There's none of that stuff, because industrial devices are being hacked remotely and given instructions to cause them to explode. The same sort of thing that happened to Iran's nuclear program.
example. Close a valve but command a fixed displacement pump to keep pumping. Somethings got to give. Pipes crack and explode… then there is a spark somewhere and things go boom.
Pretty much everything is automated in industrial facilities. That means a lot of the major and ancillary valves (water, natural gas, propane, fire suppression) as well as temperature setpoints and thermostats are controlled by and adjusted by a computer.
Ex.- Hack into into logic system, click to close a water valve, then turn the temperature on the boiler to the max. The water boils off and now you have a fire.
Everything has safety parameters to shut down under certain conditions but it's easy to turn those parameters off.
I've personally witnessed a multi million $ accidents.I could only imagine what someone with bad intentions could pull off .
It's easier to understand if we talk about machines we're all well familiar with.
Take a washing machine as an example. It has some settings of different speeds to spin at, as well as some fail-safes built in which is supposed to stop it from spinning if it detects some kind of problem. Even when operating according to its standard parameters, you may find some washing machines will shake violently while spinning.
Now if such a machine were hacked to remove all its fail-safes, and told to spin at even faster speeds (assuming the motor is capable of doing so), there's a good chance for something to go very wrong here. The machine may start jumping off the floor, parts may begin flying off of it, and perhaps the motor might even heat up and ignite.
As another example, think of an oven. Typically ovens have some built in mechanism to maintain certain temperatures, such as exhaust or periodically pausing its heating process. What if it goes out of control and just continually gets hotter and hotter? At some point it's bound to ignite something.
In this case, we're talking about a gas system. I don't know all the details regarding what exactly it was doing. However it probably included a motorized system to move the gas and maintain pressure. If that system malfunctioned in a way where it would ignite the fuel, a huge explosion would ensue. There's many ways for such a thing to go wrong. Such as motors burning up, or too much pressure somewhere causing a rupture and the gas meets damaged electric cables.
Lots of fail-sages are built into all kinds of machines to prevent them from exploding. Sometimes you hear about devices exploding due to defects, such as the batteries in phones and laptops. But sometimes it's hackers. They can modify electronic systems to remove their fail-safes and cause operating conditions that are outside the expected parameters for safe operation.
Iran's nuclear program was destroyed by a virus in their system which caused their uranium enriching centrifuges to spin out of control, and ended up blowing up their facilities.
With all the cases recently in the US with farms, processing plants, and pipelines either totally malfunctioning, or exploding, but no visible suspects, it seems like there's hackers at work here. They remotely access some systems that are foolishly connected to the internet (for remote monitoring and updates of course), and are using some exploit to cause them to not operate correctly. In some cases this causes mild damage, and in other cases, the facility is burned down. We're under attack, and no one is openly acknowledging it.
Regardless of all the other good facts, a washer usually jumps not because of rpms but from an unbalanced load
Oh for sure. However, I've also seen completely empty washing machines on a flat level surface jump due to their spinning mechanism being damaged.
I'm not a 5th grader. I was inquiring of the pipelines in particular.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to be condescending or anything. I like using analogies to well known things we all understand, since it can make complex things seem simple.
What is being suggested to you is possible but any and all the examples and explanations provided lack very specific detail and really do not describe a realistic scenario of how a pipeline like this can have a fire. This particular fire, i do not have the details necessary to determine a cause. Nefarious, yeah, possible but that is jumping to extreme conclusions of cause here.
That appears to be a open field failure and thus fire. Upstream and downstream flow direction and facility connection is info needed to rule out many possibilities here. Midstream or pump station etc. Ive worked on or around pipelines for over 25 years Bypass and diversion, shut off valves on main line natural gas high pressure are nearly always manual with pressure relief valves with redundancy safety measures, non automated, built into the the system in many cases failures like these are a cause of environmental and season temperature related, therefore impacting locations that have been subject to neglect. Where owner operator has not performed evals and maintenance appropriate to damage mechanisms detected. Could simply be a sleeve over that wore out or stress corrosion cracking accelerated by geo element, thermal or AC induction/reactions, or a previous hot tap failure, or poorly connected pup, or a dozen other very normal explanations other than bad guys blew it up.
Too many companies spent too much due to NG demand. However, cracks have appeared in price of the NG futures.
Example: the Freeport LNG explosion happened right as the Weekly chart for NG had topped and was making an Outside Bar down. Post explosion, we went up for a few more weeks before heading down again
It is not completely unusual for stuff to blow up around here. Fort Bend county is part of the Greater Houston area that I live in. The drought and heat around here have been terrible.
Stuff is being pushed to the breaking point due to the brutal heat. My downstairs AC compressor died overnight. Luckily, my AC guy came out this morning and was able to patch it together; replacement scheduled for Tuesday. (AC was at end of life). AC guy says the power line voltage has been low, due to the load of Texans trying to stay cool, and this low voltage is really hard on electrical devices.
I have no idea what caused the gas line to fail. Excessive pressure trying to feed power generators? Ground shifting due to cooking under the Texas Sun? I live in the Katy area and we have a shit ton of pipelines running around here. It is TEXAS, oil/gas and cattle; quite literally.
Gonna be honest and some people won't like it. Sometimes this stuff just happens and it wasn't nefarious.
It may have been, but an awful lot of people end up looking really foolish for jumping to conclusions. Unless or until it is proven otherwise, u/solarsavior makes good points.
There's none of that stuff, because industrial devices are being hacked remotely and given instructions to cause them to explode. The same sort of thing that happened to Iran's nuclear program.
No one said that.
Various industrial machines can explode if they are instructed to function outside of acceptable parameters.
example. Close a valve but command a fixed displacement pump to keep pumping. Somethings got to give. Pipes crack and explode… then there is a spark somewhere and things go boom.
Pretty much everything is automated in industrial facilities. That means a lot of the major and ancillary valves (water, natural gas, propane, fire suppression) as well as temperature setpoints and thermostats are controlled by and adjusted by a computer.
Ex.- Hack into into logic system, click to close a water valve, then turn the temperature on the boiler to the max. The water boils off and now you have a fire.
Everything has safety parameters to shut down under certain conditions but it's easy to turn those parameters off.
I've personally witnessed a multi million $ accidents.I could only imagine what someone with bad intentions could pull off .
It's easier to understand if we talk about machines we're all well familiar with.
Take a washing machine as an example. It has some settings of different speeds to spin at, as well as some fail-safes built in which is supposed to stop it from spinning if it detects some kind of problem. Even when operating according to its standard parameters, you may find some washing machines will shake violently while spinning.
Now if such a machine were hacked to remove all its fail-safes, and told to spin at even faster speeds (assuming the motor is capable of doing so), there's a good chance for something to go very wrong here. The machine may start jumping off the floor, parts may begin flying off of it, and perhaps the motor might even heat up and ignite.
As another example, think of an oven. Typically ovens have some built in mechanism to maintain certain temperatures, such as exhaust or periodically pausing its heating process. What if it goes out of control and just continually gets hotter and hotter? At some point it's bound to ignite something.
In this case, we're talking about a gas system. I don't know all the details regarding what exactly it was doing. However it probably included a motorized system to move the gas and maintain pressure. If that system malfunctioned in a way where it would ignite the fuel, a huge explosion would ensue. There's many ways for such a thing to go wrong. Such as motors burning up, or too much pressure somewhere causing a rupture and the gas meets damaged electric cables.
Lots of fail-sages are built into all kinds of machines to prevent them from exploding. Sometimes you hear about devices exploding due to defects, such as the batteries in phones and laptops. But sometimes it's hackers. They can modify electronic systems to remove their fail-safes and cause operating conditions that are outside the expected parameters for safe operation.
Iran's nuclear program was destroyed by a virus in their system which caused their uranium enriching centrifuges to spin out of control, and ended up blowing up their facilities.
With all the cases recently in the US with farms, processing plants, and pipelines either totally malfunctioning, or exploding, but no visible suspects, it seems like there's hackers at work here. They remotely access some systems that are foolishly connected to the internet (for remote monitoring and updates of course), and are using some exploit to cause them to not operate correctly. In some cases this causes mild damage, and in other cases, the facility is burned down. We're under attack, and no one is openly acknowledging it.
Oh for sure. However, I've also seen completely empty washing machines on a flat level surface jump due to their spinning mechanism being damaged.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to be condescending or anything. I like using analogies to well known things we all understand, since it can make complex things seem simple.
You're welcome! :-)
What is being suggested to you is possible but any and all the examples and explanations provided lack very specific detail and really do not describe a realistic scenario of how a pipeline like this can have a fire. This particular fire, i do not have the details necessary to determine a cause. Nefarious, yeah, possible but that is jumping to extreme conclusions of cause here.
That appears to be a open field failure and thus fire. Upstream and downstream flow direction and facility connection is info needed to rule out many possibilities here. Midstream or pump station etc. Ive worked on or around pipelines for over 25 years Bypass and diversion, shut off valves on main line natural gas high pressure are nearly always manual with pressure relief valves with redundancy safety measures, non automated, built into the the system in many cases failures like these are a cause of environmental and season temperature related, therefore impacting locations that have been subject to neglect. Where owner operator has not performed evals and maintenance appropriate to damage mechanisms detected. Could simply be a sleeve over that wore out or stress corrosion cracking accelerated by geo element, thermal or AC induction/reactions, or a previous hot tap failure, or poorly connected pup, or a dozen other very normal explanations other than bad guys blew it up.
We have been under attack for a long time.
...truth....
Too many companies spent too much due to NG demand. However, cracks have appeared in price of the NG futures.
Example: the Freeport LNG explosion happened right as the Weekly chart for NG had topped and was making an Outside Bar down. Post explosion, we went up for a few more weeks before heading down again
It is not completely unusual for stuff to blow up around here. Fort Bend county is part of the Greater Houston area that I live in. The drought and heat around here have been terrible.
Stuff is being pushed to the breaking point due to the brutal heat. My downstairs AC compressor died overnight. Luckily, my AC guy came out this morning and was able to patch it together; replacement scheduled for Tuesday. (AC was at end of life). AC guy says the power line voltage has been low, due to the load of Texans trying to stay cool, and this low voltage is really hard on electrical devices.
I have no idea what caused the gas line to fail. Excessive pressure trying to feed power generators? Ground shifting due to cooking under the Texas Sun? I live in the Katy area and we have a shit ton of pipelines running around here. It is TEXAS, oil/gas and cattle; quite literally.
Gonna be honest and some people won't like it. Sometimes this stuff just happens and it wasn't nefarious.
It may have been, but an awful lot of people end up looking really foolish for jumping to conclusions. Unless or until it is proven otherwise, u/solarsavior makes good points.
Watch this blog, they like to write about it.
https://slingshotcollective.org/1-reflections-of-a-west-coast-firefighter-turned-firelighter/
Wow, one in Texas and one in Oklahoma on the same day. God help us.