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Old 02-11-2016, 11:23 PM
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pmulcahy11b pmulcahy11b is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker View Post
how hard is it to destroy a refinery when a simple match can set off a catastrophic event?
Actually, you don't even need a match. In the TV series Life Without People, it shows that just leaving a functioning refinery unattended will cause its explosive demise. The sections of a refinery depend upon raw materials moving along bit by bit in an uninterrupted chain -- Most refinery explosions have taken place because some part of this progression did not happen, sometimes only for a few hours. Things get backed up, concentrations of hydrocarbons occurs where there shouldn't be concentrations, temperatures rise, and BOOM.

It's a long, tedious, difficult process to properly turn off a refinery complex. And with war at full gallop, no one is going to want to turn off functioning refineries deliberately.
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