| Back Issues |
|
|
|
|
ACS Members can sign up to receive C&EN e-mail newsletter.  |
|
|
 Join ACS |
|
|||||||||
|
BUSINESS
A BASF polymers unit in Wyandotte, Mich., where about 750 people work, has been shut down, for example; Ohio-based Lubrizol lost power at its headquarters suddenly Friday morning, Aug. 15; and no one was answering the phone at the Canadian Chemical Producers' Association in Ottawa, one of the cities hardest hit by the blackout. Nova Chemicals has shuttered several facilities located in the Midwest and Canada. Bayer has an administrative facility and warehouse in Toronto that limited operations at least for Aug. 15, while the company's butyl and other rubber products facility in Sarnia, Ontario, were operating on a limited basis with only critical staff on-site. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council says the impact of the blackouts on transportation is affecting the movement--including import and export--of chemicals in the affected regions. But she could not characterize the total impact. C&EN has been unable to contact personnel at companies such as Pfizer, which is headquartered in New York City, because the city itself has virtually shut down. Within hours of the blackout, investigations were promised by several individual members of the House and Senate, and House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman W. J. (Billy) Tauzin (R-La.) said his committee will hold hearings on the power grid failure in early September when Congress returns from recess. President George W. Bush, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Pat Wood III expressed concern over the outage and pointed to the need to address transmission line modernization in energy legislation currently before a House-Senate conference committee. Also at the federal level, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that nine nuclear reactors in the affected region had been shut down, as they need electricity from the grid to maintain their safety systems. The commission emphasized, however, that rumors of a fire at a reactor were incorrect and no reactors have experienced safety problems at this time. |
|||||||||
|
Chemical & Engineering News |
|||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
