CAUSES AND CONTRIBUTING FACTORS OF
ETHANOL PLANT AND TRANSPORTATION FIRES OR EXPLOSIONS
METROPOLITAN has performed an analysis of more than 300 fire or
explosion incidents that occurred between 2002 and November 2014 during the
ethanol production and transportation life cycle. METROPOLITAN has identified four root causes
of fires and explosions inside the ethanol plants. These root causes are:
·
Failure of the grain or other material drying process;
organic material built up in the duct work of the dryers are a very common
source of fires or explosions.
·
Quite a few fires have occurred during storage of
hazardous materials, such as ethanol, acids, bases, etc. Ethanol or denatured ethanol storage tanks
have caught fire. In addition, silos or
stockyards containing the grains have also caught fire.
·
The transportation risks of ethanol have been
well established; it is a very flammable liquid that has caught fire or
exploded several times during the last several years. These fires and explosions will only increase
in number and frequency as the industry continues to grow.
·
Many of the fires and/or explosions occurred
during maintenance activities at the plant.
With the advent of the cellulosic ethanol plants that use much
higher pressures and temperatures, it is our expectation that we will see much
higher number of fires and explosions at the plants. In fact, on July 20, 2014, a fire occurred at
the biomass stockyard at one of the 3 currently active cellulosic plants in the
states. The plant was the Poet-DMS plant
in Emmetsburg, Iowa.
We believe that many industries (especially the oil and gas
industry) took advantage the Great Recession that hit our country in 2007 to push
for unsafe and rapid development of oilfields, shales, plants, unsafe railroad
transport, unsafe roadway transport, and excessive utilization of aging
pipelines. The results of these impudent
actions have been all over the news during the last several years due to the
massive releases of oil and gas and ethanol into the environment. The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Kalamazoo
River massive contamination from pipeline ruptures and the New Brighton ethanol
derailment are just some examples of the unsafe operations of these processes.
Metropolitan Engineering,
Consulting & Forensics (MECF)
Providing Competent, Expert and
Objective Investigative Engineering and Consulting Services
P.O. Box 520
Tenafly, NJ 07670-0520
Tel.: (973) 897-8162
Fax: (973) 810-0440
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