Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks, an obscure scientific study by a little-known
Oklahoma consulting company has been widely used by federal officials to ease concern in U.S. communities about the dangers of liquefied natural gas.
But the study’s mild assessment of LNG fire dangers is generating a growing controversy in the scientific community, and even the study’s author acknowledged in an interview last week that it is being misused by federal officials.
Department of Energy officials and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission documents have promoted the Quest Consultants Inc. study as evidence that the public would have little to fear from any LNG tanker spills or resulting fires.
Don Juckett, who until last month directed DOE’s Office of Natural Gas and Oil Import
and Export Activities, used the study in recent weeks to address concerns of Mobile-area residents.
ExxonMobil has proposed buying 250 acres from the Alabama State Docks to build a $650 million LNG shipping terminal at the former Navy homeport on Mobile Bay. Some local leaders say the facility would pose sig nificant risks to the nearby Hollingers Island community, particularly if an LNG tanker were attacked by terrorists.
Although some DOE officials denied late last week that they had anything to do with the Quest study, Quest officials said they produced the study at DOE’s request. Also, DOE’s Juckett apparently made presentations in the past three years using the Quest calculations to support the reopening of LNG facilities in Cove Point, Md., and in Boston.
“I talked to Don Juckett and told him I didn’t think (the study’s computations) were appropriate for many of the things they are being used for,” said John Cornwell, the lead scientist on the Quest study of LNG fires. “Some of that modeling we did for DOE — in hindsight, we should have done a more complete paper. … I’ve learned you never write anything that you don’t want public. We violated our own rules on that score.”
Cornwell, contacted by the Mobile Register, said he believes that his calculations are useful and valid in certain circumstances, but he said that his company needed to do more work on the topic of LNG fires.
He said he did the study on short notice, and was led to believe that it would be employed inhouse by federal agencies as one of several tools used to examine LNG fire scenarios. “These were approximations for their (the agencies’) use. We were asked to provide some calculations very quickly,” Cornwell said.
In Boston, the Quest study — which has never been published in scientific journals — was apparently used by the DOE to suggest that a terrorist attack on an LNG tanker would result in only limited damage immediately around the ship. In stark contrast, published scientific studies have suggested that an LNG tanker fire could have disastrous consequences for densely populated neighborhoods around Boston Harbor.
“The fire that would ensue … would be of unprecedented size and intensity,” wrote James Fay, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in a scientifical ly reviewed analysis of the Boston Harbor situation, which was cited in a 2002 report to Congress. “At any point along the inner harbor route of ship travel from sea to berth, pool thermal fire radiation that can burn and even kill exposed humans, and ignite combustible buildings, will be experienced along and well inland from the waterfront.”
Most published scientific studies, including a soon-to-be-released analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, produce estimates of a potential LNG tanker fire that are five to six times larger than the Quest estimate.
If only a fraction of the 33 million gallons of LNG on board a tanker escaped onto the water, fires about a half-mile across could occur, according to estimates of the published scientific studies, throwing off searing heat up to a mile in any direction. The Quest study estimates that a similar quantity of LNG would produce fires less than 500 feet across, with a heat danger zone of less than a quarter-mile.
The Quest results have been publicly available only in correspondence between Quest and DOE, and circulated only among a handful of interested scientists. But the Quest conclusions have been widely cited in federal documents and in discussions by federal energy officials.
According to Quest officials, the estimates were commissioned to help determine whether it was safe to reopen Boston Harbor to LNG shipments following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Department of Energy later used those computations to argue that LNG shipments would pose only a limited threat to a nuclear plant near an LNG facility in Cove Point, Md.
This year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission cited the Quest computations in its decision to allow a new LNG terminal at Hackberry, La., near Lake Charles.
And in recent weeks, ExxonMobil officials referenced numbers virtually identical to Quest’s computations when arguing that a “worst case” tanker spill in Mobile Bay would not harm surrounding communities.
ExxonMobil proposes to bring super-cooled LNG from global sources via supertankers, which would offload their cargo at the onshore terminal. There, the LNG would be converted to the conventional vaporous form of natural gas, and piped to U.S. consumers.
Scientists challenge Quest:
In two letters to DOE’s Juckett, written in October 2002 and later made available to Mobile Register reporters, Quest officials highlighted how their results contrasted markedly with major scientific studies of LNG dangers.
Quest listed a “summary” of the other spill computations produced by the five published studies most frequently used by scientists in LNG-hazard research. The summary makes clear that those major studies all reach similar conclusions about the size of a fire produced by 6 million gallons of LNG — which is about one-fifth of the contents of an LNG tanker. Each of those five studies estimate fires a half-mile or more in diameter, which means that severe thermal effects — second-degree burns after a few seconds of exposure, for example –would spread at least a mile from the center of the fire itself.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which makes recommendations to other federal agencies on how to handle potential LNG spills, said Friday that its new study of LNG will estimate fire sizes in the same range as the other published studies.
NOAA researcher Bill Lehr in Washington state said that his agency’s latest recommendations, which are being reviewed by other scientists, support in large measure the assumptions and conclusions of the previous published studies.
The Quest correspondence with the DOE, however, estimates a fire of 470 feet in diameter, or only one-fifth the size of the smallest fire envisioned by the published studies. The severe heat effects of the fire predicted by Quest would extend only about 1,770 feet, the Quest letters noted.
“It’s quite obvious that if you use any of the published literature … it’s going to be a
much bigger fire than Quest’s numbers suggest,” said Fay, the MIT professor, who wrote one of the studies cited in the Quest letters. “Their model has never been published or peer-reviewed” by other scientists.
Because Quest’s numbers are so out of line with other studies, and because the company’s assumptions and results have never been peer-reviewed, the “estimates must be considered to lack the credibility necessary for public confidence,” said Jerry Havens, a University of Arkansas chemical engineering professor, whose scientific work lies at the heart of federal regulations for LNG terminals.
In recent weeks, the Mobile Register has discovered numerous federal and LNG industry documents that cite the Quest numbers. None of those documents acknowledged the existence of published and peer-reviewed scientific studies, or mentioned that other studies predict fires five to six times larger than Quest predicts.
Was Energy Department involved?
Juckett, the DOE official whose name turns up frequently in association with the Quest numbers, retired from the agency sometime in the past month, according to agency officials in Washington, D.C. His office voice mail in Washington still operates, but reporters’ messages last week were not returned.
Late Friday, in response to questions from the Register, DOE press officer Drew Malcomb attempted to distance the agency from the Quest study.
In written responses to questions about the Quest calculations, Malcomb said that the agency could not comment because DOE “did not commission or release the study” and was “not involved” with the study in any way.
The Register, however, submitted information to Malcomb that indicated the agency had an intimate connection to the Quest study:
— John Cornwell, the lead scientist for the Quest study, said that Quest did the fire computation model at the request of DOE. Letters from Cornwell to DOE’s Juckett, dated Oct. 2 and 3, 2001, appear to confirm that Juckett corresponded with the company about the study and its contents shortly after the study was produced.
— An official federal document — the environmental impact study for the Hackberry, La., LNG terminal — stated that the Quest numbers were examined “as part of an effort by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to determine the hazards associated with reopening” the Boston LNG facility after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
— In written comments to the Register, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officials referred to the Hackberry impact statement, and explained that “the Quest study was performed for the U.S. Department of Energy.”
— Early last week, DOE official Clifford Tomaszewski in Washington, D.C., told the Register that Juckett has used the Quest study in presentations to local officials concerned about LNG facilities in Boston, in Cove Point, Md., and in Mobile.
— A Shell Oil-sponsored study last year of an LNG facility proposed for Vallejo, Calif., cited the Quest calculations, and stated that they were developed for the DOE in 2001.
— A PowerPoint computer presentation called “Properties of LNG” –which references the Quest “model,” lists DOE’s Juckett as the author, and bears the seal of the Department of Energy — is available on the Internet. That presentation, which is also credited to Juckett in a recent Congressional Research Service report, states that DOE “commissioned the models” in coordination with other agencies. Last week, the presentation could be viewed on the web at www.borderpowerplants.org.
“We did that (study) for DOE,” Quest’s Cornwell said Friday. “It was my understanding this was all supposed to be done quietly.”
Cornwell said he was told that the calculations would address a national security concern with the Boston LNG terminal following the Sept. 11 attacks. He said he never intended the letters or the calculations to be released to the public, and was unaware that they were in the public domain.
“Basically, (DOE officials) released them,” Cornwell said. “I didn’t think anything of it until I started seeing the numbers in PowerPoint displays all over the world.”
Cornwell said he spoke to Juckett and told him that the Quest numbers were not appropriate “for many of the things they are being used for.”
When told that the Quest calculations appeared in the official environmental impact statement for the Hackberry, La., LNG terminal, Cornwell said, “Oh, brother. That’s part of the problem.”
Cornwell noted that “other entities” have also been looking at how the Quest calculations are being used and saying “wait a minute.”
May have determined Boston case:
The Register has learned that other LNG scientists also contacted Juckett and expressed concerns about the Quest data. One of those scientists said he was told that the numbers were going to be used only internally by the DOE.
But the numbers are clearly being promoted by many parties. In addition to Juckett’s multiple presentations, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil and Chevron have all used the Quest calculations in company statements or in commissioned studies.
Perhaps the best known and most consequential use of the Quest calculations occurred in 2001, shortly after the Boston LNG terminal was shut down by the Coast Guard after the Sept. 11 attacks. LNG tankers have to transit through downtown Boston to reach the LNG terminal in the metro-area community of Everett, Mass.
Media accounts from the Associated Press, Boston newspapers and shipping industry publications reported that the Coast Guard lifted its ban on LNG shipments into Boston after consulting with the DOE and local fire and police officials. Boston’s Fire Commissioner Paul Christian and Police Supt. James Hussey were opposed to the decision, and remain outspoken critics of the LNG terminal.
Shortly after the Coast Guard decision, the mayors of Boston and Everett sought a court injunction against further shipments to the terminal, warning of the risk of a terrorist attack. The terminal remained closed until the end of October 2001, when a federal judge ruled that the shipments could resume.
DOE’s Tomaszewski acknowledged early last week that Juckett presented the Quest data at a meeting in Boston with officials from the Coast Guard and other federal agencies. The DOE’s Malcomb refused to comment on whether the Quest data had been presented in federal court during the hearings on reopening the LNG terminal.
“I cannot help you with the Quest study,” Malcomb wrote the Register last week. “The DOE member who told you that DOE was involved was misinformed. We were not involved. As to what was done with the study calculations, you’ll have to ask Quest.”
Quest’s Cornwell said he could understand why people would want to explore the assumptions used in his study, but he said he couldn’t talk more about the specifics of his analysis until he was given permission by DOE officials.
“If I could retract those letters and write more on the topic I would, but my hands are tied until DOE tells me what I can and can’t do,” Cornwell said.
By Ben Raines And Bill Finch
