Con Ed substation explosion during Superstorm Sandy
CORRECTED COPY and CORRECTED HEADLINE
From Salon.com Possible explosion at Con Ed power plant
UPDATE: John Miksad, Con Ed’s Sr. V.P. of Electic Operations, has confirmed to NY1 that the explosion occurred at one of the company’s substations, knocking out power for 230,000 to 250,000 residents in parts of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. There were no reported injuries.
My guess is that this video footage of a dramatic explosion at a Consolidated Edison electricity distribution substation during Superstorm Sandy is destined to be far less famous than the footage of the brief hydrogen explosions at Fukushima Daiichi following the Sendai earthquake and tsunami.
NOTE: This paragraph remains generally true, but is not related to the transformer explosion depicted in the video.
Thermal power plants, by their very nature, are places where there is a great deal of stored energy. There are ways to make them more resilient; nuclear plants have generally invested far more in that effort than their fossil fuel competitors. I wonder if this particular Con Ed plant is one that might have been a nuclear plant if the focused opposition had not spread fear, uncertainty and doubt during an epic battle in the earliest days of nuclear energy development.
During that battle David E. Lilienthal, who had been the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, but was no fan of the technology reportedly told the committee holding a hearing on the proposed plant:
“I would not dream of living in the borough of Queens if there were a large atomic power plant in that region, because there is an alternative — a conventional thermal power plant as to which there are no risks.”
Also on my radar screen this morning is another Gundersen effort to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about nuclear energy by implying that Superstorm Sandy puts Oyster Creek and other nuclear plants at risk of a Fukushima-like incident. Will Davis wrote an excellent response on ANS Nuclear cafe titled Spent Fuel Pool at Oyster Creek.
It’s not a power plant per-se. A substation really. Transformer failures can be so dramatic.
I saw a report on Drudge of a 6-alarm fire in Breezy Point (Rockaway) that had destroyed about 50 homes. There were rumors that it was natural gas related, since electricity had already gone out. Someone had called in to the gas company trying to get the service shut off to that area. No confirmation yet, but I would not be surprised if it were an NG-fed blaze, and even less surprised that the media would not give it the same coverage as TMI or Fukushima.
Do you have a source? The original Washington Post source called it a power station. I will apologize if I misunderstood.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/raw-new-york-power-station-explosion/2012/10/30/e1f4f79e-a657-4291-9121-4863f446b2e5_video.html
I saw the Oyster Creek story splattered everywhere. Zero chance of a problem there. Not that there were casualties in Japan due to nuclear power anyway.
Of course there was the Fujinuma Dam failure in Japan in the 2011 EQ that killed 8 and this is a storm still producing extreme amounts of precipitation in some areas, yet zero mention of Dams and Reservoirs.
What problem this actually represents is a total failure of responsible and reasonable media reporting.
Reading about Mr. Lilenthal reminds me of Bradford and Jaczcko. In Mr. Lilenthal’s defense though, there was less information on nuclear technology at that time vs the present. Still, it is interesting that anti-nuclear sentiments date back so far.
Dont stop there; the philosophy driving it dates back to and past American Transcendentalism ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalist ).
That gained prominence and has been ricocheting around since the publication of “Walden; or, Life in the Woods.” back in 1854. Not to bash it, there are wonderful and empowering ideas and concepts presented in it, particularity the all elusive lesson of patience.
However the diverse habitats of earth cannot support, and we simply cannot afford to live in varying degrees of perpetual mass anachronism. There are too many of us wanting to new and different things, which inst necessarily a bad or negative thing either if you move beyond mindless allegiance to dated philosophies and world views.
I just came across this – Ironically a levee did actually fail, someone did die and it was basically, for the most part ignored in the echo chamber in favor of promoting generic nuclear fear:
Tidal surge swamps NJ towns; body found in river ( http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/national/Levee-breaks-in-NJ-town-hundreds-being-evacuated_90805485 )
Dear Rod, Thank you for your ionformation. Today, in almost all Chinese websites, it is said an expolsion was occurred on a “CON-Di-Sen” station of a subway causing power shutdown in Manhattan 310,000 residents. I feel uncertain that a subway station trouble will cause so many residents power shutdow. It is so called ” incorrectly relaying an erroneous information “. Someone misunderstands the word “substation” as “station of subway”. I will spread this correct information to Chinese media.
Re: David E. Lilienthal, “I would not dream of living in the borough of Queens if there were a large atomic power plant in that region,”
Someone please rebutt this clown and especially Arnie (still getting away scott free uncontested) in the Times or Post or the Girl Scout Newsletter at least?
For me, the sole “rational” reason to oppose nuclear power really lies in philosophical hang-ups — and you can whip up dozens based from Hollywood Doomsdays to Hiroshima guilt to wild Luddite nightmares, but mostly based on sheer ignorance which anti-nuke pros gleefully sow and graze uncontested. You just can’t hammer nuclear energy on safety issues since with over -sixty- years of -worldwide- operation (even with varying standards of competence), the mortality scores of nuclear plants, _including_ worst case rare events like Fukushima and Chernobyl -combined- have killed less people than a Greyhound bus carries. Try that one on the mortality scoreboard marked up by oil and gas accidents that occasionally put whole communities away somewhere within that same period alone — forget their pre-nuclear stats and victims, and that doesn’t even include the routine every-day pollution and uncontainable waste and by-products of fossil fuels which have promoted far flung millions of cases of real-life — not speculations or fantasy– respiratory and skin aliments during literal centuries of use. For one to oppose nuclear energy based on health and environmental and safety grounds instantly makes you one fat public health concern hypocrite.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
It’s not up to a hundred homes burnt, and it smells more and more of gas :
http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL1E8M42HW20121104
“National Grid did not shut off the natural gas supplying Breezy Point, New York, until the morning after the fire that burned more than 100 houses”
“Electricity is relatively cheap and easy to shut off.”
“But natural gas is more costly to shut down as it involves sending a worker to every home”