16 October 2011

Controlled Explosions Shake Sylmar

Controlled Explosions Shake Sylmar

Three tanks full of compressed hydrogen at a Sylmar energy plant that were too dangerous to transport were successfully detonated Sunday.

A pair of huge booms rang out across the eastern San Fernando Valley Sunday, as an LAPD bomb squad used plastic explosives to detonate canisters containing a volatile mixture of hydrogen, oxygen and other gases.

 

The planned demolition was coordinated by a task force that included the LAPD bomb squad, city fire department, California Highway Patrol, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Federal pollution scientists were monitoring the atmosphere for any residual effects of the explosion.

Sunday's explosions were delayed by the late discovery of a homeless man sleeping within the blast zone, and three blasts were needed to finish the job, according to city fire Capt. Jim Ruda.

A large industrial park in a canyon, about a half mile from the nearest houses, was evacuated prior to the scheduled detonations. A section of the Foothill (210) Freeway was closed at about 6 a.m. to accommodate the planned destruction.

The large police operation was prompted by an explosion and fire at Rainbow of Hope, a startup company that had taken out a patent on a supposed process to crack the molecular bond between hydrogen and oxygen from water molecules. For two centuries, science has known that running an electrical current through water can cause hydrogen and oxygen gas to be emitted, but that process takes more energy than is generated.

In 2010, a pair of explosions at another Rainbow of Hope facility in nearby Simi Valley killed one person and seriously injured another. Tyson Larson was killed in the June 2010 Simi Valley blast, and his brother Tim Larson was maimed in the explosion last August in Sylmar.

Tim Larson, a Los Angeles firefighter on disability, lost an arm and leg in that blast. The powerful explosion opened up the roof and threw a second man, William Stehl, into an alley.

Stehl and the two brothers' father, Timothy J. Larson, apparently owned the energy-from-water company. The Ventura County Star has reported that Stehl; and the elder Larson had applied for a patent to generate energy from water, and Stehl had also faced trial on federal charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and tax evasion in connection with the energy company.

 

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