Middletown, Connecticut rocked by explosion

Digital Journal ^ | Sunday Feb7 2010 10:19 AM MST | KJ Mullins

[malamute]

An explosion in Middletown, Connecticut has rocked the town. Initial reports are that about a dozen people have been injured.

Middletown, United States - The Middletown Fire Department just said in a phone interview that they are in the process of putting out a second alarm. There are an unknown number of casualities. The explosion took place at NRG Power Plant on River Road. According to their web site they are the fossil-fueled electric generating plant in the state. Reports are saying that the blast could be felt as far away as Durham.

[raybbr]

I was dreaming about an explosion! LOL!

Glad I could get you to laugh. Have a great day. Are you planning to watch the SB?

[Gondring]

The plant was to be natural gas, and coal is much less likely to cause big explosions than natural gas is. As a nation, we really need to get back to coal for more of our power needs.

Hear, hear!

[doria253]

no hydrogen has lowest heat capacity

[Man50D]

Glad I could get you to laugh. Have a great day. Are you planning to watch the SB?

Yep. I'll tune in 5 minutes before the kickoff.

[WFTR]

Do you or anyone know if the plant’s steel construction means better rubble conditions than if it were masonry?

I'd much rather be surrounded by steel than masonry. Steel has more ductility than any kind of bricks or concrete. I guess reinforced concrete has resistance to shock as a result of the steel rebar.

[Gondring]

That’s what I figured, too.

[WFTR]

Wouldn’t there need to be a huge structure to contain enough explosive gas mixture to create such an enormous blast as this? I’m thinking an indoor arena sized building filled with a stochiometric mixture of oxygen and fuel to make such an explosion.

No, some gases readily form vapor clouds that are a mixture of air and flammable gas. The mixture is often the right ratio for fast burning if the cloud finds an ignition source. The cloud can float over a plant and will create a huge pressure wave on ignition. The pressure wave will crush everything underneath.

[Zeppo]

The live WTNH camera is apparently located on Wellwyn Dr. in the town of Portland, directly across the river from River Rd. in Middletown.

Here is the satellite view from Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=wellwyn+rd,+portland,+ct&sll=41.576223,-72.637138&sspn=0.013965,0.02017&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Wellwyn+Dr,+Portland,+Middlesex,+Connecticut+06480&ll=41.558548,-72.594073&spn=0.006984,0.010085&t=h&z=16

You can see powerlines crossing the river...

[Gondring]

FYI...

Santostefano said the explosion was related in some fashion to natural gas, but that the cause was still under investigation. He said the explosion appears to have occurred when operators attempted a "blow down" of natural gas pipelines, a procedure that involves the purging of gas from the pipelines.

http://www.courant.com/community/middletown/hc-middletown-ct-power-plant-explosion,0,3952195.story

[raybbr]

Yep. I'll tune in 5 minutes before the kickoff.

How will you know when THAT is? They never start on time.

[Gondring]

I think that's NRG to the northeast of the lines, and the Kleen Energy pre-construction to the southwest. Wow...WMRD 1150-AM seems to be right under the plant.

[freedom4ever]

I’m just wondering who you might work for doing HP steam piping repairs? I work in a supercritical plant; just wondering if our paths may have ever crossed?

[soycd]

>he cloud can float over a plant and will create a huge pressure wave on ignition

Got it. Kind of like how a MOAB unleashes its fuel/air and then touches it off.

[chuck_the_tv_out]

“hydrogen has lowest heat capacity”

no it’s high. see

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/spesific-heat-capacity-gases-d_159.html

[SteamShovel]

someone I was speaking to wondered out loud the other day whether H2 is actually used for cooling in the synchronous machine

H2 definitely is used to cool synchronous machines. Very successfully I might add. There are accidents, but not that often.

[chuck_the_tv_out]

“The sealing oil is to keep hydrogen in the GENERATOR part of the turbine-generator”

thanks for that. Do you by any chance have a reference?

[cicero2k]

I don’t think that is THE plant. There is no construction activity, no parking lots, site prep nothing. Try

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=Middletown,+Middlesex,+Connecticut&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FdEwegIdZ3Cr-w&split=0&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=23.875,57.630033&hq=&hnear=Middletown,+Middlesex,+Connecticut&ll=41.544144,-72.562348&spn=0.003886,0.010986&t=h&z=17

a couple of miles south. This appears to be a 16 gas turbine combined cycle, natural gas fired plant. I started one of these up, many years ago, but half the size. Looks like de-mineralized make up water tanks to the east. They could have been doing steam blowing. I had a close call myself with super-heated steam through a gasket on a flange that was not tightened properly. No way could this be an H2 explosion. There’s only a limited number of H2 bottles and it is not needed unless the plant is approaching full power.

These plants are sometime auxiliary fired to superheat and dry the steam generated from the GT’s exhaust. This is the only process I know where a large volume of combustible vapor would exist. Perhaps this process failed and blew up. Unless there was a catastrophic gas main failure that filled the entire steam cycle building and ignited before source could be shut off. That explosion could injure many persons during a construction/start-up milestone activity day.

[chuck_the_tv_out]

“H2 definitely is used to cool synchronous machines”

thanks. do you by any chance have a reference?

[JustPiper]

It is, this is how we power up AL & employment is contingent on our plants, everyone works there

[blackie]

Lotsa dead!