My thoughts and prayers are with the 6 dead and hundreds displaced citizens of San Bruno, just a short drive away from my home. I was briefly terrified last night when I first read reports of an explosion in San Bruno, and the ensuing fire, and was soberly comforted when I discovered no friends of mine were seriously affected. 53 homes were destroyed, another 120 damaged, following the 1000-foot fireball. The cause is expected to have been a blown gas main. PG&E provides natural gas service to the city, the "cleanest" of the major fossil fuel sources for electricity.
I doubt many will compare this terrible accident to the Gulf Oil Disaster, but they should. For the most part, our carbon infrastructure doesn't fail on a regular basis (intrinsic side-effects aside, such as carbon emissions, higher cancer and asthma rates, armed conflicts over oil, etc.). But when just one link in the chain fails, it yields disproportionate consequences in environmental and mortal terms (see earlier post on "carbon deaths"). Chalk it up to one more highly visceral reason to decarbonize our energy infrastructure.
No comments:
Post a Comment