Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2022 May 8

= May 8 =

Natural gas odorant and Havana disaster
Where I live, natural gas is commonly burned for heating and cooking, and the supply in the gas mains is always treated with an odorant so that if there is a leak, people will smell it. I've heard that this practice was established following the New London School explosion disaster in Texas in 1937.

On a TV news report about the recent disaster in Havana, I heard that this was because of a natural-gas leak. I suppose it's possible that some other sort of gas is burned in Cuba and the reporter's reference to natural gas was an error, but if not, I am led to wonder whether natural gas in Cuba contains an odorant. Anyone know? --184.144.97.125 (talk) 21:05, 8 May 2022 (UTC)


 * The latest that I've read (AP, I think),[citation needed] during construction (refurbishing) there was a crane lifting out an old natural gas storage tank when it happened. Speculation is discouraged, but it probably wasn't just a "leak". --2603:6081:1C00:1187:980D:B7DC:4B69:46AD (talk) 01:06, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * An AFP story of two days ago, with the by-line Rigoberto DIAZ, had this: "Mr Roberto Calzadilla of state company Gaviota, which owns the hotel, said the explosion happened while a gas tank was being refilled." --Lambiam 05:33, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I must have conflated the line A large crane hoisted a charred gas tanker out of the rubble Saturday from this AP report: 2603:6081:1C00:1187:980D:B7DC:4B69:46AD (talk) 09:06, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Odorants can be added to every kind of gas and they usually are for domestic applications. That doesn't rule out explosions. In my country (Netherlands), an odorant has been added to the domestic natural gas supply for decades, yet every year a few homes explode (of the 10 million homes we've got). Natural gas gets phased out mostly for climate reasons, but the far majority of homes still has a gas pipe for heating and very often cooking too. Sometimes nobody's around to smell it or people do smell it, but don't recognise the danger. PiusImpavidus (talk) 13:49, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The circumstances suggest a catastrophic leakage during refilling, so everyone was probably well aware that there was a problem for the brief time before the explosion. Alansplodge (talk) 19:25, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I was not suggesting that if there was an explosion then an odorant must not have been in use; I was wondering if an odorant was in use. I know nothing about the regulation of natural gas, or indeed other gases, in Cuba. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 22:44, 9 May 2022 (UTC)