The environment, industrial risk and shipping spills.

The environment, part 3.

Exxon Valdiz, Amoco Cadiz, Erika, tankers on the rocks, oil platforms blowing up, tens of thousands of gallons of oil, diesel, gasoline in the sea. Seagull stuck in muck, otters dying, turtles asphyxiated, oyster banks ruined, beaches a disgrace, fishing industries bankrupted. Terrible stuff!

Fukushima explosion and long term disastrous consequences - following Chernobyl..., refinery explosions, paper mill discharges into the rivers, airplane crashes, chemical spills, all with enormous environmental impact. Horrendous!

Every time, commissions analyzing, judges ruling, fines, monetary compensations, clean-up costs, and lots of finger pointing, someone has to be responsible, right?

Quite right, BUT:

Have you ever had an accident at home? Burning oil on a hand perhaps, or an electric shock, maybe? Falling from a ladder anyone? How about car accidents, a slight trace of ice in the winter, or a moment of inattention, a flower pot falling from the balcony, or a roller skate left unattended? Banana peels ring a bell?

These are accidents we could avoid, and given that it concerns us directly, we do make a great deal of efforts to avoid them. Yet they happen.
All the time.

Industry spends an extraordinary amount of time, effort and MONEY to avoid accidents. Accidents are bad in many respects: they cost a lot of money and downtime (more money), they hurt people, including staff members, they damage reputations, sometimes irretrievably. Companies have mind boggling procedures to avoid accidents, traning procedures, safety procedures, ISO standards, double redundant safety systems, and so on. As an example, I know one oil company that has the following before changing a light bulb (I am not kidding, guess who it is?):

1) Describe the problem in detail, check the description by another person, do an impact analysis of the problem. Check if any regulatory approval is required before any intervention.
2) Describe in detail the intervention procedure, vet it by another person, approve it at a higher level.
3) Describe all the "lock-up" requirement (in this case, turn off the power, lock the power switch by another persone, check the lock-up by yet another person). List and have approved at a higher level all personal safety equipment needed.
4) Prepare the intervention, e.g. build the scaffolding, check the scaffolding by another person, approve the scaffolding as built by yet another one.
5) Re-check all the above before the person starts climbing the scaffolding. Have a stand-by assistant nearby to help if needed, who also verifies that the safety equipment is properly worn.
6) Proceed with the change of the bulb. Test that the intervention has been done properly by another person.
7) Dismantle everything and prepare for restart.
8) Before restart, check again that all is ready, cleared and cleaned.
9) Restart
10) Issue an intervention report describing all the above.

This is for a light bulb (company is BP, would you believe it?)... Imagine for a major refinery refit?

Shipping companies have incredible constraints placed on them (from the qualification of the skipper and crew to the age and regular vetting of the ship, loading procedures,  watch systems, redundant safety systems, etc...

Yet, accidents happen. Amazing no?

Oil tankers move about 2,000,000,000 metric tons of oil per year. This makes about 5.5 million tons per DAY. I couldn't find the average size of an oil tanker (they have increased in size over the years to reduce freight cost), but certainly to move 5 million tons EVERY day, means a very large number of tankers at sea at all times, particularly if one thinks that much of it comes from the Middle East or West Africa and has to travel across large oceans to reach Europe, Japan or the USA.
The average age of a tanker is 10 years. One third of them is 4 years old only. Big ones are newer, small coastal carriers are older.
All oil companies have a vetting system, basically disallowing the use of tankers more than 10 years old,  requiring double hulls, recent inspections, and all sorts of constraints on the shipping company.

Accidents happen. Shit happens. It happens at home, on the road, and at sea. It happens in plants despite all the safety procedures., and it will continue to happen WHATEVER we do.

Considering the number of man hours worked, and the volumes produced and shipped, the accident rate in industry is extremely small, and a very small fraction of the accident rate in private homes or on the road. In other words, industry is about as safe as it can be, and the usual finger pointing that happens after an accident is totally unfair. How would you feel to be fined or jailed because your spouse fell off a ladder while unclogging the gutter? It is true that the impact of industrial accidents/spills is much greater that whatever can happen at home or even on the road, but it does not negate the fact that safety is a prime concern of industry and shipping.

Shit will happen. It's bound to, and CANNOT be entirely avoided. Or rather it can, no more spills if no more oil is transported. No more big bang in plants if we shut down the plants. No more car accidents if we just prohibit cars (reminds me of the joke: alcohol kills on the roads, let's prohibit roads) and so on. But are we prepared to go back to the caves? Can we feed the world, and house the population, and basically maintain some sort of developed living standards by doing so? Answer is obviously NO.

So, my point is: What kind of life style do we want? Developed? Means accidents will happen.
No accidents or spills? Means back to the caves.

No other option, so let's stop pointing fingers and damning industry and shipping. They do their very best (with some few exceptions, and in such cases the punishment must be massive), and have a relatively superb track record. The problem is not with industry. The problem is with the demand placed on industry (and shipping), given the size of the population and the living standards expected.

So, just like with food, and fertilizers, and pesticides, and the general power requirements, industry is doing what is needed to keep the system going. It is the system (i.e. numbers of people and individual requirement) that creates an unfix-able problem for the environment.

We need to talk about population control and/or reduction and life style expectations. This is the issue. Nothing else.

This will be the topic of my next blog.

Comments welcome.
Cheers from Roatan, Honduras.