regulatory agencies. Transportation safety is an issue because gas companies plan to import as much as half of their LNG supplies. These supplies, according to the OTA report, could amount to 5 to 15% of U.S. natural gas needs by 1985, compared with less than 0.5% of current natural gas consumption in the U.S. OTA notes that although there have been no major LNG accidents in the U.S. since the 1944 disaster in Cleveland that took more than 100 lives, the potential for great harm is nonetheless real. For example, OTA says, a major spill of the refrigerated gas from a tanker into the warm waters of a harbor would vaporize the gas rapidly into a cloud that could ignite with furious speed. One of the major issues in the LNG safety debate is the location of storage facilities, particularly those that will receive the fuel from specially designed ships that bring the gas from producing countries such as Algeria and Indonesia. OTA believes that improved inspection of onshore LNG facilities will be needed to protect public safety. But the report notes that no federal siting guidelines currently exist for LNG storage and distribution facilities. The report also points out that federal regulation of LNG is fraught with jurisdictional overlaps among as many as a dozen federal agencies. Beyond that, OTA compiled a list in its report of the permits required for just one LNG import project, a Columbia LNG Corp. terminal at Cove Point, Md., at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Thus far, Columbia has had to obtain more than 100 permits from the federal government, the states of Maryland and Virginia, and from municipalities in the Washington, D.C., area. •
Dow pulls out of power plant venture Dow Chemical apparently has more attractive alternatives for its lignite (brown coal) deposits in central Texas than to use them as fuel for electric power generators. When Dow disclosed last week that it was dropping out of a joint venture with Houston Lighting & Power (HL&P) to build two large power plants in Freestone County, Texas, the company did not detail any of the alternatives under study, however. Dow and HL&P earlier this year disclosed plans to build the two 750-Mw generating units (C&EN, Feb. 13, page 7). The companies would have shared equally the cost of building the units and the power they 6
C&EN June 5, 1978
Rooke: cogeneration is attractive
would have generated if they had come on stream as scheduled in 1983 and 1984. Dow had planned to use its share of electricity for making various chemicals at its huge complex at Freeport, Tex. There are several alternatives for the lignite deposits, according to David L. Rooke, new president of Dow Chemical U.S.A. They include,
but are not limited to, cogeneration (of power and steam) and several gasification methods to recover the energy in the lignite. Rooke considers cogeneration one of the most attractive. This technique involves making high-pressure steam to drive turbines to generate electricity and then using the effluent low-pressure steam for process heat in chemical manufacturing units. Dow uses large quantities of power at Freeport to make magnesium, caustic soda, and chlorine. Other units there that make various organic chemicals and polymers as well as inorganic chemicals require large quantities of heat for process use. Two other Texas cogeneration projects are under way—Celanese and Southwestern Public Service Co. are building a coal-fired unit at Pampa, Tex.; and Union Carbide, Amoco Chemicals, and Monsanto are planning a unit probably to be fueled by Texas lignite at Texas City with electricity to be distributed by a local power company, Community Public Service Co. (C&EN, April 3, page 8). Dow says it is undecided about the possibility of taking on a new partner in a project to use its lignite deposits. Currently, the company is expecting to proceed alone. •
ICI details plans for West Germany Imperial Chemical Industries' im- I mediate plans for its new West German production site were hardly a secret. Since word first leaked out last year that the U.K.-based company intended to build at Wilhelmshaven, it was generally understood that initial units would center on making chlorine, vinyl chloride, and polyvinyl chloride (C&EN, May 23,1977, page 10). What did constitute an element of surprise when details of the plans finally were unveiled last week was that ICI has bought Alusuisse Atlantik from Lonza, the Basel-based chemical subsidiary of Switzerland's Alusuisse. With the acquisition comes Alusuisse Atlantik's chlorine and caustic soda plants that are adjacent to I d ' s property and a ready-made entrenched position in the West German chlor-alkali market. First to go in on the 790-acre site will be units for making 300,000 metric tons per year of vinyl chloride and 115,000 metric tons per year of PVC. I d ' s initial investment, which includes purchasing Alusuisse Atlantik and building marine storage facilities for ethylene and other intermediates as well as for finished products, will come to about $400 million. Although ICI starts out with I
a captive chlorine source, it hasn't ruled out the possibility of putting up a "world-scale" diaphragm cell chlorine plant at a later date to meet expanded requirements. When ICI made known its intention to develop a new chemical complex in continental Western Europe—the company also has production facilities at Fos, near Marseille, France, and at Rozenburg, the Netherlands—it sparked a fair amount of criticism from its U.K. employees and British labor unions. They viewed the move as a threat to future British expansions and job opportunities. Partly to placate this fear, ICI has embarked on a somewhat similar set of U.K. projects. The company has earmarked $269 million for a new 170,000 metric-ton-per-year chlorine plant at Wilton, on Teesside (ICI already has capacity for making 1 million metric tons of chlorine annually in the U.K.), and for a 150,000 metric-ton-per-year vinyl chloride operation that will lift its overall annual U.K. capacity for the monomer to 490,000 metric tons. In addition, ICI will raise its U.K. PVC capacity from the current 270,000 metric tons per year to 325,000 metric tons. •
