Hydrogen Safety - Accidents

Accidents

Hydrogen has been feared in the popular press as a relatively more dangerous fuel, and hydrogen in fact has the widest explosive/ignition mix range with air of all the gases except acetylene. However this can be mitigated by the fact that hydrogen rapidly rises and disperses before ignition. Unless the escape is in an enclosed, unventilated area, it is unlikely to be serious. Hydrogen also usually rapidly escapes after containment breach. Additionally, hydrogen flames are difficult to see, so may be difficult to fight. An experiment performed at the University of Miami attempted to counter this by showing that hydrogen escapes while gasoline remains by setting alight hydrogen- and petrol-fuelled vehicles.

In a more recent event, an explosion of compressed hydrogen during delivery at the Muskingum River Coal Plant (owned and operated by AEP) caused significant damage and killed one person. For more information on incidents involving hydrogen, visit the US DOE's Hydrogen Incident Reporting and Lessons Learned page.

During the 2011 Fukushima nuclear emergency, four reactor buildings were damaged by hydrogen explosions. Exposed Zircaloy cladded fuel rods became very hot and react with steam, releasing hydrogen. Safety devices that normally burn the generated hydrogen failed due loss of electric power. To prevent further explosions, vent holes were opened on the top of remaining reactor buildings.