The loss of electricity caused the owner to bring online two units that had not been online in 10 years. It cost $290 million to replace the boiler. This was the only thing that saved their lives. The two guys that were working on the feedwater heaters heard a problem and moved to the other side of the turbine deck. This allowed the boiler to drop into a pile on the ground. When this fireball hit the top of the furnace it lifted the boiler up off it’s pendants and when it came down it broke the pendants. This created a huge fireball almost an explosion.
The fuel filled the furnace and was lit off. The gas valves were opened and the igniter was initiated. The water ran down on the PLCs and caused a short in the valve the controlled the Natural gas control valves and the burner igniter. This toilet was located just above the room that housed the PLC controls. It backed up and since the check valve was damaged it when up the line to the toilet upstairs. The toilet in the adjacent building was flushed and it flowed down the drain until it came to the melted line. When the plumber came into fix the drain problem he used a snake down below the toilet and ran into a check valve that was installed to prevent the backflow from the adjacent building from going up into the toilet. The blowdown line would heat up and melt the PVC drain line. The contractors who installed the PVC line did not know that the drain they installed was about 6” away from the blowdown line from the boiler. When an adjacent building was built the plumbing was tied into this facility and a new PVC drain line was installed. A plumbing company came in to fix the problem. The plant had experienced a problem during the outage with a bathroom toilet. When the boiler was full it was noted that there was a leak in one of the feedwater heaters, so the boiler was put on hold until the leak could be fixed. The unit was being filled after the outage and the manual gas valves had been turned on. The furnace was started on natural gas and once it had reached a certain point it would switch over to coal. The plant had just finished an outage and was in the process of placing the boiler back online. This was a utility coal fired boiler at 11:30 am but at 12:15 pm it was basically scrap metal. Category: Industrial Fires & Explosions Alerts
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