“In the last two decades of the twentieth century, hundreds of people have died of carbon dioxide asphyxiation near volcanoes in Cameroon and in Indonesia.” — Allison Stark Draper, in Coping With Natural Disasters Many worry about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide is also a much more urgent hazard. [...]
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash, it’s a gas.” — Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, of The Rolling Stones Ever notice how the popular media never refer to chemicals. No, they talk about “toxic chemicals.” It’s as though any material that is not toxic is not a chemical, or perhaps, any material called a chemical must be toxic. [...]
“Don’t cross the streams.” -Egon from Ghostbusters It doesn’t take much for two tasks to interfere with one another out in general industry. Work environments can be quite hectic as the end of a fiscal year approaches, where multiple goals and tasks are being wrapped up. Plant life is not much different, except some of [...]
“Hell freezing over? I don’t know. But the devil’s definitely wearing a sweater.” — J.R.Moehringer Nerd humor requires pointing out that Hell freezing over does NOT equate to sweater weather. Given that Hell is the place where it rains fire and brimstone (sulfur), the temperatures in Hell must be above the freezing point of sulfur. Molten [...]
“Notice. All Activities Monitored By Video Camera.” — Various Department Store Surveillance Signs The adage that a watched pot never boils is false. The boil will occur, regardless of whether someone is observing it. Watching the pot appears to increase the time it takes to boil, especially if that is the only task that the [...]
“Anything can go away. There’s no such thing as security. You can do things that give you the illusion of security, but there’s really no such thing.” — Will Smith Authorization for the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) expired on July 28, 2023. The House of Representatives passed the reauthorization bill by a vote of [...]
“Ideas nearly always seem brilliant when they’re hatched, so we never act on a new idea for at least twenty-four hours.” — Steven D. Levitt Batch processes often rely on additions through open hatches for ingredients that don’t lend themselves to being pumped in through a pipe. These include liquid ingredients used in small quantities [...]
“Once you start something, finish it. Don’t accumulate a backlog of unfinished projects.” — Ed Bliss If you are on the Chemical Safety Board’s distribution list, you may have noticed a lot of trade releases from the CSB in your in-box during the last few weeks. They’ve been busy. A recent press release proudly announced [...]
“Time flies over us but leaves its shadow behind.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne Layers of protection analysis (LOPA) considers enabling conditions as part of the analysis. Enabling conditions account for an aspect of likelihood that if unaccounted for, would overstate the risk of a hazard. There are some organizations, however, that deem many of these enabling [...]
“Among our articles of lazy hardware, I recommend the faucet that stops dripping when no one is listening to it.” — Marcel Duchamp Piping systems need drain and vent valves. For start-up, shutdown, maintenance, and other reasons. A piping system without appropriate drain and vent valves won’t work properly and is an exposure hazard for [...]
