Hydrogen Fuel Station Explodes

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

HYDROGEN FUEL STATION EXPLODES IN NORWAY; TOYOTA AND HYUNDAI PAUSE FUEL CELL VEHICLE DELIVERY

And the station operator closed 10 more stations. Not good for hydrogen's reputation.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

People keep referring to hydrogen as flammable, while technically correct, when mixed with oxygen it can be explosive (remember your 8th grade chemistry class and the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen? What happened when you put the burning splint into the test tube full of hydrogen - did it burn or explode?)

With this in mind, and reading the article provided by Marina, who would want tanks of hydrogen sited in densely populated areas, let alone pipelines of the stuff running underground in these areas?

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

On 6/12/2019 at 10:43 PM, Marina Schwarz said:

HYDROGEN FUEL STATION EXPLODES IN NORWAY; TOYOTA AND HYUNDAI PAUSE FUEL CELL VEHICLE DELIVERY

And the station operator closed 10 more stations. Not good for hydrogen's reputation.

Well an accident happened, if we take this as a standard for shutting businesses down, then  gas stations (petrol) would have been shut down all over the world, oil wells and oil rigs would be shut down globally, just about any kind of manufacturing business and or facility would be shut down globally, if we went on with giving reputation based on some incident or incidents for the safety criteria of a business. Even bakeries explode and so do chocolate factories and warehouses, and garment manufacturing facilities catch fire.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

I agree. So why did they go and close so many other stations? I'm not sure a comparison between highly flammable hydrogen and flour and sugar as used in bakeries is fair, by the way. Compare it to regular fuel stations. Do they close a dozen when there's an explosion at one? I guess not because there's procedure and history. Hydrogen is new, it is currently building a reputation as an alternative fuel to a lot of fanfare from certain groups so it makes sense that any negative news will affect this reputation whether it's deserved or not.

Make that two explosions, not one: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/after-june-fires-energy-group-says-hydrogen-is-futures-fuel/

Edited June 17, 2019 by Marina Schwarz