDENT WOULD RESULT IN A SPILL OF LNG AT DANGEROUS LEVELS.
- LNG ACCIDENT OUTWEIGHS 55 HIROSHIMAS.
LNG IMPORTS BAD: ACCIDENTSINCREASE RELIANCE ON LNG IMPORTS CAUSES ACCIDENTS – OUTWEIGHS EVERYTHING.Lovins & Lovins 2001 (Hunter and Amory Lovins work together as analysts, lecturers and consultants on energy, resource and security policy in over 30 countries. Hunter Lovins has degrees in Law, Political Studies and Sociology and an honorary doctorate, and is a member of the California Bar. For six years she was assistant Director of the California Conservation project. Amory Lovins is a consultant experimental physicist, educated at Harvard and Oxford, who has published 23 books (many co-authored with Hunter) and several hundred papers. He has held various academic chairs, received six honorary doctorates, served on the US Department of Energy's senior advisory board, and consulted (often with Hunter) for scores of energy companies, manufacturing firms, governments and international organisations. The Lovineses have received numerous awards for their work. Brittle Power : Energy Strategy for National Security – Rocky Mountain Institute -- http://www.rmi.org/images/other/S-BrPwr-Parts123.pdf -- also available @ http://www.transitcommerce.com/Harpswell/weeks.asp) Disasters Waiting to Happen : Liquified Natural Gas Natural gas can be sent by pipeline over long distances. For a price, it can be piped from North Sea platforms to the British mainland, from Algeria to Italy, or from Siberia to Western Europe. But pipelines are not a feasible way to send gas across major oceans—for example, from the Mideast or Indonesia to the United States. A high-technology way to transport natural gas overseas has, however, been developed in the past few decades, using the techniques of cryogenics—the science of extremely low temperatures. In this method, a sort of giant refrigerator, costing more than a billion dollars, chills a vast amount of gas until it condenses into a colorless, odorless liquid at a temperature of two hundred sixty degrees Fahrenheit below zero. This liquefied natural gas (LNG) has a volume six hundred twenty times smaller than the original gas. The intensely cold LNG is then transported at approximately atmospheric pressure in special, heavily insulated cryogenic tankers—the costliest non-military seagoing vessels in the world—to a marine terminal, where it is stored in insulated tanks. When needed, it can then be piped to an adjacent gasification plant—nearly as complex and costly as the liquefaction plant—where it is boiled back into gas and distributed to customers by pipeline just like wellhead gas. Approximately sixty smaller plants in North America also liquefy and store domestic natural gas as a convenient way of increasing their storage capacity for winter peak demands which could otherwise exceed the capacity of trunk pipeline supplying the area. This type of local storage to augment peak supplies is called "peak-shaving." Such plants can be sited anywhere gas is available in bulk; they need have nothing to do with marine LNG tankers. LNG is less than half as dense as water, so a cubic meter of LNG (the usual unit of measure) weighs just over half a ton.1 LNG contains about thirty percent less energy per cubic meter than oil, but is potentially far more hazardous.2 Burning oil cannot spread very far on land or water, but a cubic meter of spilled LNG rapidly boils into about six hundred twenty cubic meters of pure natural gas, which in turn mixes with surrounding air. Mixtures of between about five and fourteen percent natural gas in air are flammable. Thus a single cubic meter of spilled LNG can make up to twelve thousand four hundred cubic meters of flammable gas-air mixture. A single modern LNG tanker typically holds one hundred twenty-five thousand cubic meters of LNG, equivalent to twenty-seven hundred million cubic feet of natural gas. That gas can form between about twenty and fifty billion cubic feet of flammable gas-air mixture—several hundred times the volume of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. About nine percent of such a tankerload of LNG will probably, if spilled onto water, boil to gas in about five minutes.3 (It does not matter how cold the water is; it will be at least two hundred twenty-eight Fahrenheit degrees hotter than the LNG, which it will therefore cause to boil violently.) The resulting gas, however, will be so cold that it will still be denser than air. It will therefore flow in a cloud or plume along the surface until it reaches an ignition source. Such a plume might extend at least three miles downwind from a large tanker spill within ten to twenty minutes.4 It might ultimately reach much farther—perhaps six to twelve miles.5 If not ignited, the gas is asphyxiating. If ignited, it will burn to completion with a turbulent diffusion flame reminiscent of the 1937 Hindenberg disaster but about a hundred times as big. Such a fireball would burn everything within it, and by its radiant heat would cause third-degree burns and start fires a mile or two away.6 An LNG fireball can blow through a city, creating “a very large number of ignitions and explosions across a wide area. No present or foreseeable equipment can put out a very large [LNG]... fire.”7 The energy content of a single standard LNG tanker (one hundred twenty-five thousand cubic meters) is equivalent to seven-tenths of a megaton of TNT, or about fifty-five Hiroshima bombs. EXT: LNG ACCIDENTS = BADAn LNG attack would be like a nuclear bomb going off, injuring manyProvidence Journal 4 (Mark Reynolds, staffwriter, "Lloyd's executive likens LNG attack to nuclear explosion" 9-21-2004, www.projo.com/massachusetts/content/projo_20040921_ma21lng.134600.html A terrorist attack on an LNG tanker "would have the force of a small nuclear explosion," according to the chairman of Lloyd's, a British insurer of natural gas port facilities like the ones being proposed in Fall River and Providence. The assertion, which is contested by industry experts, was in a speech that the chairman, Peter Levene, delivered last night to business leaders in Houston. Levene described Texas as a "state at risk" and said that securing its remote oil facilities is a "particular challenge." "Gas carriers too, whether at sea or in ports, make obvious targets," said Levene. "Specialists reckon that a terrorist attack on an LNG tanker would have the force of a small nuclear explosion." LNG explosions could lead to massive fires and intense burns, even from far distancesProvidence Journal 4 (Mark Reynolds, staffwriter, "Lloyd's executive likens LNG attack to nuclear explosion" 9-21-2004, www.projo.com/massachusetts/content/projo_20040921_ma21lng.134600.html One report does describe hypothetical fires that might erupt if gas leaks from a tanker in its liquid form changes into a gaseous form and ignites when it comes into contact with a flame. In one instance, the blaze, in less than a minute, would be capable of inflicting third-degree burns a little less than a mile away. Bryan Lee, a spokesman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said federal regulators have not changed their analysis. "Just about any expert will come up with a different assessment regarding LNG depending on the parameters and assumptions they have," said Lee, who emphasized the LNG shipping industry's safe track record. Regulators, he said, will review the safety of different LNG proposals on a case-by-case basis. "We stand by all of our analysis on this matter," he said. AFF STUDIES ARE WRONG – DATA CONFIRMS A SMALL LNG SHIPPING ACCIDENT WOULD RESULT IN A SPILL OF LNG AT DANGEROUS LEVELS.RAINES AND FINCH 3. [Ben & Bill – of Border Power Plants Workign Group – a thinktank for energy issues. Quoting the highly-qualified Lloy’d s Report – 12/7 – http://www.borderpowerplants.org/pdf_does/LNG_disaster.pdf] A confidential study commissioned by the owner of Boston's liquefied natural gas terminal suggests that an accident involving an LNG tanker could quickly evolve into a chain reaction of explosions and fires. Such a scenario would almost inevitably lead to a catastrophic failure of the ship and a spill of LNG that would be much larger and much more dangerous than anything so far considered in federal studies and assessments of LNG hazards. Virtually every study used by federal regulators considers the loss of less than one-fifth of the cargo onboard a typical LNG tanker to be the "worst-case" accident scenario. Most published scientific studies estimate that such a limited spill could result in a fire a half-mile wide. By contrast, the confidential study -- commissioned by Tractabel LNG North America LLC, which owns the Boston Distrigas LNG terminal -- proposes several scenarios in which even a relatively small rupture in one of the five cargo tanks onboard a ship could "escalate" and lead to ruptures in multiple tanks." Described as a “generic” assessment, the study by the international maritime industry consultant Lloy’ds Register of Shipping stops short of identifying how large an area could be affected by such a catastrophic failure of the ship. LNG fires are often described as more dangerous than fires involving gasoline or other hydrocarbons, in part because natural gas burns so efficiently and intensely, and in part because each gallon of LNG has several hundred times the energy potential of a gallon of gasoline. LNG ACCIDENT OUTWEIGHS 55 HIROSHIMAS.BOWMAN 95. [Stephen, published author, “US still ripe for terror” Denver Post -- May 28 -- lexis] The destruction, or perhaps even the disruption, of energy supplies could bring on the loss of millions of jobs virtually overnight, the starvation of hundreds of thousands and to at least some extent an environmental catastrophe. And there is another reason why energy sources should be a top priority on our national-defense list: They are so simple to destroy that it is ridiculous to even imagine they are not at the top of the list of terrorist targets. As one Department of Defense official explained in the wake of the World Trade Center bombing, the terrorist strives to get the most bang for his buck by achieving the most efficient kill ratio. He can spend $ 5,000 and explode a bomb in the World Trade Center. Or he can spend $ 1 on a bullet and wipe out the electricity of a whole city. Or maybe kill millions of people with a small vial of cheap but lethal chemicals. If the option is left open, sooner or later the terrorist will respond. According to a General Accounting Office report, in 1977, "Successful sabotage of an LEG (liquefied energy gas) facility in an urban area could cause a catastrophe. We found security precautions and physical barriers at LEG facilities generally aren't adequate to deter even an untrained saboteur. None of the LEG storage areas we saw are impervious to sabotage, and most are highly vulnerable." Liquefied energy gas is the generic term to describe both liquid natural gas - LNG - and liquid petroleum gas - LPG. Even though the energy content of a single LNG transport tanker is equivalent to that of 55 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs, very little has been done to assure that LNG shipments are protected from sabotage as they come and go through the ports of some of our major cities. Regardless of the government's own reports and warnings, LNG ships chug into the hearts of city harbors, and these cities are in danger of being leveled on any given day. Whereas oil contains more energy than does LNG, the liquid natural gas is actually more hazardous. Burning oil does not spread far over either water or land. LNG, on the other hand, is less than half as dense as water, so a single cubic meter of LNG weighs just over half a ton. One cubic meter of spilled LNG rapidly boils into about 620 cubic meters of natural gas, which mixes with the air - a mixture of between 5 and 14 percent is flammable. A single cubic meter of spilled LNG can make up to 12,400 cubic meters of flammable gas-air mixture. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 2.41 Mb. Share with your friends:
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