Ethanol Safety Training

There is an interesting short article over at www.ProgressiveRailroading.com about a series of ethanol safety seminars that will be held in California next month. The training co-hosted by the Renewable Fuels Association and the Ethanol Emergency Response Coalition (EERC) will address some of the peculiar problems that emergency responders will face with ethanol and ethanol-blended fuels incidents. Since ethanol fuels are typically moved by truck or rail (not pipeline for a number of technical reasons) first responders far from ethanol production facilities (and their associated expertise) are having to deal with ethanol related spills and fires.

The seminars will focus on:

• An introduction to ethanol and ethanol-blended fuels;

• Chemical and physical characteristics of ethanol and hydrocarbon fuels;

• Transportation and transfer of ethanol-blended fuels;

• Storage and dispensing locations;

• Firefighting foam principles and ethanol-blended fuel;

• Health and safety considerations for ethanol-blended fuel emergencies; and

• Tank farm and bulk storage fire incidents

For those not able to attend these seminars (and more are planned outside of California), the EERC has a web site with training materials for local responders to use to familiarize themselves with the ethanol response issues.