Is anyone now in favor of banning natural gas?

[NNadir]

It now claimed that so called "dirty bomber" Padilla planned natural gas attacks on apartment buildings. The claim is, like the claim that Padilla planned "dirty bomb" (nuclear) terrorist attacks, probably nonsense.

Still one heard a great deal from the anti-nuclear power side about why nuclear energy was "too dangerous," from people citing this case. Terrorists, it was asserted could use so called "nuclear waste," and therefore nuclear energy was too dangerous. I argued that the Paddilla case was nonsense simply on the grounds that it is far too difficult to secure the requisite nuclear materials, and that there are much easier methods for terrorists to use. Some people didn't believe me. It now appears that if anything (and nothing has been proved since there has been no trial, indeed not even an indictment by Reichsminister Ashcroft) Padilla was at best, like other nuclear fantastics, imagining executing a nuclear attack. Imagining, although you wouldn't know it from some people's responses, is hardly in the same category as actually doing something.

Now, grasping at straws after their nuclear bogeyman failed yet again (1st time being Saddam), the Bushies have a new lie: Padilla planned natural gas explosions in apartment buildings. So what gives folks? Is natural gas now "too dangerous?" Should we ban the stuff on the grounds that we can imagine terrorists using it?

[demnan]

1. Hey, right after 9/11

they rounded up people in my apartment building. This was the case in other buildings in the Arlington and Fairfax VA areas. I have a friend in the know who said there was legitimate concern. Also we were at least once under some sort of threat that pertained to apartment buildings and there were written warnings from the leasing office. I don't think they were just trying to get Bush re-elected.

[Lenape85]

2. No

"Should we ban the stuff on the grounds that we can imagine terrorists using it?"

Uh, no. We should be trying to phase it out for other reasons, but a ban would be too devastating.

[NNadir]

3. Good answer.

One I agree with by the way.

We should be phasing it out for "other reasons."

[DEMVET-USMC]

4. Because Natural Gas is mostly methane it is the least polluting of all

hydrocarbons. We all use hydrocarbons in our daily lives and as I am sure NNadir is aware of this because she is knowledgeable in Chemistry and other science, it makes good sense that natural gas be an important part of our energy profile so to speak ,until and unless less polluting fuels are readily available, natural gas is a relatively clean burning fuel. ...Oscar ..P.S.From Oscar to NNadir Peace,apologies

[phantom power]

5. methane could be a superior alternative to hydrogen

methane is easier to handle and store than H2, and we already have well established infrastructure for distribution. It's hydrogen-to-carbon ratio is as high as possible: 4-to-1, and it burns very cleanly.

Of course, burning it does release CO2. But a sustainable "methane-economy" is carbon-neutral. Manufacturing methane using Sabatier reactors (for instance) pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere.

As with any sustainable fuel cycle, manufacturing requires energy input, and that energy has to come from somewhere, but we face that problem regardless of whatever solution(s) we end up trying to implement.

[DEMVET-USMC]

8. eje I very much appreciate your informative post Re:Methane -Economy

I learned something important today thanks to you. I admit to total ignorance regarding Sabatier reactors. I`m going to do a google and find out about them. As most know CO2, carbon dioxide, is a big problem and getting bigger all the time because we all burn hydrocarbons or other fuels that generate CO2. And also the two main by products of cellular resperation are CO2 and H2O < carbon dioxide and water >. Combine that with the fact that the population of the planet Earth is growing at an astounding and very dangerous rate which guarantees all these problems can only get worse at an ever increasing rate. It`s good to no some scientists are coming up with some answers for these vexing problems. ...Oscar

[phantom power]

9. let me know if you find anything interesting

I don't know much about them myself, except for a couple explainations I found via google.

I certainly don't know what issues would be encountered doing this on the massive industrial scale required to meet our current fuel needs.

[DEMVET-USMC]

13. Interesting is understatement,hard to understand why this isn`t in News

as it is surely an amazing and important technology. It is being used to produce methane, ethylene and a large number of other useful organic compounds. Also ammonia,Portland cement and Iron refinement. The list goes on and on. A good website regarding all this is: < http://www.angelfire.com/md/dmdventures/boot101.htm > I`m sorry eje,it took me so long to get back to you about all this. I had some things I had to attend to. ...Oscar

[AZCat]

6. I think the remarkable thing...

is how easy it is to build a bomb. After all, the Oklahoma City bomb was just fertilizer and diesel fuel. But a nuclear attack on say, New York City, is far more frightening than any conventional attack. Less likely? Sure - by quite a bit. But I think it is a mistake to expect humans to react in a rational manner.

Lots of people die in car crashes every year - many more than in airplane crashes. But the plane crashes are what catches the public eye, because they are bigger and more horrifying. So even if an attack by nuclear bomb is way less likely than one with a more conventional bomb, it's prevention will get more attention.

[Bdog]

7. How about a

10 kilo ton nuke placed on top of a nuclear power reactor vesel.

Imagine that freak show.

[DEMVET-USMC]

10. I think the B in Bdog stands for bad as in bad dog.

Oscar

[NNadir]

14. This is what if again, not is, ignoring reality in favor of fantasy.

Very typical of nuclear critics.

Do you have any idea how many people have died in natural gas explosions in the nuclear era? I'm sure you don't because I'm sure you don't care.

On March 16 of this year 58 people were killed in Russia when their apartment building blew up. 3000 people were killed in North Korea last month when two natural gas trains collided.

A Skikda, Algeria, on January 19, 2004, 27 people were killed when a gas liquification plant exploded.



On 23 December 2003, the natural gas explosion at Chongqing, south-western China, killed 234 people and injured about 500, forcing also the evacuation of more than 40,000 residents and the treatment of over 9000 people overcome by poisonous fumes. (This is more than the people treated at Chernobyl in this single accident.)

Then there's this gem:

"Up to the end of November, China has had more than 120,000 deaths from industrial accidents this year, with more than 7000 caused by methane gas explosions and flooding in coal mines."

Safer than nuclear? Only if you can't count.

Now we haven't even discussed the expectation value (number of deaths X probability) of a total atmospheric collapse in a runaway greenhouse scenario, in which methane is a definite player. (It is only second to carbon dioxide as a contributor, and molecule for molecule, methane, which has increased 150% in the industrial age, http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/017.htm is 22 times as potent a greenhouse warming gas as is carbon dioxide. As the link shows, methane contributes 20% to the direct radiative forcing that drives greenhouse warming, even though it is far less concentrated in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

The only way that nuclear is more dangerous than any of its alternatives (wind excepted) is if you only count nuclear deaths. This, tragically and immorally is exactly what people do.

It is amazing, simply amazing, that one has to repeat endlessly the truth because lies have such appeal. Of course this is not really new in human history, but it never fails, generation to generation, to depress. The truth in this case is simply this: Nuclear energy saves lives.

In fact, I would like to suggest that if we do begin to expand nuclear energy at an enormous rate (which is thankfully happening worldwide, there are 30 nuclear reactors under construction, 32 planned, and 72 proposed, http://www.uic.com.au/reactors.htm) we risk a death toll that might easily match, on percentage terms, the black plague in Middle Age Europe. Is that a certainty? No. Does it have a vastly higher expectation value than a putative nuclear reactor explosion (another Chernobyl) on earth? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[Pol]

11. Gas bomb

Actually, natural gas is more likely to explode than gasoline, since the range of rapidly-combusting fuel air mixtures is greater for natural gas than for gasoline.

Still, a natural gas explosion in an apartment seems more likely to cause a fire than to take down the building - more likely to knock over a few walls and blow out doors and windows than destroy the structure, depending, of course, on the nature of the structure. It seems kind of odd that the apartment gas bombing scheme is only just coming out, though. They have had him for a long time, and he supposedly readily confessed to the dirty bomb idea.

[treepig]

12. yes, by all means! but we mustn't forget the dangers of propane

and propane-related accessories, considering that propane is considered to be even more attractive than methane for terrorist's nefarious activities:

Propane marketers have long labored under tight regulations regarding safety issues, and now you are being asked-told-to beef up the security of your vehicles and routing practices as part of the country's War on Terror.

"September 11 did happen; it's a new world we're living in," says Slisz. "We need to be on our game all the time."


more at:

http://www.lpgasmagazine.com/lpgas/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=74522


and if that's not scary enough, i'm sure mr. tom ridge will soon enough be dredging up reports of terrorists using ethane and butane as well. to be safe, i propose we just go ahead and ban all hydrocarbons before it's too late.


there's apparently another very dangerous chemical out there, known as "DHMO" that up to 92% of people surveyed feel should be banned (see http://www.dhmo.org/research.html ) but "Despite the known dangers of DHMO, it continues to be used daily by industry, government, and even in private homes across the U.S. and worldwide. Some of its well-known uses of are:

as an industrial solvent and coolant,

in nuclear power plants, - scary!!

by the U.S. Navy in the propulsion systems of some older vessels,

by elite athletes to improve performance,

in the production of Styrofoam,

in biological and chemical weapons manufacture, - i bet Saddam himself used DHMO from time to time!!

as a spray-on fire suppressant and retardant,

in abortion clinics,

as a major ingredient in many home-brewed bombs,

as a byproduct of hydrocarbon combustion in furnaces and air conditioning compressor operation,

in cult rituals,

by the Church of Scientology on their members and their members' families (although surprisingly, many members recently have contacted DHMO.org to vehemently deny such use),

by both the KKK and the NAACP during rallies and marches,

by pedophiles and pornographers (for uses we'd rather not say here),

by the clientele at a number of homosexual bath houses in New York City and San Francisco,

historically, in Hitler's death camps in Nazi Germany, and in prisons in Turkey, Serbia, Croatia, Libya, Iraq and Iran,

in World War II prison camps in Japan, and in prisons in China, for various forms of torture,

by the Serbian military as authorized by Slobodan Milosevic in their ethnic cleansing campaign,

by many terrorist organizations,

in animal research laboratories, and

in pesticide production and distribution.

[midnight armadillo]

15. Ban fertilizer too!

That is after all what was used in Oklahoma City. Better get rid of those pesky cars and trucks too - they can be used to conceal bombs.
Any use of commercial explosive had best be curtailed since stocks of dynamite etc. aren't too hard to come by.

We might as well round up all the sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate we can find too, just in case someone makes a black powder bomb - a weapon with a proven track record of extinguishing life.

So what's your solution, NNadir, build more nuclear plants so we can heat our homes with electricity?

[NNadir]

16. It's quite clear that I recomment passive solar heating, and yes nuclear

electricity for home heating.

There are other nuclear related options, specifically thermochemical cycles to split water, make hydrogen, hydrogenate carbon dioxide and ship "manufactured" natural gas that can be burned in existing systems.

Another very good option was proposed by Jimmy Carter: Wearing sweaters around the house. It's kind of nice to turn the thermostat down and cuddle with one's wife or significant other.