4 ms·

"Storing" needs some context here I think. It's a factory producing 385kt of AN a year, so 6-12kt is approx a week's worth of production. I don't really see how

"Storing" needs some context here I think. It's a factory producing 385kt of AN a year, so 6-12kt is approx a week's worth of production. I don't really see how you can avoid needing that kind of buffer storage at that scale, and by all reports they're following strict safety standards. That said, that makes the real question why such a hazardous site was allowed to be built so near people in the first place.

Tuna-Fish 6y ago
> why such a hazardous site was allowed to be built so near people in the first place. I don't know about this specific case, but the chronology is usually reversed. Someone gets a permit and builds a hazardous factory somewhere suitably close to a city that it has access to transportation and employees, but far enough to be safe, with adequate safety areas. Then, over time, the city needs more room and since the factory hasn't blown up yet, it seems safe enough to expand right up to it...
VLM 6y ago
Finally my military experience is relevant. If you've ever wondered why military ammo depots rarely blow up despite plenty of accidents and fires (at least in western cultures or specifically in the USA), a long time ago I was an Army sysadmin for a computer system devoted to keeping that safe. This wasn't a centralized control thing either, it was a distributed system. There's a minimum contact diameter and maximum distance to propagate an explosion. Even if you detonate one pallet of one ton of ANFO literally making a checkerboard of pallets would seem from memory to be enough to make sure the explosion does not propagate to the other pallets. Now realize this was decades ago and I was more or less a sysadmin not a warrant officer nor one of the research scientists who wrote the books full of regulations nor the geospatial analysis code. Yes one pallet of one ton of ANFO would make a mess of the forklift driver next to it, but, maybe 100 or 200 hundred feet away, other than maybe some broken windows you'd be hard pressed to tell it happened. One of many AN production processes generates about one part calcium carbonate (limestone, essentially) to one part AN, so you could literally alternate train cars of synthetic limestone with train car loads of AN. Bulk storage is more problematic. A pretty good analogy is forest fires. One tree chopped into segments and catches fire is a pretty cool bonfire or camp fire which is no big deal for outdoorsmen who intelligently plan ahead. You can do that a million nights in a row and nothing bad will happen. One million trees in close proximity and if one catches fire the whole forest burns down in one night, which is a huge problem.
mdoms 6y ago
How is this relevant from a safety perspective?
paranoidrobot 6y ago
> by all reports they're following strict safety standards. Orica has been fined for safety breaches in the past. But even if they are doing everything right, you need to consider the context: it's surrounded by a bunch of things that can catch fire. There's a massive coal terminal, a fuel/petrol terminal, as well as a Fertiliser producer all within a few hundred meters of each other. Any one of those having a bad day and Newcastle makes state news and everyone goes to watch the fire. (Like seemingly half the country did when the Pasha Bulker freighter beached right on Nobby's Beach, a few hundred meters away). If that fire spreads, because say there's strong winds (also a common thing there) and now we have a risk of Orica's terminal going up.

Tuna-Fish 6y ago

> why such a hazardous site was allowed to be built so near people in the first place. I don't know about this specific case, but the chronology is usually reversed. Someone gets a permit and builds a hazardous factory somewhere suitably close to a city that it has access to transportation and employees, but far enough to be safe, with adequate safety areas. Then, over time, the city needs more room and since the factory hasn't blown up yet, it seems safe enough to expand right up to it...

VLM 6y ago

Finally my military experience is relevant. If you've ever wondered why military ammo depots rarely blow up despite plenty of accidents and fires (at least in western cultures or specifically in the USA), a long time ago I was an Army sysadmin for a computer system devoted to keeping that safe. This wasn't a centralized control thing either, it was a distributed system. There's a minimum contact diameter and maximum distance to propagate an explosion. Even if you detonate one pallet of one ton of ANFO literally making a checkerboard of pallets would seem from memory to be enough to make sure the explosion does not propagate to the other pallets. Now realize this was decades ago and I was more or less a sysadmin not a warrant officer nor one of the research scientists who wrote the books full of regulations nor the geospatial analysis code. Yes one pallet of one ton of ANFO would make a mess of the forklift driver next to it, but, maybe 100 or 200 hundred feet away, other than maybe some broken windows you'd be hard pressed to tell it happened. One of many AN production processes generates about one part calcium carbonate (limestone, essentially) to one part AN, so you could literally alternate train cars of synthetic limestone with train car loads of AN. Bulk storage is more problematic. A pretty good analogy is forest fires. One tree chopped into segments and catches fire is a pretty cool bonfire or camp fire which is no big deal for outdoorsmen who intelligently plan ahead. You can do that a million nights in a row and nothing bad will happen. One million trees in close proximity and if one catches fire the whole forest burns down in one night, which is a huge problem.

mdoms 6y ago

How is this relevant from a safety perspective?

paranoidrobot 6y ago

> by all reports they're following strict safety standards. Orica has been fined for safety breaches in the past. But even if they are doing everything right, you need to consider the context: it's surrounded by a bunch of things that can catch fire. There's a massive coal terminal, a fuel/petrol terminal, as well as a Fertiliser producer all within a few hundred meters of each other. Any one of those having a bad day and Newcastle makes state news and everyone goes to watch the fire. (Like seemingly half the country did when the Pasha Bulker freighter beached right on Nobby's Beach, a few hundred meters away). If that fire spreads, because say there's strong winds (also a common thing there) and now we have a risk of Orica's terminal going up.