8 Disasters in the Name of Energy

Humans have made many great technological strides over the past centuries, mechanizing industry, mastering electricity and bending the environment to our will. With each advancement, however, mankind’s need for energy increases. In our quest for ever greater energy, disasters are bound to happen, especially when we forget that the massive amounts of energy in the materials that we mine, burn or harness for our ends can easily turn deadly. These eight examples demonstrate all too well what happens when that power is taken too lightly and handled too carelessly. The following examples demonstrate that recent events like the BP disaster in the Gulf are unfortunately all too common.

1. Lake Peigneur

This bizarre man-made disaster resulted in the destruction of 65 acres of land around Lake Peigneur in Louisiana when an oil exploration rig inadvertently touched off a massive sink hole. The evidence of what truly happened that day was consumed by the disaster, but it is believed that a miscalculation on the part of Texaco’s engineers led them to drill in the wrong location. Lake Peigneur, a shallow lake on the Mississippi river, happened to be above a salt mine operated by the Diamond Crystal Salt Company. When rig’s drill bit penetrated the lake bed, it pierced the ceiling of the salt mine and the lake began to drain rapidly down the hole.

The hole itself started out small, only a little over a foot wide, but the rushing water (billions of gallons) quickly eroded the rock and soil around it, creating a massive vortex. The sucking power of the raging whirlpool utterly consumed the surrounding area, swallowed the rig and eleven full-sized barges that were floating on the lake that day. The immense displacement of water even caused the Mississippi river to flow backwards, temporarily becoming an inlet.

The ecosystem around Lake Peigneur was permanently changed due to the influx of salt water from the Gulf of Mexico, reordering the biodiversity of the marine life and profoundly altering the landscape. This resulted in the creation of the largest waterfall ever in Louisiana, over 140 feet high, and a remarkable increase in the lake’s depth from about six feet to a depth of over 1,300 feet in some places.

Toll: Amazingly, due to well-established emergency procedures at the salt mine, no humans were killed during the disaster, however it is difficult to gauge how much wildlife was lost. Enormous trees, up to 100 feet high, were uprooted by the force of the sink hole and sucked down into the salt mine. Three dogs were reportedly killed. [1]

2. Exxon Valdez

Though ranked low in total volume of oil leaked, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill arguably caused more environmental damage than any other spill due to its location: the pristine Prince William’s Sound in Alaska. The massive oil tanker, bound for Long Beach, California, piloted by an exhausted crew and allegedly drunk captain, struck Bligh Reef, rupturing the hull and spilling 10.8 million gallons of oil into the Sound. The spill quickly spread to an area of 1,300 square miles, blanketing the ocean and shore in the thick, black crude and wreaking environmental havoc on an enormous scale.

Speedy and vigorous counter measures were enacted to stem the damage, but a number of technical challenges slowed the pace of the cleanup. Much of the oil floated on the surface of the water, necessitating chemical and biological dispersants. The rest sank down to the sea bed. Today, up to 26,000 gallons of oil remain in Prince William’s Sound, and experts say that despite the efforts of Exxon Mobile to clean up the spill, the Sound may not fully recover for another thirty years. In response to the Valdez spill, new legislation was drafted to prohibit oil hauling vessels to pass through the Sound.

Toll: We can only guess at how many animals were lost in the spill, but the best estimates include 100,000 to as many as 250,000 seabirds, at least 2,800 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles, and 22 Orcas, as well as the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs. No humans were killed in the disaster, but many Alaskans who depend upon the marine life of the Sound for their life and livelihoods experienced crippling financial ruin. [2]

3. SL-1 Nuclear Accident

The deadliest nuclear disaster in U.S. history was the SL-1 (Stationary Low-Powered Reactor) incident in Idaho Falls, Idaho 1961. The relatively weak nuclear reactor was designed to power small, remote military installations like radar stations and arctic outposts. Unfortunately, poor design and improper maintenance procedures led to a catastrophic failure that killed all of the operators working on the reactor.

On the night of December 21, the reactor was shut down for maintenance and minor modifications. The control rod had to be manually pulled a few inches out of its housing, and when the technicians withdrew it too far, an immense power surge occurred, instantaneously vaporizing all of the water in the system. The design power of the reactor was just three megawatts, but during the surge almost twenty gigawatts of energy were released in just four milliseconds. The violent reaction destroyed the reactor and killed three men who were working on it.

Toll: The operator who was standing on top of the reactor was killed in the blast, impaled to the ceiling by the control rod he was removing. The two others who were standing next to the reactor, a supervisor and a trainee, were also killed. Thankfully, most of the radioactive material was contained within the building that housed the reactor, and relatively little fallout affected the area. However, twenty-two emergency responders were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. The incident led to the implementation of stricter procedures for nuclear operations and the development of safer reactor technology. [3]

4. Chernobyl

Considered the worst nuclear disaster in history, the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic had devastating and long lasting effects over a wide area. The amount of nuclear fallout was roughly 400 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb detonation and spread from the nuclear plant across the Ukraine and into Belarus, Russia and Eastern and Northern Europe. Large parts of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia had to be evacuated and hundreds of thousands of people were relocated from irradiated areas.

The meltdown was the result of an experiment to enact a new safety procedure. In the event of a full loss of power due to emergency core shut down, the plant switched to emergency generators to power the pumps that cooled the core. However, the emergency diesel generators required a minute to reach full speed, an unacceptable margin. The new safety system would derive power from the decelerating turbines, providing about a minutes worth of energy, enough to bridge the gap until the emergency generators powered up.

The fix worked in theory, but it had to be proven experimentally. On April 26, 1986, the engineers who were testing the system botched the procedure and triggered the very event they were attempting to prevent. A full shutdown of reactor was initiated, and without power, the cooling system screeched to a halt. A power surge resulted, dramatically raising the temperature of the core and rapidly vaporizing the coolant. The resulting explosion destroyed the plant and irradiated the area.

Toll: Hundreds, if not thousands of lives have been claimed by the fallout of the disaster. Countless more have been sickened and disfigured. Acute radiation sickness affected 237 people, mostly emergency workers responding to the event, 31 of which succumbed to the illness. Thyroid cancer, Down’s syndrome, chromosomal aberrations, neural tube defects and many other diseases have been attributed to the fallout. A large area of pine forest nearby turned brownish red and died following the event, dubbed the “red forest.” Rivers and lakes were also contaminated by the radiation. In an ironic reversal, however, wildlife has flourished in the so-called “Chernobyl Exclusion Territory,” the area that was cordoned off and made devoid of human activity. A number of rare species have returned to the area and the forest has grown lush and pristine in the absence of humans. This area of the Ukraine is now one of the largest wildlife refuges in Europe. [4]

5. The Great Smog

Choking, yellowish smog was a common occurrence in 1950’s London. Indeed, the famous “London Fog” was actually London smog, the result of chimney smoke, coal-fired factories, automobile exhaust and a variety of other pollutants clogging the atmosphere over the city. So it came as no surprise to Londoners when the thickest, longest lasting “peasouper” yet blanketed the city in December of 1952.

The greater density and duration of the Great Smog, however, made it a deadly occurrence, considered the worst air pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom. Due to persistent, stagnant cold weather (an anti-cyclone) and a warm air “lid,” the smog settled down and seeped even into indoors locations. Plays and movies were canceled due to poor visibility, and one man who experienced it first hand compared it to being blind. Public transportation grinded to a halt. Other than the London Underground, or walking, it was impossible to get anywhere. Even ambulance services stopped, and sick or injured people had to make their own way to the hospital. Days later when weather conditions changed, the smog finally dispersed.

Toll: At first, nobody was alarmed by the event, but in the weeks that followed, up to 4,000 deaths (mostly children, the elderly or people with respiratory conditions) were attributed to the Great Smog. The high death toll spurred legislative action in the years that followed including the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and 1958. [5]

6. Monongah Mining Disaster

The coal mine of Monongah, West Virginia is the site of the worst mining disaster in the history of the United States. On December 6, 1907 a deposit of methane (also called firedamp) ignited, leading to the ignition of coal dust in mines number 6 and 8. The explosion caused a massive cave in, which trapped the victims inside and made rescue efforts difficult. Two of the electric dynamos were destroyed and clogged the tunnels along with fallen rock. The ventilation system designed to supply breathable air to the miners failed, causing the tunnels to clog with toxic gasses. Emergency responders, without any type of respiratory devices or gas masks, could only act in the tunnels for up to fifteen minutes at a time. Some were badly injured and had to be taken to hospitals themselves.

The original entrance to the mine has since been sealed with bricks. A monument stands today commemorating the widows of the event.

Toll: Few of the 380 workers escaped the mine alive. All told, 362 men and boys were killed in the accident, leaving behind 250 widows and 1,000 orphans. Similar disasters have occurred all over the world, including the Senghenydd Colliery disaster in the U.K. which killed 439 and the Benxihu Colliery disaster in China, which killed 1,549 miners. [6]

7. Centralia Coal Fire

One of the more unusual and long-lasting man-made disasters has been going on continually in Centralia, Pennsylvania since 1962. It’s a coal fire, and experts say it could burn for another 250 years.

The underground inferno was sparked when workers began burning garbage in one of the town’s closed mineshafts. The shaft had been doubling as the borough’s landfill for some time, and the burning of garbage was a fairly common practice. What the workers did not realize, however, was that a patch of exposed anthracite coal was present in the mine. It ignited, and has been burning ever since.

Numerous attempts have been made to put the fire out, including sealing up the mineshaft and dousing it with water as well as excavating tons of burning coal, but all have been unsuccessful. The town has been plagued by toxic carbon monoxide gas, the sudden appearance of sink holes, and smolderingly high temperatures. There are no further plans to extinguish the fire. The road to the town is now permanently closed and modern maps do not include Centralia, except to mention the ghost town as a curiosity.

Toll: No deaths are directly associated with the coal fire, however the once bustling town has been reduced to a modern ghost town. The community of Centralia once held 2,761 people, but over the decades the population has been significantly downgraded, residents moved from the borough at great expense by the government for safety reasons. As of 2010, only a dozen diehard residents remain in the town. A twelve year old boy was famously swallowed by a sink hole that opened up beneath his feat in 1981, and would have perished if his cousin hadn’t been there to pull him out safely. [7]

8. Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydro Accident

On August 17, 2009 a catastrophic accident occurred at the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydro Electric plant in Russia. At the time, the plant was the largest hydro power plant in Russia and the sixth largest in the world, with an average power output of 6,400 MW. When a faulty turbine failed at 8:13 AM, water filled the plant, severely damaging the other generators, causing massive blackouts, and killing dozens of workers at the plant.

Turbine #2, the generator in question, had exhibitted operational problems throughout the thirty years it was active (from 1979-2009). Attempts had been made to repair the generator in the past, and it was modernized once in the 1980s and again in 2000. These modernizations did not address fundamental problems with the turbine, however. Repairs like welding the cracks in the turbine proved a poor stop-gap measure, and only served to unbalance it further. Eventually, the stress from that imbalance destroyed the turbine, shooting the 920 ton rotor out of its housing and filling the power plant with water at an incredible rate.

Toll: 200 people were evacuated from the plant, but 75 were not able to escape and were later found dead, drowned or killed by flying debris. The 6,400 MW of power supplied by the Sayano-Sushenskaya plant dropped to zero, and power was not restored to the region for two full days. The accident also caused an oil spill, introducing forty tons of poisonous transformer oil into the surrounding environment. The spill killed 400 tons of cultivated trout, and the full extent of the environmental damage is not yet known. [8]