Natural Gas + Ethanol = Explosion

- by Lar­ry Phillips, June 30, 2014, Leader and Times

Leader & Times Online Fire­fight­ers respond­ed to an explo­sion Sun­day evening at Con­esto­ga Energy’s Arkalon Ethanol Plant. For­tu­nate­ly, no one was injured from the blast or sub­se­quent fire, accord­ing to Seward Coun­ty Fire Chief Mike Rice.

“We got the page at 7:04 p.m. (Sun­day) about a pos­si­ble explo­sion at the plant at 8000 Road P,” Rice said ear­li­er today. “Pre­lim­i­nary reports from plant staff is they had a nat­ur­al gas explo­sion in a com­bus­tion burn­er in the feed dry­er sys­tem on the sec­ond floor.”

Fire­fight­ers had con­tained the fire and left the scene at 3:18 a.m. today, but were called back out at 5:23 a.m.

“We’re, basi­cal­ly, on stand­by right now (9:27 a.m.) while plant staff cuts some holes in equip­ment so they can get to some smol­der­ing insu­la­tion that’s around some of the pip­ing and duct work in that area,” Rice said.

Though no injuries occurred in the inci­dent, Rice said pre­lim­i­nary reports indi­cate sig­nif­i­cant dam­age was caused by the explosion.

“Ear­ly, ear­ly dam­ages  – from reports of the plant’s staff – indi­cate dam­ages could be in the $1- to $2‑million range,” Rice said.

The exact cause of the explo­sion has yet to be deter­mined, and Rice said fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion is under way.

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