In the August issue of Power Magazine, Acensium Principal Jason Schwartz has a compelling piece about an extensive long-term dust control project for a southern utility company, retrofitting the coal material handling systems at numerous plants.
From the piece:
“On February 7, 2008, the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Ga., exploded, ultimately killing 14 people and injuring 38. The resulting investigation determined that the explosion was fueled by massive accumulations of combustible sugar dust throughout the packaging building at the plant.
After that incident, industrial facilities all over the U.S. took notice. Whether sugar, flour, wood, plastics, or coal, uncontrolled industrial dust is a significant explosion risk. Utilities with coal generation facilities, rightly concerned with the safety implications, worked to develop plans to mitigate the combustible dust risk at their coal-fired plants.”
