Thus spake "Johannes Ullrich" <jullrich@euclidian.com>
> The article is comparing the relatively 'inert' diesel fuel to
> the aircraft fuel that caused the devastation at the WTC.
> Did the authors of this article ever hear about heating oil tanks?
Unnamed Administration sources reported that Stephen Sprunk said:
Jet fuel ak.a kerosene is essentially the same thing as diesel. The only reason
it's 'inert' is that it's too dense to explode like gasoline. You have to mix
in oxidizers (e.g. fertilizer) or atomize it mechanically (e.g. BLU-82) before
ignition if you want a big boom.
Essentially is a big understatement.
Jet A **is** Kerosene. The highest grade, best inspected, Kero
around, but still Kero. When it flunks one of those 20-odd tests,
it's sold off as Kero. (At ~~40% of the JetA price...)
Diesel, and #2 Heating Oil are slightly thicker but in this context
not a whole lot different. [Diesel has a higher 'cetane' rating,
very roughly equivalent to octane in gasoline..] Note that Conrail
burn[ed,s] Kero in their locomotives; not sure why.
Eons ago, [it seems..] I worked at a tank farm where we ..spooled..
hundreds of thousands of barrels [1 bbl == 42 USGal.] of gasoline
and 'distillates' through local storage [tanks]. As I recall,
we pumped the major airport 10 miles away just shy of half a
million gallons of Jet A per day.