“Don’t be misled by History, or any other unreliable source.” — Will Rogers I remember when I lost faith in safety data sheets – SDSs. Well, they were called Material Safety Data Sheets – MSDSs – then. I was a young engineer, and the only engineer, at a start-up. My boss, the owner, assigned me [...]
“But you don’t ever think it would happen to you.” — Kyla Kennedy, server at Stooges Bar and Grill, near SDF (as quoted by CNN) The first time I ever gave any thought to the risk of a plane crashing into a chemical plant was when an acquaintance approached me at a conference with the [...]
“To be beyond any existing classification has always pleased me.” — Boyd Rice Every distiller understands that they are working with extremely explosive hazards. There is ethanol, a flammable liquid. And there is milled grain, a source of combustible dust. Despite this, when I visit distilleries, I often see areas that should be electrically classified [...]
“Before the first atomic bomb test, scientists took the time to calculate whether the blast would ignite the nitrogen in the Earth’s atmosphere and incinerate us all. The risk was low and the test went off, but Rees wonders what the odds would have had to be to discourage the bomb makers.” — Dennis Overbye [...]
“A rule without exceptions is an instrument capable of doing mischief to the innocent and bringing grief—as well as injustice—to those who should gain exemptions from the rule’s functioning.” — Derrick Bell I don’t remember when I first realized that there is a difference between process safety management and Process Safety Management. Process safety—the aspect [...]
“The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” — Carl Jung I’ve been taught, and have taught others, that you can’t take credit for a fire suppression system in a Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA). Why not? Because a fire suppression system doesn’t kick in until a fire [...]
“I had thought fermentation was controlled death.” — Michelle Zauner I enjoy touring distilleries. I love seeing the process of making whiskey, but I’m usually taken aback when we get to the fermentation step. Occasionally, the fermenters are enclosed and vent to the roof. Most fermenters that I see, however, are open top vats. This [...]
“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.” — Calvin Coolidge I love a good play on words. “At once” can mean either “simultaneously” or it can mean “immediately”, and Calvin Coolidge managed to pack both meanings into a single sentence. “We cannot do everything simultaneously, but we can do [...]
“More often than not, to blame someone else is to play ‘hot potato’ with something that’s neither hot nor a potato.” — Craig D. Lounsbrough Imagine you work at a plant that makes a polymer. One of the raw materials is the monomer and it is toxic, reactive, and flammable. It contains an inhibitor to [...]
“I have a horror of being in confined spaces.” — Hayley Mills At a craft distillery that is not too far from Bluefield’s offices, the owner spoke about his need to climb into the pot still to clean out the stillage, especially the spent grains. He saw me wince and said, “Yeah, I know. It’s [...]
