Bayer Cropscience explosion update-CSB to hold public hearing

Recall that there was a large accidental explosion at the Bayer Cropscience facility in Institute, W. Virginia, on Aug 28, 2008. Details of this incident were reported by me in a post on this blog, you can refer it here. Now the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has announced that it will be … Read more

Clean Coal? Not really, say Tennessee Valley residents

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, goes the old saying.  Well, it has been proven once again in Tennessee. This week, on the Industrial Plant Safety blog, we will go slightly out of the plant and into the surrounding areas, to see what happens in case of a failure of the … Read more

Happy New Year-Safety Resolutions 2009

Happy New Year to all of you there, who read this blog, subscribe via RSS and post useful comments! The year 2009 will be a watershed year in terms of the economy, our core beliefs, our politics and so many other things. Let us all resolve that we will keep safety uppermost in our list … Read more

Designing Safety Instrumented Systems?- Five things to watch out for

Modern chemical and hydrocarbon processing plants, oil & gas production facilities, power plants and other similar process plants all have some instrumented systems that ensure functional safety. These are known as Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS for short). This post is about SIS and how you can avoid certain pitfalls while designing them. To those of … Read more

Are integrated SIS/DCS systems better than standalone SIS DCS systems?

Lately, there have been many launches of new “integrated” control systems, that have both DCS and SIS systems in the same package. For those of you are not familiar with these terms, an SIS is short for “Safety Instrumented System“, which is a special kind of control system that is used for the safety critical … Read more