Utah Refinery Blast

Utah-Woods-Cross-798169Via TheStandard.Net, By Loretta Park (Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau), (click here for article)

South Davis Metro Fire Agency Deputy Chief Jeff Bassett said the explosion occurred because a pipe carrying hydrogen and diesel overfilled and sent some of the product onto the ground, where it pooled. It found an ignition source, a furnace, which caused the explosion.

This is what economists in the Neoclassical school call an “externality.” The costs of the disaster are borne by the citizens, not the oil company or the refinery. These costs actually add to the GDP. Economists in the Ecological school, at for example the Gund Institute at University of Vermont or the students in the Marlboro College MBA in Managing for Sustainability, argue we should use the Genuine Progress Indicator, GPI, not Gross Domestic Product, GDP (defined here and described here.)

From WikiNews: Burst pipe probed in Utah refinery blast as questions asked over safety

See also Damage To Homes From Refinery Blast Larger Than First Thought viamid-Utah Radio News;

OSHA Levies a Record Fine against Oil Giant BP from OMBWatch.

This in the immediate aftermath of OSHA’s record-setting proposed fine of $86.7 USD against BP for for a 2005 explosion which killed 15 workers and injured 170. See Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, October 30, 2009, Record OSHA Fine Against BP

Over Texas Refinery Explosion.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administrationannounced the largest fine in its history on Friday, $87 million in penalties against the oil giant BP for failing to correct safety problems identified after a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers at its Texas City, Tex. refinery.

We take the liberty of reproducing Greenhouse’s excellent piece in full:

Record OSHA Fine Against BP Over Texas Refinery Explosion, by Steven Greenhouse, New York Times, October 30, 2009.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced the largest fine in its history on Friday, $87 million in penalties against the oil giant BP for failing to correct safety problems identified after a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers at its Texas City, Tex. refinery.

A series of investigations attributed the March 23, 2005, explosion to overzealous cost-cutting on safety, undue production pressures, antiquated equipment and fatigued employees — some who worked 12 hours a day for 29 straight days

The fine is more than four times the size of any previous OSHA sanction.

Federal officials said the penalty was the result of BP’s failure to comply in hundreds of instances with a 2005 agreement to fix safety hazards at the refinery, the nation’s third-largest.

According to documents obtained by The New York Times, OSHA issued 271 notifications to BP for failing to correct hazards at the Texas City refinery over the four-year period since the explosion. As a result, OSHA, which is part of the Labor Department, is issuing fines of $56.7 million. In addition, OSHA also identified 439 “willful and egregious” violations of industry-accepted safety controls at the refinery. Those violations will lead to $30.7 million in additional fines.

Contacted Thursday night after federal officials disclosed the OSHA citations to The New York Times, BP said it was disappointed.

“We continue to believe we are in full compliance with the settlement agreement, and we look forward to demonstrating that before the review commission” which has the power to modify OSHA penalties, BP said in a statement.

BP said the penalties related to a previously announced disagreement with OSHA as to whether BP was complying with the 2005 settlement agreement.

“While we strongly disagree with their conclusions, we will continue to work with the agency to resolve our differences,” the company said, voicing dismay that OSHA was announcing the fines before the review commission had given the matter full consideration.

BP added that it takes its “responsibilities extremely seriously and we believe our efforts to improve process safety performance have been among the most strenuous and comprehensive that the refining industry has ever seen.”

BP says that since the explosion it has spent more than $1 billion to upgrade production and improve safety at the refinery.

A series of investigations attributed the March 23, 2005, explosion to overzealous cost-cutting on safety, undue production pressures, antiquated equipment and fatigued employees — some who worked 12 hours a day for 29 straight days.

The explosion was caused by a broken gauge and flammable hydrocarbons that were overflowing from an octane processing tower, which lacked a flare system to burn off volatile vapors. Those escaping vapors were ignited by the backfire of a nearby truck.

In addition to killing 15 people, the explosion injured 170 workers and obliterated 13 employee trailers and damaged 13 others, some as far as 300 yards away. The Texas City facility is capable of refining 475,000 barrels of crude a day and is located on a 1,200-acre site some 35 miles southeast of Houston.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has repeatedly said that “there’s a new sheriff in town,” signaling that she would take a more aggressive approach in enforcing wage and labor laws, after what she said was lax enforcement under President George W. Bush.

But one department official said that the record penalties assessed against BP were not an effort to send a signal to industry, but a straightforward move that punished a company with a long record of moving slowly to address safety problems.

In the 30 years before the 2005 explosion, there were 23 deaths at the Texas City refinery.

One Labor Department official said BP was likely to seek to have the fines reduced by appealing them, first to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission and then perhaps in federal court.

Federal officials say they expect BP to dispute that the company was required to do all that OSHA said and that it had failed to meet the deadline to remedy problems.

Six months after the explosion, BP entered into a settlement with OSHA in which it agreed to pay a $21.3 million fine, then the largest in OSHA history.

The previously highest fine was an $11.5 million penalty ordered in 1991 against the Angus Chemical Company and IMC Fertilizer Group, operators of a Louisiana fertilizer plant where an explosion killed eight workers and injured 120.

As part of the settlement, BP also promised to commission an independent audit and to take actions to eliminate potential hazards found in the audit, which was conducted by the AcuTech Consulting Group.

One Labor Department official voiced dismay that BP had four years to correct the problems identified after the settlement, yet OSHA still found hundreds of violations.

BP has already pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the explosion and agreed to pay $50 million, the largest criminal fine ever assessed against a company for Clean Air Act violations. Those violations included failing to maintain the safe startup of processing units and the mechanical integrity of the refinery

Since the explosion, BP has settled more than 4,000 civil claims, paid from a $2.1 billion fund it set aside to resolve claims.

UnClean Coal

Industry Week reports a prototype carbon sequestration plant at the American Electric Mountaineer facility in New Haven, W. Virginia (full Article here). Let’s look further, and let’s look at the numbers. The article states: “the pilot facility captures and stores around 20 megawatts of carbon dioxide from West Virginia’s Mountaineer plant. The unit can handle only a fraction of Mountaineer’s 1,300 megawatt capacity”

I suppose it is reasonable to assume that they mean they have essentially created a 20 mw power plant inside the main 1,300 mw plant, and they can sequester the carbon for this 20 mw subplant.  That’s great. A 20 mw sub-plant in a 1,300 mw plant is 1.5385% of the total.  That’s like taking a Hummer that get’s 10 miles to the gallon, and tuning the engine and keeping the tires properly inflated so it gets another 812 feet 3.94 inches, for a total of 10.15385 miles to the gallon. You can do that. But you can’t do it and claim to be driving an efficient vehicle or conserving energy in a meaningful way.

My first question is “What’s a megawatt of carbon dioxide?” Carbon dioxide is measured in cubic feet, ounces, or metric tons. Megawatts don’t apply to quantities of solids, liquids, or gases; watts, kilowatts, and megawatts measure capacity to produce power. Watt-hours, kilowatt-hours, and megawatt-hours are measures of power.  If they don’t know what they’re talking about that doesn’t give me much confidence that they know what they’re doing.

The article goes on to say “Alstom aims to have a full-scale commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility operational by 2015.” It says says “We have a prototype.” That means that by the end 2015 – six years from now – they hope to be successful. Six years is a long time to keep a project on schedule. Phrased another way, six years is a long time for nothing to go wrong.

The article also states “burying the captured carbon dioxide 7200 feet underground.” That’s roughly 1.36364 miles underground. I have some questions:

  1. How much will it cost to run, in terms of 1) money and 2) energy to put the carbon dioxide down there, and keep it down there?
  2. How much does it cost to build?
  3. How long can we pump carbon dioxide down there? If the coal plant has a 30 year life expectancy, then don’t we will need to pump carbon dioxide 1.36364 miles down for 30 years?
  4. What happens if something goes wrong at 7200 feet? Or 5280 feet underground? Or even 528 feet underground? If something goes wrong close to the surface I expect we’ll see a geyser of ice cold carbon dioxide.

T. Boone Pickens says land based wind costs about $2.0 Billion per gigawatt of capacity.  Pickens has been called many things, but he’s never been called an environmentalist.

Solar is about $6.5 Billion per gigawatt, when you’re talking 100 to 500 kw systems in New Jersey.

According to Kevin Riddell, in the New York Times, (click here for article) this 20 MW carbon sequestration subsystem will cost “well over $100 million.”

American Electric Power is spending $73 million on the capture and storage effort, which includes half the cost of the factory. Alstom, the manufacturer of the new equipment, paid for the other half of the factory, hoping to develop expertise that will win it a worldwide market. Alstom would not say what it spent, but public figures indicate that the two companies are jointly spending well over $100 million.

If “half the cost” of the facility is $73 million, then the other half is also $73 million. That “well over $100 million” adds up to about $146 million. For a 20 mw facility, that’s $7.3 million per mw. Utility scale Solar is $6.5 billion per mw.  Solar costs less than coal, and that’s before you factor in the costs of fuel, mining, and cleaning up the mess.

Economics: NeoClassical v Ecological

2009 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 Spyder

2009 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 Spyder

“All this matters because economists thought, wrote, and prescribed as if nature did not.”

J. R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun.

“Global Warming is nonsense. Greenhouse gases mean growth, far as I can see. The Earth is one big resource, to exploit and consume, for the grand old party.”

L. J. Furman, Sunbathing In Siberia

Economics, according to Daly and Farley, in Ecological Economics, ISBN 1-55963-312-3, is “the science of allocation of scarce resources among alternative ends,” or  “what we want and what we have to give up to get it.”

Since the Great Depression economics has been about growth. Neo-Classical Economists measure the health of an economy by the growth of Gross Domestic Product, GDP, the sum of the goods an services produced in the market.

Ecological Economists think that the purpose of the economy is not simply to maximize and keep increasing the value of goods and services that are passed around. According to Robert Costanza, Director of the Gund Institute and Professor of Ecological Economics, University of Vermont, “The purpose of the economy should be to provide for the sustainable well-being of people.” Ecological Economics distinguishes growth from development. Growth, an increase in throughput, can waste resources. Development, a qualitative change for the better, results in realization of potential. Ecological Economists distinguish between costs and benefits, and subtract costs.  Rather than the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, Ecological Economists focus on the Genuine Progress Indicator, GPI,and distinguish economic goods from what Donella Meadows calls “economic bads.

Continue reading →

Obama and Holt on Health Care

President Obama

President Obama

Washington, DC, Nov. 7, 2009, 11:00 PM. The U. S. House of Representatives passed a health care bill that appears to profoundly change the system.

According to President Obama, (click here or  here)

Comprehensive health care reform can no longer wait. Rapidly escalating health care costs are crushing family, business, and government budgets. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, …. This forces families to sit around the kitchen table to make impossible choices between paying rent or paying health premiums. … The United States spent approximately $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person – nearly twice the average of other developed nations. Americans spend more on health care than on housing or food. If rapid health cost growth persists, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2025, one out of every four dollars in our national economy will be tied up in the health system. This growing burden will limit other investments and priorities that are needed to grow our economy. Rising health care costs also affect our economic competitiveness in the global economy, as American companies compete against companies in other countries that have dramatically lower health care costs.

According to Rush Holt, D, NJ-12, (click here or here)

Rep. Rush Holt, D, NJ-12

Rep. Rush Holt, D, NJ-12

This bill would provide secure and stable health coverage regardless of whether you change jobs or are between jobs, ensure Americans will never be denied care if they get sick, and extend coverage to those not well served by the current system.

This is a historic vote and the furthest we have come toward providing affordable and quality health coverage to all Americans.

Once this bill becomes law, it immediately would eliminate cases where insurance benefits run out because of an expensive illness, would allow young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance through age 26, and would shrink the Medicare prescription doughnut hole.

The bill would strengthen and extend existing programs.  For example, those who have health insurance through their employers would benefit from caps on yearly out of pocket costs.  Under the legislation, Medicare would be intact, only better – recipients would benefit from free preventive care and better primary care.  Clickhere to read more about what the bill would do for you.

Reform would preserve the relationship between families and their doctors and shift to a focus on healthy outcomes and rewarding physicians for treating the whole patient.

Representative Rush Holt on Health Care Legislation

In an e-mail to supporters, Rush Holt, D, NJ-12 said,

Rep. Rush Holt, Ph.D.

Rep. Rush Holt, Ph.D.

I just now voted for the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I want you to know about this development and what the bill means for you. This bill would provide secure and stable health coverage regardless of whether you change jobs or are between jobs, ensure Americans will never be denied care if they get sick, and extend coverage to those not well served by the current system.

This is a historic vote and the furthest we have come toward providing affordable and quality health coverage to all Americans. Continue reading →

President Obama on Health Care Legislation and the Process

Washington, DC, Nov. 7, 11:15 p.m., the House of Representatives voted to pass their health insurance reform bill. Despite countless attempts over nearly a century, no chamber of Congress has ever before passed comprehensive health reform. This is history.

President Obama

President Obama

According to President Obama:
“… Each “yes” vote was a brave stand, backed up by countless hours of knocking on doors, outreach in town halls and town squares, millions of signatures, and hundreds of thousands of calls. You stood up. You spoke up. And you were heard.

So this is a night to celebrate — but not to rest. Those who voted for reform deserve our thanks, and the next phase of this fight has already begun.
Continue reading →

Systems Thinking on the Gross National Product

Robert F. Kennedy, in a speech at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968,  said:

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy

“Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product – if we judge the United States of America by that – that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”

Thinking In Systems, by Donella H. Meadows

Thinking In Systems, by Donella H. Meadows

As Donella Meadows explains in Thinking In Systems, ISBN: 978-1-60358-055-7, “The GNP lumps together goods and bads. (If there are more car accidents and medical bills and repair bills, the GNP goes up.) It counts only marketed goods and services. (If all parents hired people to bring up their children, the GNP would go up.) … It measures effort rather than achievement, gross production and consumption rather than efficiency. New light bulbs that give the same light with one-eighth the electricity and that last ten times as long make the GNP go down.”

“GNP,” Professor Meadows said, “is a measure of throughput – flow of stuff made and purchased in a year – rather than capital stocks, the houses and cars and computers and stereos that are the source of real wealth and real pleasure. It could be argued that the best society would be one in which capital stocks can be maintained with the lowest possible throughput, rather than the highest.”

Navy Captures Surprised Pirates – John Lewis, Somali, Congress

mudvillegazette.com – 5/9/2009

Navy Captures Surprised Pirates

—

SOMEWHERE OFF THE SOMALI COAST : The pirates on board the two skiffs must have thought they had an easy target – but they were in for an unpleasant surprise. Their prey was actually a U.S. Navy vessel, transiting northward to join other U.S. Navy and coalition ships operating in the area. …

via Navy Captures Surprised Pirates – John Lewis, Somali, Congress.

BAGGU

BAGGU. – sturdy bags which fold into minuteness; not designed for hauling large loads over long distances; but kept within a go-bag – an easy way to have a reserve carrying capacity.

We’ve only bought the one  – and so haven’t subjected it to a testing-the-limits regimen.But ours has been holding up well..

Typhoon Mirinae satellite imagery; Philippines events

Typhoon Mirinae on 28 October. Speed 98 mph, gusts up to 121 mph. Via NOAA's OSEI program

Typhoon Mirinae on 28 October. Speed 98 mph, gusts up to 121 mph. Via NOAA's OSEI program

Alertnet advises Mirinae is likely to hit the Philippines on 30 October.

AlertNet main page.

Further information available at Tropical Storm Risk, [http://tropicalstormrisk.com]

See also:

PHILIPPINES: Flood victims grapple with LeptospirosisPHILIPPINES: Flood victims grapple with Leptospirosis

Additional information/images via Earth Snapshot:

20091027-mirinae-full

Philippines sends relief teams in path of typhoon Reuters, on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:02:27 -0700

Emergency and rescue teams were also sent to areas directly in the path of Typhoon Mirinae, including major rice-producing provinces north of Manila, …


Northwest pilots say they were distracted by laptops – washingtonpost.com

The Washington Post

has this report by Sholnn Freeman on the Northwest Pilots who missed their destination by about 150 miles. The plane was also out of contact (that is, not responding to radio hails for over an hour.  Northwest pilots say they were distracted by laptops. Interestingly, the pilots don’t allege fatigue as a factor; they claim

Aviation safety experts described the mishap as “stunning.”

to have been having a conversation about new scheduling rules and referring to their laptops.

Co-pilot Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., told National
Transportation Safety Board investigators that he was giving instructions about monthly crew scheduling procedures to the plane’s captain, Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash. The NTSB said each pilot used the computers during the discussion. Northwest’s merger with Delta Air Lines last year has led to numerous policy changes for pilots.

“There is no reason that pilots not impaired by fatigue or other problems should allow themselves to become this distracted,” said Bill Voss, president of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation. “I think they are probably telling the truth, because you would not have been able to make up a better lie.”

WaPo, Northwest pilots say they were distracted by laptops

, Sholnn Freeman.