The Solar Explosion.

[NNadir]

This account came from the Los Angeles Times February 27, 1999.

DAGGETT, Calif. A storage tank exploded at a solar power plant Friday, sending flames and billows of smoke into the sky for hours and forcing authorities to evacuate the immediate area. The fire, which broke out about 6 p.m., was still burning four hours later at the SEGS II power plant near Interstate 40 about seven miles east of Barstow, said San Bernardino County Fire Battalion Chief David McLees. Firefighters "tried to put water on it and said it was like putting out a house fire with a garden hose," he said.

The 900,000-gallon tank was holding a heat-transfer fluid called therminol, McLees said. Therminol is a hydraulic fluid that is heated to about 850 degrees and run through pipes to solar panels to help generate electricity, McLees said. The fluid can be mildly toxic. Authorities were also trying to keep flames from leaping to two adjacent containers that held sulfuric acid and caustic soda, both toxic substances, he said. An unspecified number of employees at the plant were evacuated. All known employees were accounted for, he said. The cause of the blast was not known, McLees said. Police and fire officials evacuated a half-square-mile area around the facility, said sheriff's spokeswoman Sue Santana.

Maybe the reason you didn't hear about it was because there has been a government coverup, as you might expect, ochestrated by the solar barons who dominate the energy business:

http://www.digitalstoryteller.com/BTV99/hartley/0303.shtml

Here's a photograph of the "mildly toxic" fire:



and the mildly toxic smoke from it:



Solar energy produces 0.01% of US electricty but it is growing annually at a brazillion percent per year. It is absolutely safe and has no risk whatsoever. Nothing bad will ever happen. Power will be too cheap to meter if we just go solar.

[phantom power]

1. Clearly, the external costs of solar are too high.

[NNadir]

5. I'm waiting for someone - you know who - to tell me that this is not a typical plant.

If I lived in, say, Arizona, and they were building solar thermal plants by the brazillion, I'd insist on another design.

Of course, if anyone proposed any kind of solar plant, you could always tell them all about this accident if you wanted to be a thorn in the side of the solar barons. Any solar accident can be talked about indefinitely whenever anyone proposes a solar plant of any kind.

[phantom power]

6. Exactly. After all, fair is fair.

[NNadir]

7. And we want to be fair.

All I can say is that we hope that those brazillion solar roofs don't all ignite.

[sal paradise]

2. Solar barons?

I've not yet heard that term used, but I like it.

[phantom power]

3. At least as good as "Big Biofuel"

[Dogmudgeon]

4. A.K.A. The Sun Kings

"You went the wrong way, oh, King Louie!"

--p!

[razzleberry]

8. is this thing still there? .n/t

[NNadir]

9. I have no idea. It think it's been decommissioned.

There's no word on the cost.

[jpak]

10. One Word

Chernobyl

eom

[phantom power]

11. I knew we could count on you to help make our point for us.

[Systematic Chaos]

12. But hold on... I thought the word was "Uberalles"...?

Chernobyl just doesn't have the same Nazi-esque glamour and sophistication to it.

:eyes:

[jpak]

13. Yes, Chernobyl spread fission products "über alles in der Welt"

Ja Ja

[Systematic Chaos]

14. And coal burning DOESN'T have radioactive byproducts?

:rofl:

An order of mercury with that?

[NNadir]

15. One word: Daggett.

Solar energy isn't even on an exajoule scale and it's already blowing up. I mean, it's not like this plant ever produced significant energy. It was a tiny little thing from an insignificant industry.

Actually compared to everything else, given that nuclear energy is producing close to 30 exajoules per year, Chernobyl is really, really, really, really small potatoes. It's not like it killed as many Russians as coal killed last year, not that you give a rat's ass about anyone who dies from coal.

If someone had been killed in this dangerous solar explosion, you wouldn't have given a rat's ass either, unless of course, you had an investment in the business from one of the trusts.

Oh, and you are a solar professional aren't you? I mean you wouldn't be solar hobbyist would you?

I can't wait to see the public reaction to the chemical waste from solar PV cells if solar energy ever gets to one exajoule.

Of course, solar electricity could never be as dangerous as the dangerous fossil fuels now being burned by Germany. It would be interesting to see how many weeks it takes for Polish, South Africans and Germans who will die from the new German coal industry. I'd estimate, given the release of dangerous fossil fuel waste, maybe about a month, putting the German coal industry at 12 Chernobyls per year.