3 ms·
1 megaton? Even the largest LNG tankers can hold only 67 kilotons, so even if you had a perfect stoichiometric mixture somehow and detonated all of it at one yo
by hx87 9y ago
1 megaton? Even the largest LNG tankers can hold only 67 kilotons, so even if you had a perfect stoichiometric mixture somehow and detonated all of it at one you'd get maybe a 130 kiloton explosion.
- philipkglass 9y agoThe "megaton" of nuclear weapons fame equals 4.18 * 10^15 joules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent 1000 kg of natural gas has a lower heating value of 47.1 gigajoules, much greater than the 4.18 gigajoules per 1000 kg TNT equivalent. The lower heating value of 67,000,000 kg of natural gas is 3.16 * 10^15 joules: http://hydrogen.pnl.gov/tools/lower-and-higher-heating-values-fuels http://hydrogen.pnl.gov/tools/lower-and-higher-heating-value... So more like 750 kilotons TNT equivalent. There are multiple factors that give rise to natural gas's much greater energy density: - TNT carries its oxidizer internal to the molecule instead of getting it "free" from air - TNT equivalent energy does not include full combustion of the oxygen-deficient detonation products, only instantaneous energy release during detonation - TNT has a lower hydrogen:heavy atom ratio than natural gas