[cdn-nucl-l] fatal accident at natural gas filling station

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@aecl.ca>]

from the Hydrogen Gazette...

http://www.hydrogen.org/News/gazette.html#Accident at natural gas filling
station july 00
Accident at natural gas filling station
DWV, 00-07-18: A serious accident happened on 6. July at a natural gas
filling station at Recklinghausen (Germany). The key factor was a car which
had been converted to LPG operation (LPG: mixtures of propane and butane,
liquefied under pressure at ambient temperture, tank pressure maximum 30
bar). The owner filled the vehicle with natural gas (tank pressure 200 bar).
While the connections are so different that this principally can not happen,
the owner had for reasons of his own mounted a natural gas filling
connection to the tank tube. During filling the tank burst. The car owner
was killed, an employee of the filling station was seriously and four other
persons were lightly hurt. The damage was considerable.
A quite similar accident which hurt two people had happened on 8. February
at Emmendingen (Germany). Language problems might have contributed in this
case, the car coming from Latvia, but in any case the filling connection had
been altered such that it fitted for natural gas.
Considering the introduction of hydrogen as fuel it is compelling to come to
an agreement on unified filling connections. Apart from simple handling and
tightness this must include the non-interchangeability with the connections
for other fuels. Manipulations as in the Recklinghausen case, of course, can
not be avoided by technical means.