Can a mobile phone create enough energy in a petrol station to blow it up?

Answer 1

I used to work in a petrol station (to give some credence to my answers). There have been accidents at petrol stations attributed to mobile phones, but they weren't big enough to blow the whole place up. There was a letter sent by my employer to all its petrol stations detailing 3 incidents. I only remember one of them: someone was filling up his car when his phone started ringing in his pocket. It caused the petrol fumes to ignite and he received third degree burns to the crotch. The letter also said that newer mobile phones were thought less likely to ignite fumes, and that the problem was more with old phones (such as the bricks which used to exist).

Categorically: mobile phones do not mess with any equipment petrol stations have. The warnings are up there to cover the petrol station, so that in the unlikely event that a mobile phone does actually start a fire, they have informed people of the risks.

Answer 2

striking your mobile fone aggresively against a piece of flint might do it, but other than that i very much doubt it. There are millions of phones around (and have been for many years now), and also a lot of petrol stations. Even if the chance was only very small, probability might suggest that this problem would have happened by now, somewhere in the world. I think health and safety people around the world would have latched on to this and would rejoice in reporting it in forums such as this. As for the suggestion (see previous responses)that mobiles cannot affect the pump's accurate measurement, if this is the case, why can you not use phones on an airplane? I might suggest that they can interefere with electronics and petrol suppliers would have mass heart attacks if they thought they had given anything away for free!! ( ever heard that funny noise coming from loudspeakers when a mobile phone is near by? - i would say that is definately interference of one sort or another)

Answer 3

No it is not dangerous, many petrol station have mobile phone antennas and boosters hidden in the sign displaying the price.

I always understood the reason the petrol stations don't want you to use a mobile phone is that it can interfere with the electronic meters measuring the fuel and price.

Hence the signs forbidding use of mobile phones on forecourts and the inference that it is dangerous, something the petrol companies are not in a hurry to refute.

Disclaimer: No liability accepted if you use your mobile at the garage and it blows you or your car up.

Answer 4

Not to the very extent,you have specified but it causes some damage by igniting the fuel vapour cloud due to the interference of radiation from mobiles which depends on the mobile usage.

Answer 5

No, mythbusters had to blowup the test area using other means when the mobile phone proved to be a faliure at igniting the vapours of petrochemicals. Even when they modified the phone for extreme case senarios(i forgot what they actually did now).

Answer 6

The commonly-held belief that turning on a mobile phone in a petrol station can cause an explosion could be a myth, researchers have said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4366337.stm

Answer 7

yes but I think it would be very unlikely to happen. I read somewhere that they don't like you to use them in petrol stations because they are more likely to interfere with the machine itself - maybe you can get extra fuel or something and the machine malfunctions and doesn't charge you

Answer 8

Yes, if there's a fuel vapour cloud and use of the mobile phone causes a spark that ignites the fume cloud.

Answer 9

I presume the risk is from 'static electricity - if this is so the mobile phones suffered in this way they would by 'spiked' and ruined, thus rendered useless as a profit generator - ask yourself would Orange,02,Vodafone et al risk this - I think not - It is probably bulls*it!

Answer 10

No. The only way it could happen is if one of the keys created a spark and ignited gasoline vapor. But the keys are well separated from surrounding vapors so the risk of this is minimal.