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Environment, Health, Safety & Security

REACH: Looking Beyond Pre-registration

Failure to register under REACH closes EU markets for thousands of chemical substances manufactured or marketed in the European Union, whether on their own, in preparations (formulations) or released from articles (finished products). A key policy objective of registration under…

Navigating CFATS

The Department of Homeland Security established the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) to impose mandatory security regulations on high-risk chemical facilities. Interpreting and fulfilling the regulations present challenges to security directors, but finding the right guidance and working with a…

Keep the GHG debate on point

The anthropogenic global warming debate experienced a reawakening last month, following the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed finding that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare. In an effort to keep the debate from…

Fire & Gas in Safety Systems

By continuously monitoring for abnormal situations, such as a fire, and combustible or toxic gas releases, fire and gas (F&G) detection and mitigation systems are the linchpins to maintaining overall safety and operation of industrial facilities. The premise of these…

Petroleum refiners seek to increase distillate yield, decrease emissions . . .

Strategies for extracting more distillate from petroleum to meet the growing demand for diesel fuel constituted a major theme of the recent annual meeting of the National Petrochemical and Petroleum Refiners Association (NPRA, Washington D.C.; www.npra.gov) in San Antonio, Tex.…

Letter to the Editor: Shaping GHG policies

Edison Electric Institute (EEI) member companies support action to lower the country’s carbon and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% from current levels by 2050. And we want to do so in a way that softens electricity price increases…

Recycling Cathode Ray Tubes

As CRTs become an obsolete form of video display technology, recycling their lead-filled glass is increasingly important Earlier this decade, liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma screens surpassed cathode ray tubes (CRTs) as the visual display of choice in computers…

Chementator: EPA proposes national reporting system for greenhouse gases

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, Washington D.C.) plans to set up the first U.S. national system for reporting emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The proposal marks the first step toward a program for climate control. "Through this…

Combining Rupture Disks with Safety Relief Valves

Protecting process systems from overpressurization is vital throughout the chemical process industries (CPI). Both safety relief valves and rupture disks are commonly used for this purpose. Sometimes the combination of a relief valve with a rupture disk can add service…

Getting the Most Out of Your Rupture Disc

Rupture disc devices provide overpressure protection for a variety of storage and process vessels and equipment. The objective of the rupture disc is to maintain a leak-tight seal and be a passive bystander until called upon to relieve excess pressure.…