methane explosion risks

Also see the Incidents page above.

Oct 2012: Planned UK conference to address Health and Safety issues posed by the expansion of Anaerobic Digestion Plant Workforce:

inevitable exposure of the workforce to biogas explosion risks

Is the advent of more biogas plants, with the inevitable exposure of the workforce to biogas explosion risks, on the brink of causing more avoidable accidents?  It is already known that the waste management industry is a significantly more accident prone sector than almost any other land based activity.  In fact, according to the Health and Safety Executive the waste management industry records fatal injuries at a rate of over 10 times the national average with accident rates more than four times the national average.

Add to this the nature of methane, which so easily catches out the unwary.  It will most times be unlikely to explode as it dissipates rapidly, but this breeds lax behaviour, such that when it does strike it often causes multiple deaths.  Remember the Abbeystead explosion in 1984 where 16 water company officials and local dignitaries were killed while being shown around a new pumping station in the lake district of the UK? That was a methane explosion and the force was such that it clean took the roof off the structure. It was no normal roof either. This was a buried pumping station sunk beneath the ground in a scenic area!

http://anaerobic-digestion-news.blogspot.co.uk/2012_06_01_archive.html

2007 explosion Daugendorf

2008 explosion Seiersdorf, Germany

2009 Meringer, Germany