Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Texas > Houston
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 12-09-2009, 11:54 AM
 
Location: A little suburb of Houston
3,702 posts, read 18,220,437 times
Reputation: 2092

Advertisements

From the pics that the news stations took, it looks like a vapor leak ignited in air. Possibly a leak from a compressor near that column or somewhere between those tank and the column. Those tend to make a huge amount of noise and mess. This plant is fairly new (around 2000 or 2001) and I believe this is their first explosion. Hope the 2 injured folks can recover and everyone else is ok. Guess we'll have to see how the air monitoring went. Sadly these things seem to happen in threes for some reason. We had the one at Valero, the one today...where next?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 12-09-2009, 11:56 AM
 
Location: Houston, TX
17,029 posts, read 30,937,594 times
Reputation: 16265
^^ Knocking on wood.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-09-2009, 12:19 PM
 
Location: Beautiful Downtown Rancho Cordova, CA
491 posts, read 1,262,095 times
Reputation: 402
Quote:
Originally Posted by tstone View Post
Wow, that one looks bigger than the explosion we had yesterday in Port Arthur. What's up with all these bombs going off??? Texas City, Port Arthur, now Shoreacres(ish). Hopefully no one is hurt.

Seabrook is closer to the chemical plants than a lot of people realize. Today's northerly wind probably blew those particles right over the town.
Possibly, plants (but not any plant mentioned in this thread) are no longer doing the maintenance that is required to keep them safe. Possibly, it is strictly cost-cutting for the sake of higher profits. Possibly, many long-term employees of the plants are scared to go to work everyday because they know how unsafe it is.

Last edited by ElectroPlumber; 12-09-2009 at 12:36 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-09-2009, 12:37 PM
 
1,329 posts, read 3,546,327 times
Reputation: 989
Based on this Total press release, American Acryl was a French and Japanese joint venture at inception in 1998:
Quote:
American Acryl has acquired a site nearby Pasadena, Texas, for its $150 million acrylic acid plant. The facility will be located in the Bayport Industrial District along the Houston Ship Channel.

American Acryl is a 50/50 North America joint venture of Nippon Shokubai and Elf Atochem, which announced one year ago their intention to produce acrylic monomers in America.

The Bayport facility will include a 120,000 tons-per year acrylic acid plant and a butyl acrylate plant separately owned and managed by Elf Atochem.

When in operation, the acrylic acid and butyl acrylate facilities will create a total of approximately 115 new permanent jobs and numerous temporary contract jobs. The project will provide 500-600 local construction jobs.

Major construction is expected to begin in 1999 with first production beginning mid 2000.

The acrylic acid unit will utilize Nippon Shokubai’s state of the art proprietary technology and all the facility is designed to operate within stringent environmental standards.

Elf Atochem and Nippon Shokubai plan to independently utilize their share of the acrylic acid production from the American Acryl Plant.

This project ushers in a higher level of cooperation and offers business opportunities for Elf Atochem and Nippon Shokubai. It further establishes both partners’ strategic positions as key players in acrylic monomers.

Acrylic acid and acrylic esters are key components in many commonly used household and personal care products, such as disposable diapers and water based products for paints, inks and adhesives.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-09-2009, 12:43 PM
 
Location: Houston, TX
17,029 posts, read 30,937,594 times
Reputation: 16265
Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectroPlumber View Post
Possibly, plants (but not any plant mentioned in this thread) are no longer doing the maintenance that is required to keep them safe. Possibly, it is strictly cost-cutting for the sake of higher profits. Possibly, many long-term employees of the plants are scared to go to work everyday because they know how unsafe it is.

^^This statement above is incorrect.

Plants continue to do maintenance. In fact with margins being poor many plants are shutting down units and doing planned maintenance that cant be done while the unit is operating.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-09-2009, 12:48 PM
 
Location: Beautiful Downtown Rancho Cordova, CA
491 posts, read 1,262,095 times
Reputation: 402
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oildog View Post
^^This statement above is incorrect.

Plants continue to do maintenance. In fact with margins being poor many plants are shutting down units and doing planned maintenance that cant be done while the unit is operating.
I think you would at least have to qualify your statement by saying that "most" plants are continuing to do maintenance, because there have been way too many explosions attributed to faulty maintenance to say that my statement is incorrect is ALL cases. And I did say "possibly" . . .
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-09-2009, 01:03 PM
 
Location: California
10,090 posts, read 42,433,741 times
Reputation: 22175
Smoke is long gone, cable is back....but there must be 6 or 7 helicopters still circling the area. I'm told 146 still closed.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-09-2009, 08:31 PM
 
Location: Central Bay Area, CA as of Jan 2010...but still a proud Texan from Houston!
7,484 posts, read 10,451,680 times
Reputation: 8955
Default Eek!

Quote:
Originally Posted by LostInHouston View Post
Seabrook shelter in place has been lifted... as well as the shelter in place for the CCISD schools.

Can't wait to find out all the lovely things I've been breathing in for the past 2 hours.
UGH! Toluene
Tank explosion at Houston-area plant injures 2 | Top AP National Stories | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6761858.html - broken link)
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-09-2009, 10:52 PM
 
739 posts, read 2,262,824 times
Reputation: 356
Maybe some idiot was smoking a ciggerrate. I remeber 2 years ago I was at work at Jim Coleman Company. Some idiot a few blocks away decided to weld on an emply tank of diesel full of fumes.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-09-2009, 11:44 PM
 
Location: houston/sugarland
734 posts, read 1,081,197 times
Reputation: 174
This is gotten to be a part of living in Houston, your living next to very large industrial sized refinery's and of course things cant stay perfect all the time. Things like this happen in Houston, just a part of life.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Texas > Houston
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:22 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top