Anyone who lives in the Piedmont Triad is familiar with Colonial Pipeline's tank farm hard by I-40 in Greensboro. I drive by the tanks at least twice a day during my commute to and from the office so I've had ample occasion to wonder what would happen if one caught fire. We found out this weekend when one of them was struck by lightning and went up like a roman candle, and from what I've seen the Greensboro Fire Department did a stellar job containing the blaze.
Something interesting I learned while monitoring WXII's Kenny Beck's coverage via Twitter: one tank contains 200,000 gallons of oil, which helps put the Gulf Oil spill in perspective. If the current low end of the estimate of 42 million gallons is correct then that would be like taking 210 of those tanks and dumping them in the Gulf.
Discover more from Befuddled
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Befuddled 
Jon,
Your math is probably correct and mine probably wrong (I’ve never been accused of being a math whiz); however, I think I read that the 43,000 barrel capacity tank was half full of gasoline (not crude oil) and that one barrel was the equivalent of 42 gallons of gasoline. http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2010/jun/14/bolt-of-energy-lightning-hits-gasoline-tank-farm-n/news/ That would equate to 903,000 gallons. Now to further display my ignorance of the physical sciences, my high school teacher told me that gasoline was less dense than water therefore it would float on top of the water. Now with my liberal arts logic I surmise that 903,000 gallons of gasoline in a reservoir as large as the Gulf of Mexico could be dispensed with post haste by a strategically placed flare from an aircraft.
Since this happened in Guilford County and not the Gulf of Mexico, I applaud the efforts and professionalism of the Greensboro Fire Department. Now since I solved the hypothetical spill of gasoline in the Gulf…Your mission, Jon is to solve the very real catastrophe of the billion plus barrel oil spill.
Dwight
Dwight Im certain your numbers are right. I was working off of short
updates from a reporter via Twitter and the details were probably
mixed up by yours truly. It didnt even occur to me that I was doing
the apples-oranges thing with gasoline and oil, to begin with, and I
also didnt stop to think that the tank wasnt full. As to my mission
I cant change the oil in my car so if the countrys waiting on me to
solve the Gulf spill problem then were double-doomed.
I remember one of these went up in Philadelphia in the 70’s. Unfortunately a large number of firemen were killed — maybe about a dozen. So I would say the Greensboro Fire Dept. did a very good job putting this fire out.