Dateline: June 2020Update: August 2021The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything. When more than 22 million people in the United States alone lose their jobs in just a few weeks we have entered a new and different world. There is no going back to an ‘Old Normal’. In the first post in this series, The New PSM Normal (1) — Deflation, I suggest that we are entering a time of deflation, which is…
VideoHistory Safety Management: we have published a 30 minute video package that shows how safety management systems in the process and energy industries have developed during the course of the last 300 years. The YouTube video shown at the end of this page provides a short extract.Historical SequenceWe can look at the development of the history of industrial safety programs using the…
The term “Kodak Moment” originally referred to a rare or special occasion that was captured on (Kodak) film. The term has also come to describe a situation in which a company fails to foresee structural changes in its industry such that the company eventually falls into bankruptcy.The Kodak company was a world leader in film photography. Management of the company understood that digital cameras…
This post is the third in a series in which we consider how our approach to industrial safety, and process safety in particular, may change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is early days — no one knows what the ultimate health and economic effects of this frightening event will be. But it seems likely that we are entering a ‘New Normal’. So much has happened so quickly that it is hard to…
If you fly over the offshore platform of the future in a helicopter and look down you will see just two living beings: an operator and a dog. The operator’s job is to feed the dog; the dog’s job is to make sure that the operator doesn’t touch anything.This is the fourth post in our series to do with the ‘New Normal’ as it applies to industrial safety. The series is written on the assumption that…
2020-05-20In this post I would like to consider how those of us who work in industrial and process safety can help the community at large? The subject came to mind when I was discussing the eventual return of people to church services with a colleague. Our Episcopal diocese has organized a four-phase program for the re-opening of the churches (we are currently in Phase One).Phases Two and Three…
2020-06-03In the post SEMS and Risk in 2020 (SEMS if the offshore equivalent of process safety management as applied to U.S. deepwater operations — mostly the Gulf of Mexico), Mick Will, says,The speed with which drastic change has come over our industry is what is so different from past events. While oil price volatility has been something I have dealt with for 42 years, I do not remember change…
This article provides guidance to do with the launching and retrieving of pipeline pigs (also known as scrapers or tools).Pig LaunchingBelow is a schematic of a launcher.In normal operation the fluid (liquid or gas) moves along the line from left to right through the open Main Line valve. The kicker and isolation valves are both closed hence the barrel of the pig launcher is isolated from the…
Isolation MethodsPositive isolation methods are those which remain effective even if there is equipment failure or operator error. These techniques apply not only to vessels, piping and tanks but also to pneumatic and hydraulic equipment.The sketch shows some of the various isolation techniques that can be used to protect workers in the process industries. The process containing toxic or…
The material in this article is extracted from Chapter 1 of the 2nd edition of the book Plant Design and Operations and in the ebook 52 Process Safety Moments.A hazard that is of great concern to virtually all process facilities is fire — most of the materials being processed, stored or transported are flammable and/or explosive. Therefore, when designing a process facility, the prevention…
As good as it getsThis is the first article in a series to do the future of energy in a Net Zero world. In this article we look at fossil fuels, why they are so valuable, and the properties they have that will make them so difficult to replace.Many of the discussions in this series are based on the following sketch. We will review and analyze sections of this sketch in future…
Renewable Energy. M.C. Escher's Waterfall (1961)The ParadoxRenewables are growing faster than other sources of energy.The fraction of energy provided by renewals is declining.The Net Zero CommitmentAt the heart of most ‘Net Zero’ programs lies a commitment to transferring our primary energy sources from finite fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) to renewables, which, in practice, means solar…
Faster! Faster!In Lewis Carroll’s famous story Through the Looking-Glass the protagonist, Alice, meets the Red Queen. Suddenly they start running.Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the…
The matching YouTube for this article is located at the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Scopes video.Many companies in the energy and process industries have committed to a Net Zero program. Their aim is to cease net emissions of greenhouse gases by a specific year, often 2050. In order to properly define their goal these companies need to identify the emissions for which they are…
The following is a short summary of the full post, The Future Has No Narrative.In 2015 the author Wendell Berry said,So far as I am concerned, the future has no narrative. The future does not exist until it has become the past. To a very limited extent, prediction has worked. The sun, so far, has set and risen as we have expected it to do. And the world, I suppose, will predictably end, but all…