At Least 18,000 Diary Cows Killed in Texas Panhandle Explosion

[red dirt shootist]

Methane is odorless and colorless. They add methyl mercaptan (my dad called it “skunk p*ss”) to natural gas so you’ll notice a leak.

Methane is primarily thought to be a product of organic decomposition, but I saw a program about 20 years ago that theorized that the methane in natural gas was naturally occurring independent of any decay processes. Methane is one of the simplest organic compounds in existence.

Thanks. So when people use the term "gas well" would it be more accurate to say methane well? And how does propane figure in?

 

[SoonerP226]

Thanks. So when people use the term "gas well" would it be more accurate to say methane well? And how does propane figure in?

Natural gas is more than just methane; methane is just the primary component. Some of the oil and gas guys here could tell you a lot more about it than I can.

 

[TerryMiller]

Methane is odorless and colorless. They add methyl mercaptan (my dad called it “skunk p*ss”) to natural gas so you’ll notice a leak.

Methane is primarily thought to be a product of organic decomposition, but I saw a program about 20 years ago that theorized that the methane in natural gas was naturally occurring independent of any decay processes. Methane is one of the simplest organic compounds in existence.

I thought the above in bold was actually called "ethyl mercaptan."

 

[dennishoddy]

Thanks. So when people use the term "gas well" would it be more accurate to say methane well? And how does propane figure in?

Propane is a product of crude oil. It’s recovered in the “cracking process” in refineries.

 

[SoonerP226]

I thought the above in bold was actually called "ethyl mercaptan."

Apparently, they’re both used as an odorant for natural gas.

 

[Cat City Slim]

Years ago, I worked in insurance risk control in the Texas panhandle. I worked with this dairy. The cows are kept inside a giant fully enclosed barn. They don’t see daylight until they are sold for slaughter. A major fire or explosion would likely kill all the cows inside the barn by smoke inhalation. I don’t mean to say the cows are mistreated, they are well taken care of. I’m very interested to find out the cause of the explosion. My experience with manure-produced methane didn’t indicate that it would me energetic enough to cause that explosion.

 

[OkieJoe72]

I left a lot of things out, mostly out of respect for the milk drinkers. But I'll tell you this because you seem interested, the dairy I worked at was outside Bozeman Montana. The old guy that owned the dairy would periodically go to the nearby orphanage and pick out some strong young boys, and sometimes a girl, to work at his dairy. It was kind of an old time thing that was still alive in the 1970's, The old guy had a huge interest in draft horses, Percherons and Belgians, and he would harness them up and work them on weekends. To watch a man work a team is something special, it's old time stuff that you can connect to, it means something. It was culture shock, but in a beautiful way for me.

Driving horses, mules, and donkeys is a passion of mine, but I don’t get the chance to do it as much as I’d like anymore. If you’re ever looking for something to do over Labor Day weekend, you might want to plan a trip to the chuckwagon races in Clinton, AR. I’ve been a few times, and it’s a good time.

 

[Chief Sapulpa]

Latest report is a methane gas explosion caused by the failure of an exhaust fan motor that allowed the gas to build up in the massive ductwork that removes the gas.
Motor bearings or windings more than likely got hot reaching the ignition temperature of the methane resulting in a very violent explosion.
It’s a common occurrence in any dust/gas collection/exhaust system.
Grain elevators, sugar processing facilities, dust collection systems and so on.
The fix is to have a redundant system with overcurrent/undercurrent alarms built in that will detect a failure and activate the redundancy which would have prevented the explosion and alerted the facility there was a problem and it’s time to evacuate.
Back when I worked at Smith Tool as a control systems tech, we lost the ductwork that was exhausting a methanol fired continuous heat treating furnace.
Belt broke on the exhaust fan motor which caused a gas build up until it blew up. No one hurt.
I installed a high/low current trip relay wired to the control system emergency stop switch in the PLC which worked perfectly after that as designed.

Smith Tool in Ponca City sounds familiar. What did they build? I think I called on them when I was with Murphy Switch. For some reason I think I sold them vibration switches.

 

[Shinneryfarmer]

Just for FYI this is breakdown of natural gas. Pipe line quality natural gas is 950 to 1050 BTU. Natural Gas from most producing wells is alot higher until processed through a gas plant where the other elements are stripped. The numbers to the right are percentages.

 

[dennishoddy]

Smith Tool in Ponca City sounds familiar. What did they build? I think I called on them when I was with Murphy Switch. For some reason I think I sold them vibration switches.

Smith Tool was a manufacture for mining and oil patch drilling bits.
If you were selling vibration switches it may have been next door to Mertz that built and sold vibrasize trucks for oil exploration.