Or maybe it's The Horrors Of Capitalism, Part Whatever, as expressed by people with computers, smartphones, automobiles, kitchen gadgets and abundant food, none of which is the product of a non-capitalist economic system.
There's a chemical plant in Crosby, Texas that has already had a few explosions and which will have a nasty fire. There's no getting around it. They brew all manner of chemicals at the site, twenty miles away from downtown Houston and most of them have to be kept "very cool" to prevent explosions. Commercial power failed, but they had a backup generator; when water got to it, they transferred the stuff to diesel-powered refrigerated storage, but the water kept on rising. By that point, Arkema was in contact with local authorities and they evacuated a mile-and-a-half radius around the site.
Also by that point, my Facebook feed was blowing up with people bemoaning Arkema for being so "negligent" and comparing the situation to the Fukushima Daiichi reactor mess.
This is way off; Arkema in Crosby is a firecracker to the Fukushima hand grenade. Moreover, engineers working for the Japanese power company that operated the reactors had identified the risks (far more probable than the flooding in Texas) and recommended measures to prevent bad outcomes. The operator made very few of those improvements. Arkema had two levels of backups for keeping their chemicals cool. It's a lower risk and better prevention.
Then the location was criticized. Facebookers asked, "Why did they put the plant on a flood plain?" They didn't; you can pull up the maps and the site isn't even on the 500-year (0.2%) flood plain. Others, taking the generic chem-plant photos used to illustrate web news stories as on-scene images, griped at the "lazy" company putting a dangerous plant right along the water (it isn't) or in a residential area (it isn't).
This isn't a good situation and no doubt Arkema will be rethinking locations; they're going to lose this plant and all the product stored there and it may not be covered by their insurance. It's hardly criminal negligence to fail to plan for fifty inches of rainfall in a few days in a place that normally gets that much over the course of a year.
Most Americans live within thirty miles of a hazard as dangerous as the Arkema plant, if not more so. We fertilize farm fields with ammonium nitrate and anhydrous ammonia, we build high dams, pump natural gas across the continent in huge pipelines, etc. etc. With modern conveniences come modern hazards and when they crop up, it takes only minutes to do your homework instead of playing Chicken Little on social media -- but few people bother.
It took me a minute last night to pull up a map of the Arkema locations near Houston and find the one near Crosby; it was a couple of minutes to get a flood plan map and compare the two. This morning, I spent maybe five minutes reading updated news stories on the situation and reviewing articles on the Fukushima Daiichi reactor catastrophe to get a sense of the relative scale. Information has never been so available in human history and yet the bliss of ignorance still appeals
Bliss is over-rated. Be uncomfortable. Do the easy homework.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
12 comments:
Outrage ("Feelz") is always easier than thought (reason). And thus knee-jerk reactions from ignorance will always be the default setting of the majority of humanity.
This is why Communism fails - even Marx understood it. As one of my readers, TheGeekWithA.45 expressed it, utopia requires that the overwhelming majority of humanity be exceptional - and the bell curve doesn't support that, and regardless of what the Left thinks, there is no way to mass manufacture the New Soviet Man. This is also why our system was supposed to be a meritocracy, where those who are at the exceptional end of the bell curve were supposed to be the ones who gravitated to government, but instead they gravitated into business and left government for those a few standard deviations to the Left, so to speak.
Actually, at one time, successful business people like Donald Trump were expected to take a few years off to perform government service. The problem is the onset of credentialism the idea that someone could be educated to perform government service. This is actually a resurrection of the Chinese mandarin system which collapsed under corruption; much like our government is in the process of doing.
I live 3.1 miles as the crow files from this giant bomb. And downwind, too.
https://goo.gl/maps/1VBevjPYTHt
Of course, that's just natural gas. Not far west of it used to be Rock Island Refinery, and there's still an asphalt plant over there that stinks up the environs on a regular basis.
Never bothered me much.
They're building a high-pressure natural gas pipeline across NW OH and SE Michigan, and the NIMBYs are out in force. One lady was on TV the other night, saying, "Well, it's all OK until it isn't". Now, there is some profound thought! /sarc
Everyone wants cheap energy, but many don't want to accept the trade-offs. We also want good roads:
One of my best friends had the "new US 24" (runs between Ft. Wayne, IN and Toledo, OH run right through his land, less than 100 yards from his house. Which is on a county road that saw a dozen or 2 cars/day. He now has a 4-lane highway.
Back in the early 1950s, the Ohio Turnpike cut across my GrandDad's farm. Our house was on a very-lightly used gravel road, about 1/4 mile from the turnpike. So, we went from "silent nights" to the constant din of a highway.
Sure is nice to hop on those highways today, and it's sure nice to turn up the thermostat and heat the house for cheap.
As the Blog Father says, "Have you hugged a fracker today?"
@Jerry:
Bang on the money, sir.
Most people would be astonished at the dangerous cargo that travels through their cities each day on the train tracks. Look up "Weyauweega" and "propane" sometime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weyauwega,_Wisconsin,_derailment
I remember this, since I live about 30 miles away.
I don't think most people want to know. As Kevin said feelings are easier than thinking.
Of course I may be a little jaded/burnt out on threats. A previous life gave me some insight on where our big booms were and where the other guys big booms were aimed. Working less than 1000 yards from SAC HQ meant the only way I was going to survive nuclear combat, toe to toe with the Russkies, was to be on leave in another state when it kicked off. So I quit worrying about it.
Current life involves detailed knowledge of all the really nasty HAZMAT storage sites in the area. As you said, there ain't no getting away from it if you're in the wrong place when one goes fubar. Again, since I can't do anything realistic about it, I quit worrying about it.
Maintain situation awareness, know which way the wind is blowing, and be prepared to run or sit tight as needed. Then enjoy life.
I know some people, good people, who work for Arkema (at a different plant--made different chemicals, for different applications). I've visited a couple of times. Believe me, that company takes safety VERY seriously, and they hire good people. It sounds to me like they did everything right and then some, it just sucks that they are getting bad publicity over it.
The mountain tunnels West of Denver are closed to regular traffic as much as several times a day, to allow the passage of unspecified hazmat shipments. Well, there is still a good deal of mining and drilling nearby. Old timers (ahem) still recall the time a truck overturned at the I-70/I-25 interchange and was revealed to be carrying a half dozen torpedoes.
You want stuff?
I think I' entitled to the stuff!
You want stuff!
I want the stuff!!
You can't handle the stuff!!
Fuzzy Curmudgeon, I grew in a town that was home (at the time) to the oldest, operating oil refinery in the world. I doubt the asphalt plant near you catches fire as often as the one near us did. (Everyone in town knew what that siren sounded like.) and one of the tanks in the tank farm would catch fire every so often as well.
It was generally assumed that the 2 oil refineries, and 3 steel mills within about 5 miles meant that a nuke was probably aimed somewhere in our general direction. No one worried about it.
RandyGC, There isn't much you can do about modern hazards, but there are some precautions you can take. Like knowing what is around you. Maybe owning a gas mask if one of the hazards is a chemical plant. Or knowing if your home is in the flood plain covered by the local reservoirs. (Addicks and Baker. Some homes are lower than the alternative spillway levels. Kind of means they are guaranteed to flood under these circumstances.)
What surprises me most about Hurricane Harvey isn't the destruction (Andrew or Katrina?) but the complete lack of preparation on the part of a whole lot of people in that area. The images of people showing up at shelters with very little. I guess it is human nature to assume that the next storm is going to be like the last storm. Even though this storm was predicted to be Cat 3 and the last one was Cat 1.
Many of them aren't ignoramuses, they're liars.
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