Clean Up Underway At Pellet Plant After Blast

Saturday, December 18, 2010 10:42 AM

Prince George, B.C. - A two-pronged investigation is underway following an explosion that has shut down operations at a local wood pellet plant in the BCR Industrial site in Prince George...

The blast occurred at approximately 6:15pm at Pacific BioEnergy at 9900 Willow Cale Road. Company spokesperson, Kevin Brown, says the Friday night work crew first heard, then felt the effects of the explosion and immediately called Prince George Fire Rescue.

Brown says it's just so fortunate that no one was injured in the incident. He says fire crews did an excellent job containing the blazes that broke out and the site was turned back over to employees after about three or four hours and clean up efforts have been underway through the night. Brown says there is a considerable amount of wood fibre debris covering the plant.

In conjunction with PG Fire Rescue and WorkSafe BC, Brown says the company has launched investigations on two fronts: 1. a team is investigating the cause of the explosion 2. a second team will begin the process of assessing the extent of damages and determining what the best course of action will be to get the plant repaired and back in operation as soon as possible.

"So that's the kind of work that will take place over the next few days -- determine the cause of the incident, how'd it happen, what happened, what can we do to make sure it doesn't happen again and then make the necessary repairs to get the plant operating."

No damage estimate is available at this time, Brown says that's one of the many questions to be answered during the investigation. He expects to have further information on the dollar figure and an estimate on when operations may resume on Monday.

It's also too early to pin a price tag on lost production. Brown does say Pacific BioEnergy has a large supply of pellets both on-site in Prince George and at its shipping facility in North Vancouver to continue to meet its contracts with European customers. "But certainly, it would depend on how long the repairs might take, but again, at this point, there's no concern."

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Posted on Saturday, December 18, 2010 10:42 AM in News by Michelle Cyr-Whiting

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Comments

Posted by: Dragonmaster on December 18 2010 11:42 AM

"Brown says there is a considerable amount of wood fibre debris covering the plant."

Imagine that. Pretty obvious it was a dust explosion.

Posted by: truewitt on December 18 2010 1:30 PM

IMO it is only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed at this plant. This is the second major explosion in the last couple of years. From what my contact who works there said the first one did well over 1.5 million in damage and that some employees had left the immediate area moments before the explosion happened.

Seems the focus is to get the facility up and running as quickly as possible to keep the European customers happy instead of providing a clean and safe place to work. Hopefully Worksafe BC will do some follow up once the plant gets going again.

Having "a considerable amount of wood fibre debris covering the plant" is like having a loaded gun.Things like piles of debris and dust built up on beams etc can be the cause of secondary explosions that can be worse than the initial blast. Dust explosions can also be very deadly as the attached video in which 14 people were killed shows.

[/url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg7mLSG-Yws[/url]

Posted by: truewitt on December 18 2010 1:56 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg7mLSG-Yws

Posted by: Eagleone on December 18 2010 5:13 PM

I was near there at about 5pm and heard on their radio someone calling for a millwright to deal with some plug up again that sounded like something to do with an ongoing problem with a boiler and some debris... mill wright didn't sound happy about it and said he would get to it when he could...

Posted by: Eagleone on December 18 2010 5:28 PM

Great link Truewitt

Posted by: gus on December 19 2010 9:20 AM

As far as I know, dust explosions happen in confined spaces. Thus, there can be secondary ignition of dust on beams and other surfaces which are not regularly cleaned, but would typically not be explosive in nature, rather, I think, they would properly be called incendiary in nature.

No matter, still not a desired state for a production facility.

I would think that if they keep having this problem that I would think would be a well understood one by now, their insurance may just be going to the roof and will cause them to begin to take a bit more care.

Here is a report from OSHA in the USA, with two wood pellet plant explosions in recent months, plus citations of another one with relatively high fines for poor guarding of electrical as well as moving components that have ball bearings.

http://dustexplosions.blogspot.com/2008_08_11_archive.html

Which leads to the question of not only what is the plant doing to protect its workers and plant, but also what is WorkSafeBC doing with respect inspections. Was this incident preventable? The thinking in the safety field these days is that such incidents are ALL preventable. Sort of like oil spills. They are all preventable too. Until human error and economics come into play as a factor.

Corinth, Maine - not an explosion
http://www.firefightingnews.com/article-US.cfm?articleID=49149

Marion, Pa - repeated incident.
http://www.therecordherald.com/news/business/x1137369068/Fire-again-damages-machinery-at-AJ-Stoves-and-Pellets-in-Marion

In other words, they need to follow best practices. Time someone took a closer look to see what is wrong at this plant.

Posted by: gus on December 19 2010 9:34 AM

Here is a two year old incident in Madison, WI

http://www.channel3000.com/news/10947450/detail.html

Wonder if the local plant abiders by the NFPA standard for the Prevention of Fires and Explosions in Wood Processing and Woodworking Facilities?

http://www.nfpa.org/aboutthecodes/AboutTheCodes.asp?DocNum=664&cookie%5Ftest=1

Maybe the local fire department needs to have a visit. Of course, then they would have to be familiar with the standard and have an expert in that area. Do they? How well prepared is our fire inspection for this kind of application?

Posted by: truewitt on December 19 2010 10:43 AM

Even a building the size of the pellet plant can be considered a confined space if the fine particulate in the air reaches a critical level. This could happen by something as simple as using an airhose to blow equipment down. A smaller blast could also get all of the fine dust on beams airborne,creating a secondary explosion.

From what I understand the 2008 explosion was mainly in the equipment on the outside of the building. If the reports posted earlier are correct, the building sprinkler system helped put the fire out, meaning the blast was inside. If this is the case they had better get it sorted out before the expansion is complete and twice as much equipment is running inside.

ewitt

Posted by: gus on December 19 2010 3:54 PM

"Even a building the size of the pellet plant can be considered a confined space if the fine particulate in the air reaches a critical level"

I suspect if the dust were to reach that level that the workers would have to wear respirators because otherwise they would be exceeding the OSHA standards for air contaminants without protection.

There is a distinction between a flash fire and an explosion. Flash fires do not typically result in projectiles, whereas explosions typically do. In both cases there is a rapid relesae of energy.

Posted by: BCRacer on December 19 2010 3:58 PM

I wonder if they will now have their hand stuck out looking for money ?

Posted by: supertech on December 19 2010 9:12 PM

Hand stuck out?? This is already subsidised by the feds. Costs more to make this crap than to just burn the wood. Any "alternate" type fuels have been a total waste of money and are nothing more than job creation for the political friendly. Burn the wood, burn the gas, burn the coal and keep warm. Oh yeah, and fly whereever you vacation.