Domestic terrorism looks to rear its ugly head again in Canada. It is a sad, sad day for Canada.
A second explosion had shredded the earth around a nearby pipeline, sending small amounts of deadly sour gas hissing into the air, and Ms. Mazanek was asked to keep her cell phone close in case she was needed to evacuate kids from the school. Community leaders were on high alert after hearing about the blast, which came overnight about 15 kilometres from her ranch near Tomslake, a small ranching settlement on Highway 2 between the Alberta border and the northern B.C. outpost of Dawson Creek.
Let's hope this is just one lone wing nut and not an organized eco-nut-job group. Also, let us hope they don't get their hands on military grade explosives.
5 comments:
I agree with you about hoping it's just a lone wing nut eco-terrorist.
However, as an experienced (and licensed) user of explosives (hey, I'm a hardrock miner) it's not the "grade" of explosive used, but "how" the blast was set that counts. An experienced blaster could shear the pipe with minimal damage to the surrounding area. So when I read about the large pit caused by the first blast... I would say it's somebody who doesn't have a clue about what explosives can do.
I agree with both of you, but it was also just a matter of time. As the doors to our Country remain open and those here remain even illegally, this type of thing will escalate. Even a fool can do significant damage with enough of something. The immigration situation has to change dramatically very quickly then we can concentrate on healing our own.
I agree with you Don. However the point I was trying to make is that military grade explosives are little more forgiving on the technique side as they are much more powerful.
AC, sorry, but I guess I wasn't clear on what I said. Shame on me, I shouldn't assume others know all the estoric factors governing explosives. A bit of a lecture to explain differences;
"Low" power explosives like black powder and gunpowder don't really detonate. They "deflagrate", that is, they burn really fast and produce lots of hot gas. Typical rate of propagation is 400 metres a second. What that means is that if you laid out a line 400 metres long, it would take exactly one second to burn from one end to the other. That's a good thing when using an explosive to do work like pushing a rifle bullet.
"High" explosives burn much faster. Most common high explosives burn somewhere between 1,000m/s to 9,000m/s, although I have worked with some speciality stuff that was rated at 25,000m/s.
When your blasting agent propagates that fast, it's an explosion. All the blasting agents used in a mine fall into the high explosive category. I can't speak for other mines, but where I work the low end is 4,000m/s and the high end is 7,000m/s.
The only real difference between the mining explosives and military explosives is the stability of the explosive itself. Mining explosives degrade fairly quickly, while military explosive (I am told) has a rather long 'shelf life'. Our gels are non-explosive after a year or so of exposure. Not something the military would like...
Further on the subject, I'm qualified as a longhole AND a secondary blaster. All that means is that I can load a megaton blast that produces thousands of tons of ore, or I can set a really small blast that breaks a small chunk in half, without damaging anything else. Mind you, I have had my share of "oops", but we won't talk about those...
So, back to my main point, let's hope the eco-nut never learns how to set up a blast. Because, like I said, it's so simple to rupture a pipe. Or bring down an electrical transmission line tower...
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