In 1995, a crazed terrorist exploded a bomb outside a Federal Government building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people.
The massive explosion was fuelled by two tonnes ammonium nitrate.
Last week’s explosion on the Bruce Highway at Bororen was caused by the ignition of 42 tonnes of ammonium nitrate.
It is a testament to the work of the emergency services that no one was killed or injured by this explosion, which occurred a few hours after the initial accident.
Tragically, one person was killed in the initial collision.
Ammonium nitrate explodes because it is made up of hydrogen and oxygen.
Hydrogen is an extremely flammable substance and requires only a small ignition to set off a massive explosion.
The difficulty in containing hydrogen is why we stopped flying Zeppelins almost a century ago.
We have all probably seen the devastation that 42 tonnes of hydrogen packed ammonium nitrate can cause to the Bruce Highway.
Yet, our State and Federal Governments want to produce 400,000 tonnes of hydrogen in Central Queensland and there is almost no discussion of the safety risks of this.
The Labor party is running a ridiculous scare campaign about the safety risks of nuclear energy.
Data from the United Nations shows that nuclear energy is the safest form of energy production.
But if you remain concerned about the safety of nuclear wait until you hear about hydrogen.
Hydrogen is the first element in periodic table having just one proton and one electron.
A simple spark, or even the application of sunlight, can cause hydrogen to ignite.
Hydrogen has the highest classification of flammability in safety standards meaning that it “will rapidly or completely vaporize at normal atmospheric pressure and temperature, or is readily dispersed in air and will burn readily.“
The ignition of hydrogen in an enclosed space can often lead to an explosion.
An explosion on a remote part of the Bruce Highway fortunately did not kill anyone.
The explosion of ammonium nitrate in Beirut a few years ago killed 218 people and injured 7000.
Like most risks in an industrial economy the risks of a hydrogen explosion can be managed.
Hydrogen, in gaseous form, is extremely light and leaks are hard to contain.
But modern piping and storage facilities can be built to contain hydrogen.
Standards must be kept very high, however, and the processing, storage and transport of hydrogen is expensive.
While we are constantly promised hydrogen jobs, the reality is that the cost to produce hydrogen remains far too high and there is no prospect of a large-scale industry emerging soon.
Even one of the biggest boosters of hydrogen, Twiggy Forrest, has scrapped his hydrogen production targets for 2030.
Yet, the State Government wants to start closing our coal fired power stations before then.
This will put at risk thousands of manufacturing jobs in Central Queensland.
We need to keep our coal fired power stations open longer to protect our local jobs and stop electricity prices going higher than they already are.
The State Government has set a deadline of 2035 to shut our last coal fired power stations.
There is no rationale for this date.
China, India and Indonesia are still building hundreds of coal fired power stations so it makes no sense to rush to close ours.
Worse, setting an artificial date only increases the risk that safety concerns will be sidelined in the rush to deliver on hydrogen promises.
Given the high risks associated with hydrogen, this is not something we should rush.
At least four people have died in hydrogen explosions since 2020.
No one has died from a nuclear incident in that period even though nuclear is a much more common energy source.
All types of heavy industry create risk but applying a double standard will only lead to decisions that create more risks than necessary while failing to solve our energy problems as well.
