1 killed, 1 injured in Howard truck explosion by Ben Krumholz, April 4, 2014, Fox11online
HOWARD – A truck explosion in Howard Thursday afternoon killed the driver and critically injured a passenger. … Neighbors as far as a half-mile away say they felt it when the truck exploded. “I had just woken up, was making lunch and all of a sudden I just heard a really loud bang and my entire apartment shook,” said Josh Vandenberg of Howard.
The truck belongs to Ace Manufacturing Industries. It has two facilities, 300 yards apart, on Pamperin Road. Authorities say the truck exploded while carrying a load between the two buildings.
“Something in the load of the vehicle shifted and it compromised the compressed natural gas fuel system, consequently there was a detonation of the fuel system that injured one of the people in the vehicle and there was also a fatality,” said Ed Janke, the director of Howard Public Safety. … For a while, authorities were worried about the potential of more explosions. Area businesses were evacuated but they were able to return.
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Those near the explosion say it’s something they won’t soon forget. [Emphasis added]
[Refer also to:
A solution for low natural gas prices: trucks and buses by Shawn McCarthy, April 14, 2011, The Globe and Mail
Encana Corp. has a plan to help deal with the gas glut. The natural gas giant is taking a page out of the century-old playbook of major oil companies that also own gasoline stations, and broadening its reach from production of natural gas to new ventures in downstream marketing.
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The company’s vision involves a major change in North America’s transportation system: trucks, buses and commercial fleets of vehicles running on liquefied natural gas.
“Given the abundance of gas, it’s a common-sense alternative to rebalance our energy portfolio,’ said Eric Marsh, Encana’s executive vice-president. “We fundamentally believe that natural gas should be the cornerstone of North America’s energy portfolio.”
To pursue that goal, Calgary-based Encana is building gas liquefaction plants and fuelling stations for truck and bus fleets. The company has announced a deal to provide mobile refuelling stations for a fleet of 200 natural-gas-powered trucks being purchased by California-based Heckmann Water Resources, which supplies water for Encana and other producers in Louisiana’s Haynesville shale gas play.
It expects to replicate that deal with trucking firms across North America, even as it transforms its own fleet of 1,300 heavy-duty vehicles from diesel to liquefied natural gas (LNG) and operates six new natural gas fuelling stations. The company – North America’s second-largest gas producer – is also planning to construct a liquefaction plant near Calgary to produce liquid transportation fuel, and add as many as four others in the U.S. in the next couple years. With the boom in shale gas production, the North American industry is facing a supply glut that promises to keep prices depressed for the foreseeable future. Without new sources of consumption, prices will remain low and production from new shale plays will fall far short of potential, says Robert Ineson, Houston-based director for North American gas at energy analysis firm IHS CERA.
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With government incentives …. “And it depends on the government policy. … If we had our federal government saying we encourage it, that gets you a big impact.” ]