Accreditation for Asbestos Site Clearance Notifications
On 6th April 2007, an additional requirement to the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 came into force for any person who certifies premises to be safe to be re-occupied following asbestos work. Regulation 20(4) of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 now requires any person who issues a site clearance certificate to be accredited by an appropriate accreditation body as competent to carry out such work.
The site clearance certificate requires that premises where licensable asbestos work has been carried out must be thoroughly cleaned and made safe for re-occupation. To demonstrate competence, the certificate issuer must conform to the specified requirements in the international standards ISO 17020 and ISO 17025.
The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is at present the only recognised accreditation body in Great Britain.
Ocean Tug Capsizes in UK Waters
On 12th April 2007, the Norwegian-owned anchor-handling tug ”Bourbon Dolphin”, a 75-metre-long vessel of 2,974 gross tonnage with a crew of 15 onboard, capsized around 75 miles west of the Shetland Islands over the Rosebank Oilfield in the UK sector of the North Sea. The tug was manoeuvring in calm conditions while laying out a 16-tonne mooring anchor for the drilling rig “Transocean Rather”, also Norwegian-owned.
According to reports, the tug made a sudden sharp turn at a distance of about 1,700 metres from the rig, the limit of its anchor chain length, and the anchor cable jumped from its metal guides, rolling the vessel over to port. The tug overturned in less than two minutes. Seven of the crew were rescued from the sea but eight were lost, trapped inside the hull. Three days later the vessel sank in 1,200 metres of water when rough weather interfered with a salvage attempt by Smit Salvage, bringing rescue and recovery operations to an end. Human error or a steerage problem is suspected as being the likely cause of the incident, which is being investigated by the Scottish police, the UK Health and Safety Executive and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
More Dangerous Goods Banned in the EU
In mid-April 2007, the European Commission released figures showing a rapid rise in the number of dangerous goods withdrawn from sale across the EU. The number of non-food items banned from sale more than doubled between 2004 and 2006. Children’s toys now form the biggest category of hazardous goods on sale, most of them originating in China. About half of all goods withdrawn in 2006 were Chinese.
According to the Rapid Alert System (Rapex) the hazardous products included toys containing sharp or choking internal objects, badly insulated electrical wiring, use of high-lead paint, and a skin cream-gel containing a dangerous fungus. The banned products were categorised as:
- Toys: 24%.
- Electrical appliances: 19%.
- Motor vehicles: 14%.
- Lighting equipment: 11%.
- Cosmetics: 5%.
Cadbury Fined under Food Safety Legislation
Birmingham City Council announced in mid-April 2007 that following an investigation by public health officers into a Salmonella outbreak in late June 2006 which affected more than 30 people, the confectionery giant Cadbury Limited would face prosecution on three charges relating to the recall of one million chocolate bars, possibly contaminated with Salmonella. The charges were of placing unsafe chocolate products on the market; failure to immediately inform the authorities about product contamination; and failing to identify hazards from chocolate bars contaminated with Salmonella and failing to identify corrective actions. The first two offences involve breaches of the General Food Regulations 2004; and the third offence is a breach of the Food Hygiene (England) Regulations 2006. Each of the three offences carries a maximum penalty of unlimited fines and/or two years in prison. Cadbury was summoned to appear before Birmingham Magistrates' Court on 15th June 2007, when the company pleaded guilty. The sentencing hearing began on 13th July, and Cadbury was fined £1,000,000 with £152,000 in costs.
The company blamed the contamination on a leaking pipe at one of its main factories in Marlbrook, Herefordshire. A second investigation by Herefordshire Council into possible environmental health breaches at the Marlbrook site resulted in six further charges relating to food safety breaches, for each of which Cadbury was fined £50,000.
Project Notification Form F10 for CDM 2007
The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 (CDM 2007) require most construction work to be notified to the HSE if the project is likely to:
- Last longer than 30 days.
- Involve more than 500 person days of construction work.
Any day on which construction work is carried out (including holidays and weekends) must be counted, even if the work on that day is of short duration. A ‘person day’ is defined as one individual, including supervisors or specialist trades, carrying out construction work for one normal working shift.
Construction work for a domestic client is not notifiable. A domestic client is someone who lives, or will live, in the premises where the work is carried out. The premises must not relate to any trade, business or undertaking.
The CDM co-ordinator for the work is the person required to send the notification. Details of the information necessary are given in Schedule 1 of CDM 2007. Form F10 can be used to make notification easier, but it is not a legal requirement to use that specific form. The notification should be sent to the HSE office covering the site where the construction work is to take place as soon as possible after the CDM co-ordinator has been appointed by the client. If the notifiable work is on an operation on a railway, the notification should be sent to the Office of Rail Regulation.
Form F10 can be downloaded as a PDF document from:
https://www.hse.gov.uk/forms/notification/f10.pdfUK Lags Behind on Safety Duties of Directors
A research report published in late April 2007 by the Centre for Corporate Accountability on behalf of the HSE examines the differences in legally imposed safety duties placed on company directors in different parts of the world. The report, Code RR535, International Comparison of Health and Safety Responsibilities of Company Directors, considers safety laws in nine different countries, what they comprise and whether they assist in the prosecution of directors in cases of infringement.
Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Japan, Canada and Australia have safety legislation which imposes positive safety obligations on either directors or senior managers of companies. Other jurisdictions, while not imposing explicit positive duties on directors, do impose significant responsibilities through the creation of offences targeted at directors. This category includes four Australian states. In contrast two countries, the USA and the Netherlands, impose either minimal or no safety duties on directors.
The report also examines the reluctant progress of the UK Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill (now enacted) in its ten-year gestation period, which does not include statutory health and safety duties for company directors. A recommendation for specific duties on directors was included in the Home Affairs and Work and Pensions Committee report in response to a draft Corporate Manslaughter Bill that was produced in April 2005, but it has not been acted upon.
The reasons advanced by regulatory and other official bodies for imposing duties on directors, and the perceived benefits of such duties, reflect the arguments of those groups and individuals that support such reform in the UK.
The present report concludes that the legislative framework for regulating occupational health and safety in the UK appears unusual in not imposing positive duties on directors. Most of the nine countries studied do have such legislation, and from an international perspective it would not be exceptional if the HSC were to propose reform.
CBI Report on Staff Training
A new report published by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Shaping Up for the Future: the Business Vision for Education and Skills, calls on the Government to reform the existing workplace qualifications framework to ensure that high quality training provided to staff by employers is recognised. They claim that the national qualification system does not recognise many of the present training schemes that employees undertake at work.
The CBI argument follows from the December 2006 HM Treasury report by Lord Leitch, Review of Skills, Prosperity for All in the Global Economy - World Class Skills, which recommended a radical change in the way in which young people and adults are trained, including a requirement for employers to undertake to train employees to Level 2, equivalent to five passes at GCSE, which would become a statutory requirement right by 2010 unless employers pledge voluntarily to provide satisfactory levels of training.
The CBI point out that although UK businesses invested £33 billion in staff training in 2006, only one pound in three was spent on a formally-recognised award. Hence the UK ranks poorly in international terms for staff with intermediate qualifications such as NVQs. They cite 40% of British adults as having such a qualification, compared to 57% in the USA and 63% in Germany. The reason, according to the CBI, is because the primary focus of employers is on developing the abilities of their staff, rather than acquiring qualifications.
The CBI want steps made towards the recognition of in-house training, and suggest that the Government sets up pilot schemes to test the best training methods and discover how self-accreditation could be implemented. They also want the Government to re-establish the Small Firms Initiative, which offered SMEs of between five and 49 employees help to audit the skills in their organisations, highlight areas of improvement and develop an achievable training plan.
Workplace Cancer Study Methods Underestimate Risk
A paper published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine by Elizabeth J. Malloy and colleagues reports on a study of cancer risk in workers exposed to metalworking fluids. The reference is Elizabeth J. Malloy, Katie L. Miller and Ellen A. Eisen, 2007, “Rectal cancer and exposure to metalworking fluids in the automobile manufacturing industry”, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 64, pages 244-249, BMJ Publishing, doi:10.1136/oem.2006.027300.
The researchers, based at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, USA, looked at the exposure-response relationship between metalworking fluid exposure in the car industry and the incidence of rectal cancer. They found that when their research enquiries took into account the latency period, or time-lag effect, the proportion of cancers found to be caused by workplace exposure was almost 50% higher. They conclude that current occupational health methods systematically underestimate the true extent of the problem by failing to take adequate account of the time-lag between exposure and development of an occupational cancer. The latency period means a significant proportion of work-related cancers can be missed. The analysis shows stronger evidence for a causal association between exposure to straight metalworking fluids (mineral oils) and the incidence of rectal cancer than was previously described using standard analytical methods.
No Change in Small Claims Limit for Personal Injury
On 20th April 2007, the Department for Constitutional Affairs announced that the Government would not be raising the small claims limit for personal injury cases of £1,000, under which claimants can recover their legal advice costs if they have to sue their employer after a workplace injury or illness.
Due to the spiralling costs of small value personal injury cases there had been pressure by insurance companies to increase the limit above £5,000, which would have the effect of denying most claimants legal representation when pursuing action for damages through the courts. The Government argued that raising the limit would be to the advantage of the defendant, not the claimant, and the most vulnerable would suffer by raising the bar to penalise those who cannot afford representation.
New Standard on UK Biodiversity Conservation
The BSI has announced publication of a new Publicly Available Specification, PAS 2010:2006 Planning to halt the loss of biodiversity. Biodiversity conservation standards for planning in the United Kingdom. Code of Practice, ISBN 0 580 48844 6.
This Code of Practice is relevant to land use and spatial planning in terrestrial, coastal and freshwater environments, but its principles can also be applied to planning in the marine environment. It provides recommendations for the integration of biodiversity conservation into land use and spatial planning in the UK.
PAS 2010 identifies where competent authorities have clear responsibilities for biodiversity conservation, and recommends tasks that should be undertaken to discharge their planning functions in a manner that is compliant with statutory obligations, Government policy and professional good practice.
Online Guidance on Waste Disposal
Every business, regardless of size, has a legal duty to ensure that all waste produced is handled safely and in accordance with the law. The duty of care applies to anyone who produces, imports, carries, keeps, treats or disposes of controlled waste from business or industry or acts as a waste broker. There is an obligation to ensure that anyone to whom the waste is passed on, such as a waste contractor, scrap metal merchant, recycler, local council or skip hire company, is authorised to take it. The duty of care has no time limit and extends until the waste has either been finally and properly disposed of or fully recovered.
A new online resource for business is available, called the NetRegs Waste Directory, which gives advice to SMEs on where to recycle or dispose of their waste. The Directory also allows businesses to search by waste type, including end-of-life vehicles, cardboard, animal waste, batteries, building waste, chemicals, glass, office waste and packaging, and therefore comply with the WEEE Directive.
The Directory can be found at: http://www.wastedirectory.org.uk/
The Corporate Manslaughter Bill
In the Spring 2007 UK edition of the RRC e-Newsletter we noted that the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill had been considered by the House of Lords in February 2007, where an amendment was made to permit the prosecution of prisons for negligent deaths of prisoners in custody, and the prosecution of the police for negligent deaths in police cells. The Bill was sent back to the House of Commons for debate on the Lords’ amendment.
MPs rejected the Lords’ amendment four times but, knowing that the Bill would otherwise be lost since it had already been rolled over from a previous Parliamentary session, the Government finally admitted defeat in mid-July and agreed to extend the scope of the Bill in accordance with the Lords’ wishes, paving the way for the Bill to receive the Royal Assent within a few days.
IPCC Third Report on Global Climate Change Assessment
The third part of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was released on 4th May 2007, and outlines ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the costs of climate change damage. Part 1, released in February 2007, considered the physical basis of climate change; and Part 2, released in April, looked at the impacts of global warming. Entitled Summary for Policymakers, Part 3 can be downloaded from http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM040507.pdf.
Part 3 aims to set out the costs and benefits of various policies. It assesses the likely costs to the global economy of stabilising greenhouse gases at various concentrations in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 70% since 1970 and will rise by between 25% and 90% over the next 25 years if nothing is done and business carries on as usual. The increase will be due to an expansion in the use of fossil fuels, which are set to continue as the dominant world energy source.
In summary, the report estimates that stabilising greenhouse gas emissions will cost between 0.2% and 3.0% of world gross domestic product by 2030, depending on how fast greenhouse gas emissions grow. Boosting renewable energy, switching to nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, reducing deforestation and improving building design and energy efficiency can all help, but there must be changes in consumption patterns for human society as a whole.
The IPCC claims that stabilisation at reasonable cost is possible and there is considerable economic potential for the mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades, which could offset the projected growth of global emissions or reduce emissions below current levels.
The current atmospheric concentrations are equivalent to about 425 parts per million of CO2-eq. The IPCC estimates that stabilisation to between 445ppm and 535ppm by 2030 would cost less than 3% of global GDP; for a range between 535ppm and 590ppm it would cost 0.2-2.5% of GDP; and between 590ppm and 710ppm might bring anything between a net benefit of 0.6% and a net cost of 1.2%.
Thus the sharpest cuts, keeping greenhouse gas concentrations to levels equivalent to between 445ppm and 490ppm CO2, which would keep the global temperature rise to 2.0°-2.8°C, might cost anything up to 3% of global GDP by 2030, while lesser curbs could even enhance growth. European Union policy is to avoid a temperature rise greater than 2°C.
China, with the backing of India and Brazil, had demanded amendments to the IPCC report in that the burden of responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions should be placed upon developed countries. China, in contravention of IPCC rules, wanted a paragraph inserted to the effect that the present industrialised nations are to blame for most of the greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere since the start of the western world industrial revolution.
HSE Warning to Local Authorities on Repairs and Maintenance
In early May 2007, the HSE issued a warning to Local Authorities and other organisations to ensure that they carry out prompt and effective repairs to communal areas of their properties, following the death of a 13-year-old boy on a stairwell that was allowed to remain in an unsafe condition for over six months.
In the ensuing prosecution the London Borough of Newham was fined £125,000 and ordered to pay costs of £6,000, following an earlier plea of guilty to a charge of failing to maintain adequately the communal areas of a council-owned and maintained parade of shops and flats in London E12, under Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 (HSWA).
Section 3(1) of HSWA states: “It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.”
The HSE reminded Local Authorities that they have a legal obligation to ensure that tenants and other members of the public are not placed at unnecessary risk arising from poor procedures for repairing damage to buildings, and to ensure that repairs are carried out quickly to appropriate standards.
The situation arose because of flawed Council procedures in dealing with “decanted” buildings, i.e. those premises emptied of tenants, shopkeepers, etc., prior to demolition.
REACH Comes into Force
The EU Regulation for the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) came into force on 1st June 2007. Most manufacturing companies in the EU are affected in some way by the Regulation. Although manufacturers and importers of chemicals bear the brunt of REACH, it is the downstream user who is most liable to suffer from unintended consequences, such as the substitution of an essential raw ingredient.
There is a requirement for any company producing, importing, using or placing a substance, preparation or article on the EU market to be responsible for ensuring that it is in compliance with REACH. The legislation covers EU-based manufacturers, including chemical suppliers, distributors and downstream users, as well as EU enterprises importing products to the European Community market. All manufacturers or importers of all substances within the scope of the Regulation that are manufactured in, or imported into, the EU in quantities of one tonne or more per year are required to submit a registration to the European Chemicals Agency (ECA), which will manage a database containing the registration dossiers and other information generated by REACH and co-ordinate the implementation of REACH.
Once a substance is registered, the ECA will perform a completeness check of the registration dossier, and a quality evaluation for a minimum percentage (5%) of dossiers. All proposals for testing will be evaluated. The ECA, in conjunction with named Competent Authorities in the Member States, may perform substance evaluations if the substance is considered to be of potential concern.
Substances that are identified as being of very high concern to human health or the environment will be subject to authorisation. The restriction process allows EU-wide control of substances identified as causing a risk to human health or the environment.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is responsible for implementing REACH in the UK, and has nominated the HSE to be the UK Competent Authority, working closely with the Environment Agency and other partners.
EU Bans Severe Animal Testing of Cosmetics
The so-called Draize animal tests are a series of procedures which involve applying cosmetic ingredients to the eyes and skin of live laboratory rabbits. The reactions of the rabbits are used to gauge whether the ingredient is an irritant to human skin or not. Such procedures are performed on an estimated 20,000 animals in Europe every year.
On 27th April 2007, the Independent Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) in Ispra, Italy, approved a series of humane alternatives. Two of the alternative procedures use waste animal tissue reclaimed from slaughterhouses as a replacement for live animals in eye irritation tests; and two more will replace live animals with in vitro cell cultures for determining whether chemicals irritate the skin. A fifth alternative test, used to identify skin allergenic substances, substitutes for around 250,000 tests per year performed on live mice.
The alternative test procedures have been available for commercial use for many years, but ECVAM had to demonstrate they are as good as, or better than, current procedures on live animals in order for the EU to enforce their use. In early May 2007, it was announced that the live animal procedures will now become illegal under the European Cosmetics Directive, and the regulatory authorities in each member state will enforce the use of the alternatives.
Cosmetics companies will still be allowed to test relatively mild substances on the eyes of live animals until further alternative procedures are approved, or until 2009, when most cosmetic tests on live animals will be banned in Europe, regardless of whether alternatives have been approved or not.
Disappearing Arctic Sea Ice
Global climate forecasts issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are based on computer models which use mathematical equations to describe key aspects of the physical world, such as greenhouse gas levels. To simulate past climates and project future trends, the models are started at a given year in the past, say 1800, and run forward in time to allow all the parts of the simulated world to interact. Although the simulations include real-world observations, the information does not necessarily capture small-scale fluctuations in such factors as ocean heat and ice thickness, which may significantly diminish sea ice.
The climate prediction models used by the IPCC indicate that by 2050 to 2100 the polar Arctic summers will be ice-free for the first time in about one million years. However, new research has revealed that the ice has been vanishing about three times faster than the models have predicted, shifting the inevitable meltdown about 30 years ahead of schedule, much sooner than thought.
Research by Julienne Stroeve, et al., from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre at the University of Colorado, published in the May 2007 issue of Geophysical Research Letters (J. Stroeve, M. Holland, W. Meier, T. Scambos, M. Serreze, 2007, “Arctic Sea Ice Decline: Faster than Forecast”, Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 34, No. 9, L09501, doi:10.1029/2007GL029703) reports on a comparison of the results from the 18 IPCC climate models with data from aircraft and ship reports and satellite measurements. The team found that, on average, the IPCC models simulated ice losses in September (when ice retreats to its annual minimum) at 2.5% per decade from 1953 to 2006. In contrast, the real-world observations show September ice actually diminished by about 7.8% per decade during that period. This suggests current model projections are overly conservative, and summer sea ice may disappear considerably earlier than had been assumed. One reason why global climate models underestimate the rate of melting is that they do not take full account of the amount of heat transported into the Arctic from the Atlantic Ocean and Bering Sea, which affects the rate of sea ice melting.
Europe’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Slip
On 8th May 2007, the European Environment Agency announced that emissions of greenhouse gases from the 15 most developed EU member countries fell by only 0.8% in 2005 from 2004, mainly due to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. The largest reductions were made by Finland, Germany and the Netherlands (UK emissions actually increased in 2006 over 2005 values).
Under the Kyoto international agreement for fighting climate change, the 15 countries are supposed to cut their emissions by 8% over the period 2008-2012 compared to 1990. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 brought the decrease to the Kyoto Protocol reference year of 1990 to 1.9%.
The 12 countries that joined the 27-member European Union in 2004 and 2007 are not subject to the same constraints because of their lack of economic development compared to the 15 older members.
When taking into account figures from all 27 nations in the EU, greenhouse gas emissions fell in 2005 by 8% from 1990 levels, mainly due to the closure of polluting factories in the former Communist members of the EU.
HSC Consultation on Directors' Health and Safety Duties
The issue of directors' duties has been brought to the fore by the long debate on the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill (now enacted), which relates only to companies and does not include secondary liability for individual directors or managers. A recommendation for specific duties on directors was included in the Home Affairs and Work and Pensions Committee's report in response to a draft Corporate Manslaughter Bill published in 2005.
At the request of the Health and Safety Commission (HSC), the Institute of Directors (IoD) is leading a steering group to oversee the production of new authoritative guidance setting out what is expected of directors in regard to health and safety. The HSC wants to ensure that all organisations with boards have an understanding of their responsibilities for health and safety performance, including organisations in the private, public and third sectors (including the voluntary and charitable sectors).
Directors and boards have a vital role in the achieving of high standards of workplace health and safety by their organisation. The HSC thinks that new guidance is necessary to build on the progress made since their earlier publication on the subject, to do more to get the health and safety message over at board level.
A draft version of the new draft guidance is available online at: http://www.iod.com/intershoproot/eCS/Store/en/pdfs/
policy_health_safety_cons.pdf.
Survey of Potential Breast Cancer Carcinogens
In the USA, breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women in their late 30s to early 50s. According to the US National Cancer Institute, genetic factors may influence the risk of a person developing the disease, but they cannot explain the variation in cancer rates in different parts of the world. Women living in developed countries are roughly five times more likely to develop the disease, primarily through exposure to carcinogenic chemicals in the environment.
A review of 900 scientific studies dealing with potential carcinogens linked to breast cancer has been undertaken by researchers based at several US institutes. Claimed to be the most comprehensive survey of its type to date, it contains a list of 216 widespread and common chemical compounds which caused breast tumours in animal studies, some of which have been linked to breast tumours in humans. The research was published in the journal Cancer (references: DOI: 10.1002/cncr.22653, 10.1002/cncr.22654, 10.1002/cncr.22655).
Of the 216 compounds identified in the new database, 73 have been found to be present in consumer products or as contaminants in food, 10 are registered with the US Food and Drug Administration as food additives, 35 are air pollutants, and 29 are produced industrially in the USA in very large amounts, exceeding 500,000 kilograms per year. The researchers point out that relatively little is known about the effects of these agents on health.
A few of the common substances noted as being linked to human breast cancer are:
- Benzene (a constituent of road vehicle exhaust emissions).
- Acrylamide (formed when starchy foods are cooked at high temperature).
- Perfluorooctanoic acid (used in non-stick and stain-resistant coatings on cooking vessels, furniture and rugs, clothes).
- Vinyl chloride (used to produce the hard plastic polyvinyl chloride, or PVC).
- Malachite green (a textile dye, also used as an antifungal agent in fish hatcheries) .
- Clonitalid (a pesticide linked to breast cancer in rats, which is used to control populations of sea lamprey in tributaries feeding the Great Lakes in the USA).
Progress on Merger between the HSC and HSE
In May 2007, the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) announced that it was moving to the next stage in a consultation process on the merger of HSC and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). A consultation document seeking views on merging the HSC and HSE into a single health and safety authority was published on 5th December 2006 and the consultation period closed on 5th March 2007. The aim is to strengthen the links between strategy and delivery by creating a new corporate governing body, which will retain the HSE name.
The next stage is for the Minister for Health and Safety to undertake consultation on detailed proposals as required by the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006. The Ministerial consultation, in particular with organisations representative of those likely to be affected by the proposals, will take place before a draft Legislative Reform Order is presented to the relevant Commons and Lords committees for scrutiny.
There has been some debate of late as to the efficiency of health and safety regulatory enforcement in the UK, with the general impression that the HSE is under-resourced and placing too much reliance on large companies enforcing health and safety by proxy.
Government Proposes On-the-Spot Health and Safety Fines
The draft Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill was published on 15th May 2007 and proposes to confer powers on regulatory agencies, such as the HSE, local authorities, and the Environment Agency, to issue on-the-spot fines to repeat offenders who disregard health and safety rules. The objective is to create a system of sanctions which is more responsive and proportionate to the nature of non-compliance.
If the draft Bill is made law by the end of this year, the Local Better Regulation Office will become a statutory body and be given powers to improve co-ordination and consistency between local authorities, issue guidance to local authorities, review and revise the national priorities and provide advice to government.
Accident-Prone People Exist
Human factors are an important issue in health and safety and have been subject to much analysis. For example, it is known that young persons tend to suffer more accidents at work through lack of experience, lack of skills or co-ordination difficulties. Among mature people, those who work on oil rigs or railway maintenance or suffer high stress and fatigue levels are similarly more prone to mishaps.
A recent Dutch study on supposedly accident-prone people has shown that such unfortunates do indeed exist. Ellen Visser and colleagues at the University Medical Centre Groningen in the Netherlands analysed the results of 79 studies which examined how prone people are to having accidents. The reference is Accident Analysis and Prevention, DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2006.09.012.
The study recorded the mishaps suffered by 147,000 people, drawn from the general population in 15 countries. They found that there is a discrete group of people who suffer the most accidents. Statistically, one in 29 people have a 50% higher chance of being involved in an accident than the rest of the population. The study does not demonstrate which people are most at risk, only that they do exist. The team suggest that accident-prone people have certain personality traits that predispose them to accidents.
Concern Raised over Medium-Density Fibreboard
Medium-density fibreboard (MDF) is a widely used engineered wood material similar in application to plywood. It is formed by breaking down softwood fibres into a powder and then combining it with wax and resin. It is formed into panels by applying high temperature and pressure. Large-scale production of MDF began in the 1980s, its name being based on its density of around 600-800 kg/m³, in contrast to lighter particle board and high-density fibreboard (500-1,450 kg/m³). In all fibreboards, formaldehyde resins are used to bond together the constituents, usually urea formaldehyde, but some fibreboard for exterior or marine use includes stronger adhesives such as phenol formaldehyde.
Formaldehyde was classified as a Class 1 Carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2004, and in the EU its current listing as Category 3 is under review. It is also an allergic sensitiser which can cause asthma. MDF presents a health risk to those who work with it, particularly from exposure to dust from milling and cutting. The material is also known to outgas formaldehyde and other volatile organic chemicals for the life of the product, but with little proven risk to health. Risk control is based on precautions while machining and with dust-particle control.
MDF manufactured in Australia or New Zealand, where workplace exposure standards are tighter than in the UK, must comply with four national standards, but tests carried out by the Australian Wood Panels Association, and the Australian Environmental Labelling Association Inc., on fibreboard products manufactured elsewhere have revealed that almost half of imported products fail to meet Australian standards, with many times the maximum formaldehyde emissions level. There have been calls for such imported toxic MDF to be banned from use on construction sites.
In the USA, new regulatory restrictions were imposed in April 2007 in California on formaldehyde use in wood-based boards, requiring manufacturers to reduce by more than half the current amount of formaldehyde emissions.
Global CO2 Emissions Exceed Worst-Case Scenario
In late May 2007, a research team led by Michael R. Raupach of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation published a paper, (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0700609104) which finds that recent global carbon dioxide emissions are growing more rapidly than even the worst-case climate scenario used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The team studied the growth of CO2 emissions from data gathered from four public sources: the Energy Information Administration; the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, US Department of Energy; the United Nations Statistics Division; and the World Economic Outlook of the IMF. They found that emissions growth suddenly accelerated in 2000. During the 1990s, emissions grew by 1.1% per year on average, but the number shot up to 3.3% between 2000 and 2004, the end of the study period.
When the recent emissions trend was compared with the IPCC "worst-case scenario", the team found that reality was at least as bad, if not worse, because actual emissions are at the high end of the IPCC dire consequences projection. The IPPC predicted that their A1F1 scenario would lead to a 4°C rise in temperature by 2100.
The acceleration in CO2 emissions after 2000 is attributed not to a growth in global population, but to a reduction in global energy efficiency. No part of the world reduced the amount of carbon used to produce energy between 2000 and 2004, despite widespread publicity in support of greener sources of energy and more efficient energy use.
The analysis also showed that developing countries, comprising 80% of the world’s population, accounted for 73% of the growth in CO2 emissions in 2004, but only 40% of total emissions.
European Week for Safety and Health
The theme of the “European Week for Safety and Health at Work 2007”, which runs from 22nd to 26th October, is musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) with the campaign slogan of “Lighten the Load”. The aim is to raise awareness of the key factors in prevention and management.
In the UK, one million people are affected by such common workplace disorders, including joint injuries, repetitive strain injuries (work-related neck and upper limb disorders) and lower back pain. A sedentary posture at a computer workstation causes more back problems than excessive lifting and carrying, in addition to the more widely known musculoskeletal symptoms of neck and upper limb disorders.
Employers have a legal obligation to protect the health and safety of their employees under Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, with other obligations under the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 (as amended) and the manual handling risk assessment requirement in the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended).
Government Strategy on Business Waste
The Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002 represent the UK transposition of the EU Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC). The Regulations were introduced in June 2002 and have been implemented in phases. The first requirement of the Regulations was a ban on the co-disposal of hazardous waste with non-hazardous waste in landfills. From July 2004, 'non-hazardous' sites have been allowed to accept only non-hazardous waste, and 'hazardous' sites can accept only hazardous materials permitted by their licences. Whole tyres were banned from landfill in 2003, and shredded tyres were banned in 2006. The latest requirement concerns the treatment and banning of liquids, which will come into force in October 2007 when waste must be treated before it is disposed of at a landfill site. Liquid waste will be banned from any landfill.
On 24th May 2007, the Government announced its new strategy for cutting waste, from private individuals, businesses, local authorities and central government. Waste reduction is regarded as an essential part of climate change policy, as landfilled waste is a major source of methane and reducing and recycling waste saves energy and raw materials. The main points of the waste strategy include:
- A proposed ban on biodegradable and recyclable waste being placed in landfill sites.
- An increase in the landfill tax escalator by £8 per year from 2008 until at least 2010/11, which is expected to reduce business waste by 20% by 2010 compared with 2004.
- A proposal to discourage retailers from supplying free single use disposable plastic bags.
- More effective incentives for individuals and businesses to recycle waste.
- A drive to encourage producers to minimise packaging and encourage higher targets for recycling packaging.
- Waste prevention at home, with more home composting and reduction in food waste.
The waste strategy and consultation paper on incentives for recycling by households together with an accompanying partial regulatory impact assessment are available online at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste/strategy/.
Forthcoming British Standards on Health and Safety
The BSI has published advance notice of new health and safety standards to be introduced in 2007:
- OHSAS 18001, Occupational health and safety management systems. Specification.
- BS 4163, Health and safety for the design and technology in schools and similar establishments. Code of Practice.
- BS 6739, Code of practice for instrumentation in process control systems: installation design and practice.
- BS EN 13849-1, Safety of machinery. Safety-related parts of control systems. General principles for design.
- BS EN 60079-1, Explosive atmospheres. Equipment protection by flameproof enclosures "d".
- BS EN 60079-2, Electrical apparatus for explosive gas atmospheres. Pressurised enclosures 'p'.
EU Directive on Indicative Occupational Exposure Limit Values and Updated Version of EH40
European Directive 2006/15/EC on a Second List of Indicative Occupational Exposure Limit Values (IOELVs) Implementing Directive 98/24/EC (Amending Directives 91/322/EEC and 2000/39/EC) relates to Article 137, and is designed to implement improvements of the working environment to protect workers’ health and safety. The Directive establishes a second list of 33 substances with agreed IOELVs. Member States are obliged to take account of IOELVs when setting national limits, and must set a national limit for all the substances listed in the Directive. They have 18 months following adoption to transpose the Directive into domestic legislation. Implementation must therefore take place before 1st September 2007.
In the UK, this will be achieved by including the new and revised limits in the HSE occupational exposure limits framework. The new approved Workplace Exposure Limits (WELs) for 20 substances are included in the updated version of EH40 which has been published on the HSE website and comes into force on 1st October 2007.
The list of EH40 workplace exposure limits, for use with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002, can be downloaded as a 112 KB PDF document from: http://www.hse.gov.uk/coshh/table1.pdf.
Risk of Parkinson’s Disease Increases with Pesticide Exposure and Head Trauma
According to a study by Dr Finlay Dick and colleagues at the University of Aberdeen, published online ahead of print in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, exposure to pesticides and traumatic head injury may have a causative role in Parkinson’s disease. Both of the two risk factors are potentially modifiable. Head trauma resulting from contact sports such as boxing can be avoided, and further research could identify more specifically which pesticides are associated with triggering the disease, so that the agents can be substituted.
The team found that people who had been exposed to low levels of pesticides were 9% more likely to have Parkinson's disease, compared with those who had never been exposed. Those who had been exposed to high levels of pesticides were 39% more likely to be affected. Previous published studies had suggested strongly that exposure to pesticides is a risk factor, with agricultural workers showing higher rates of the illness.
Parkinson's disease occurred 1.28 times more frequently in people who had been knocked unconscious once, compared with those who had never been knocked out; and occurred 2.56 times more frequently in those who had been knocked out more frequently.
The study was funded by the European Commission and is one of the largest case-control studies to date of genetic, environmental and occupational risk factors for Parkinson's disease or other degenerative parkinsonian syndromes. It involved 959 prevalent cases of parkinsonism and 1,989 controls (a group of people of similar age and gender who had not been diagnosed with Parkinson's) recruited in Scotland, Italy, Sweden, Romania and Malta. Patients with drug-induced or vascular parkinsonism or dementia were excluded. Subjects completed a questionnaire regarding their lifetime occupational and recreational exposure to solvents, pesticides, iron, copper and manganese. Their lifetime exposure was then estimated blind to disease status and the results were adjusted, as appropriate, for age, sex, country of residence, tobacco use, ever having been knocked unconscious and family history of Parkinson's disease.
The paper can be downloaded at: http://press.psprings.co.uk/oem/june/om27003.pdf.
REACH Information Online
Chemical regulation within the EU is now governed by the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals Regulation. The main European website providing relevant information is:
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/
reach/reach_intro.htm.
The HSE also has a section of its website devoted to the topic at:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/reach/about.htm.
Since most businesses in Europe will be affected in some way in terms of fulfilling new duties, these links provide a useful guide to the underlying principles of REACH.
Train Drivers Exposed to Magnetic-Field-Induced Cancer Risk
A research study by Martin Röösli et al published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine finds that railway workers exposed to extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) have an elevated risk of certain blood cancers. The paper, Leukaemia, Brain Tumours and Exposure to Extremely Low Frequency Magnetic Fields: Cohort Study of Swiss Railway Employees, was published online on 24th May 2007; doi: 10.1136/oem.2006.030270 ( Occ & Env Medicine Abstract).
Electrical and magnetic fields (EMFs) are energy fields which surround electrical devices, such as engines, computers, electrical wiring and power lines. The researchers studied more than 20,000 Swiss railway workers who were followed for 30 years, and found that for certain workers the risk of myeloid leukaemia and Hodgkin's lymphoma increased with their exposure to ELF-MF. Train drivers had from three to 20 times more exposure than yard engineers, train attendants and station managers, due to spending many hours in their engine cabs, and were nearly five times more likely to develop myeloid leukaemia than station managers, who had the lowest exposure to magnetic fields. Train drivers were also more than three times as likely to be diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, which is a cancer of the lymph system.
The authors point out that there was a large variation in the magnetic field strength associated with different types of train engine, mainly due to the construction of the engine and the distance placed between the driver and the electrical supply. They conclude that the risk is to railway workers and not to the travelling public, who spend considerably less time in trains. They suggest that new rolling stock should be designed to minimise magnetic field exposure.
Radiation Hazard for Tobacco Smokers
Research published by Constantin Papastefanou of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece (“Radiation Dose from Cigarette Tobacco”, Radiation Protection Dosimetry, Vol. 123, page 68; doi:10.1093/rpd/ncl033) reports that the radiation dose from radium and polonium found naturally in cigarette tobacco can be a thousand times greater than that from the caesium-137 taken up by green leaves near the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Papastefanou used Gamma-ray spectrometry to measure radioactivity in tobacco leaves collected from 15 different regions of Greece and calculated the average radiation dose due to the naturally occurring radionuclides that would be received by people smoking 30 cigarettes a day.
He found that the average dose from natural radionuclides was 251 microsieverts a year (251.5 µSv y-1) compared with 0.199 µSv y-1 from Chernobyl fallout in green leaves. The radiation dose received by smokers is only equivalent to 10% of the average dose received by everyone from all natural sources, but it is still an increased risk. He argues that cancer deaths among smokers are due to the radioactive content of tobacco leaves and not to nicotine and tar.
EU to Investigate UK Landfill Scam
Following a formal complaint to the European Commission by the Greater London Authority, the EU is to investigate allegations that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) supplied misleading figures demonstrating that local authorities (LAs) in London are sending less waste to landfill. In an effort to promote recycling, under the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme all local authorities in the UK must achieve targets to landfill less waste or face heavy fines. However, the Central Government created a loophole whereby LAs may evade recording the amounts of waste they send to landfill by employing private contractors to do the work. Such waste does not have to be included in the scheme. LAs have raised the prices charged for collecting commercial waste and then contracted out the work to the private sector, thus removing landfill waste from council records. Household and office waste is also excluded from landfill targets.
Lyme Disease on the Increase
Lyme Disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected ticks. The most common natural reservoir of the disease is in wild deer and small mammals such as voles. The ticks usually transfer to humans in woodlands, heathland and parklands. Agricultural and forestry workers, dog walkers and ramblers are potentially at risk. The most common symptom is a slowly expanding rash which spreads out from a tick bite after around a week, giving rise to fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. Cases can be treated successfully with antibiotics, but if left untreated the infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system.
Perhaps as a result of a warming climate, Lyme Disease is increasing in incidence in the UK. In England and Wales there were 684 reported cases in 2006, and Scotland has seen a tenfold increase in numbers over the last decade, with 177 cases reported last year. In June 2007, the Medical Defence Union, a doctors' insurance body, issued guidance to its members to remain vigilant for possible cases, as delay in diagnosis can lead to serious symptoms affecting the neurological, cardiac and musculoskeletal systems many months to years after the initial infection.
Areas where infection has been acquired in the UK include popular holiday destinations such as Exmoor, the New Forest, the South Downs, parts of Wiltshire and Berkshire, Thetford Forest, the Lake District, the Yorkshire moors and the Scottish Highlands, but the infection can occur in other areas where ticks are present.
The WEEE Regulations
The WEEE (Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment) Regulations are designed to encourage more recycling, recovery and reuse, and divert waste away from landfill. The Regulations came into force on 1st July 2007, with a transitional compliance period from July to December 2007. All producers should have joined a Producer Compliance Scheme (PCS) to finance the collection, reprocessing and sound environmental disposal of waste equipment, by 15th March 2007.
From July 2007, producers will be responsible for collecting, via their PCS schemes, any waste equipment purchased after 13th August 2005. Thus the system will not work unless businesses make a record of whom they buy their electronic equipment from. For equipment purchased before 13th August 2005 and which is being replaced by similar products, such equipment can be taken away when the new equipment is delivered. If it is not being replaced, the owner must pay for it to be recycled or sent for disposal.
Employment Tribunals Service Faces Major Reorganisation
The draft Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill published in July 2006 and introduced in the House of Lords in November 2006 proposes major plans to change the Tribunals Service. Instead of 27 different central government tribunals, the Government wants just one providing unified support to a simplified tribunal structure. There will be only one senior manager for each region instead of one for each tribunal, overseen by a senior president of tribunals. The hearing centres will be based in a single venue instead of being scattered around the regions.
Other proposals include:
- Reform of the tribunal system.
- Changes to the eligibility requirements for appointment to judicial office.
- Unification of the law.
- Measures to increase the effectiveness of the enforcement of civil court judgments.
There is also a current problem with the effects of the statutory dispute resolution procedures introduced by the Employment Act 2002 and the Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution) Regulations 2004, particularly in regard to the time limits within which a claim may be brought.
WHO Report on Environmental Ill-Health
A report published in Geneva on 13th June 2007 by the World Health Organisation (WHO) describes the results of the first global analysis of the human toll of environmental damage. The problems faced by individual countries were outlined in a breakdown of global figures first released in 2004, including a worldwide annual death toll of 13 million due to environmental health illnesses. As a unit of comparison, the WHO used the number of healthy years of life lost per 1,000 inhabitants because of environmental impact.
Poor countries suffer the most from ill-health caused by the working environment or social conditions, including poor quality water supplies, air pollution, work-related stress, unhealthy lifestyles and road accidents. Emerging and transition economies, including India and Russia, are suffering from an additional burden of illness due to growing environmental health factors. China and India account for around 38% (five million) of global environmental health deaths, although this is not regarded as statistically significant by the WHO because of their large population size.
The worst affected countries are Angola, Burkina Faso, Mali and Afghanistan, with an incidence rate of 316 years of ill-health per 1,000 inhabitants attributable to the environmental factors of poor water quality and supply, diarrhoeal illnesses, and the use of indoor wood or coal fires which cause respiratory diseases. The WHO stressed that many such deaths could be prevented.
People in emerging nations suffer both from the traditional problems seen in poor countries and new problems due to their environment, such as cardiovascular disease caused by sedentary lifestyles. An average of 68 years of ill-health per 1,000 inhabitants are caused by environmental health factors in India, compared to 54 in Russia, 37 in Brazil and 34 in China. The WHO has warned repeatedly in recent years that poorer countries face new problems with lifestyle diseases caused by smoking or fatty foods as their wealth increases, without necessarily shedding their old problems with infectious diseases.
The best rated countries were Iceland and Israel, with a score of 14 years per 1,000; Italy (16); Germany, Spain and France (17); Britain (18); and the United States (19).
European Court Finds in Favour of HSWA
On 14th June 2007, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected a claim by the European Commission (EC) that the use in UK law of the qualifying phrase placed upon an employer’s duty, "so far as is reasonably practicable", does not implement the EC Framework Directive and is incompatible with Articles 5(1) and 5(4) of the Directive.
The EC brought the case against the UK in the ECJ, Case C127-05 European Commission v. United Kingdom, challenging the UK implementation of European Directive 89/391/EEC (the Framework Directive) on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work. The action was founded on the use of the phrase "so far as is reasonably practicable" in Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 (HSWA). The EC believed that this amounted to defective implementation of the Directive, which does not contain such a qualification. The EC referred the case to the ECJ on 21st March 2005. An oral hearing at the ECJ in Luxembourg took place on 13th September 2006 and an Opinion, favourable to the UK, was delivered by the Court’s Advocate General on 18th January 2007. The ECJ ruled that the Commission had not established in what way the disputed “so far as is reasonably practicable” clause infringed the articles and in consequence the case was dismissed. The case is now concluded and there is no appeals procedure. Had the decision gone otherwise, the entire body of UK health and safety law would have had to be rewritten.
As part of the UK Government defence concerning its current interpretation of the “so far as is reasonably practicable” phrase, the case law example of Edwards v. National Coal Board (1949) was cited in evidence, that case revolving around whether it was reasonably practicable to prevent any possibility of a rock fall in coal mines.
WEEE Likely to Raise Council Tax
As local councils were preparing to comply with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, which came into force on 1st July 2007, the Local Government Association (LGA) issued a warning that consumers could see a rise in the level of their council taxes in order to upgrade amenity sites to cope with such waste.
The UK is already two years behind in complying with the relevant EU Directive, which obliges producers to recycle or dispose of electrical and electronic waste in an environmentally responsible way, and states that the cost of disposal should not be passed on to consumers. Retailers who have joined a Distributor Takeback Scheme will have made a one-off payment to their local authority (LA) to pay for adaptations to council recycling centres to handle WEEE. Some LAs may also be given extra Government funding. However, many LAs claim the funding available is inadequate and will not cover the annual operational costs of civil amenity sites.
At present the amount of WEEE dumped every year in the UK is just over one million tonnes, and this is expected to grow. The LGA stated that if funds are not made available in future, the result could be councils refusing to take waste electrical goods or shifting part of the burden onto the public by raising council tax.
Welsh Water Prosecuted over Cryptosporidiosis Outbreak
In June 2007, Dwr Cymru Welsh Water was charged by the Drinking Water Inspectorate with supplying tap water unfit for human consumption after the stomach bug Cryptosporidium affected more than 230 people who drank water from a Snowdonia reservoir in November 2005. The water utility faces five charges before Caernarfon magistrates. The water supply to around 70,000 homes in parts of Gwynedd and Anglesey was contaminated from the Llyn Cwellyn reservoir water treatment works at Rhyd-ddu. Consumers were advised to boil their drinking water for two months after the outbreak. The cryptosporidiosis incident was investigated by an Outbreak Control Team which included the Environment Agency, local authorities, Welsh Water and public health bodies. Since the outbreak the water company has installed ultraviolet treatment facilities.
HSE Report on Measurement of Acoustic Spectra from Leaks
Acoustic leak detection (ALD) techniques have a number of applications, such as in nuclear reactor coolant systems and landfill liners, but ALD is being used extensively in the offshore oil and gas industry to detect leaks of flammable substances on offshore platforms and in underwater pipelines. ALD detects leaks through the ultrasonic sound produced by an escaping gas jet. The acoustic data is captured as a pipeline is scanned and transferred to an onboard computer where it can be processed in real time and displayed or digitally recorded. It has been found to be more efficient than human intervention or the uncertain detection of dispersed gas by fixed detectors.
A new report published by the HSE describes the benefits of using such devices, possibly in conjunction with line-of-sight sensors to detect gaseous releases. It is available online at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr568.pdf.
BSI Fire Safety Standards
The BSI has been updating fire safety standards and those released in June 2007 include:
- BS 7273-4:2007, Code of practice for the operation of fire protection measures. Actuation of release mechanisms for doors, which concerns recommendations for the design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of electrical control arrangements for actuation of mechanisms that unlock, release or open doors in the event of fire.
- BS EN 3-8:2006, Portable fire extinguishers. Additional requirements to EN 3-7 for the construction, resistance to pressure and mechanical tests for extinguishers with a maximum allowable pressure equal to or lower than 30 bar, which specifies the rules of design, type testing, fabrication and inspection control of portable fire extinguishers manufactured with metallic bodies as far as pressure risk is concerned, and is applicable to portable fire extinguishers of which the maximum allowable pressure PS is lower than or equal to 30 bar and containing non-explosive, non-flammable, non-toxic and non-oxidising fluids.
- BS EN 3-9:2006, Portable fire extinguishers. Additional requirements to EN 3-7 for pressure resistance of CO2 extinguishers, which specifies the rules of design, assembling, inspection and testing of CO2 portable fire extinguishers as far as the pressure risk is concerned.
BP Abandons Plans to Build UK Carbon Capture Project
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is an as yet unproven technology involving the underground storage of carbon dioxide produced by power plants that burn coal or gas to produce electricity. In March 2007, the UK Government announced a competition for a financial award to be given to companies or organisations willing to undertake such a CCS project.
The British oil company BP had plans to build a carbon capture and storage plant in Peterhead, Scotland, but in June 2007 announced it had abandoned the project after a Government energy review delayed a subsidy award until November. BP complained that preparation for the project had cost the company around US $50 million and up to 70 staff over the past 18 months.
BP had proposed to build a power plant that would burn natural gas extracted from the North Sea and then pump the resulting carbon dioxide back into the depleted Miller oil field. However, they found that sustaining the empty oil field for another year without a guaranteed go-ahead was too costly.
Outlook for Global Energy Use Growth
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy published its annual report, International Energy Outlook 2007, on 25th June 2007. Their main projection is that by 2030 the world will be consuming 57% more energy than it does today, with a growing thirst for fuels in developing countries, particularly in Asia.
The report predicts that coal will be the fastest-growing energy source, while petroleum consumption will increase by more than 30%. Liquid fuels produced from biomass, coal, and natural gas are expected to provide 9% of the global liquid fuels supply by 2030. In contrast, renewable energy sources will grow from the present 7% share to around 8% in 2030.
The EIA reference scenario does not include greenhouse gas constraints and in consequence global greenhouse gas emissions increase nearly 60% by 2030.
Developing countries produced more greenhouse gas emissions than the industrialised countries in 2004, and the gap is expected to widen in the future. By 2030, developing countries are predicted to generate 57% more greenhouse gases than the present industrialised countries.
Safety Warning on Unspent Aircraft Oxygen Generators
Following an investigation into a disastrous fire at the Environmental Quality Co. Carolina hazardous waste plant in Apex, North Carolina on 5th October 2006, which forced the evacuation of half the population of the town, the US Chemical Safety Board issued an urgent recommendation concerning the dangers of transporting and handling unspent aircraft chemical oxygen generators. (See item in the Autumn 2006 International edition of the RRC e-Newsletter, “USA: Town Evacuated after Chemical Waste Plant Explosion”.)
Chemical oxygen generators are used widely in commercial aircraft to supply supplementary oxygen to passengers in drop-down masks should the cabin depressurise at height. (They contain sodium chlorate, activated by a small explosive charge to produce oxygen gas in an exothermic reaction; the containers can reach a temperature of 500o F during discharge.) Because they are safety-critical equipment they have a limited useful life and must be replaced periodically. In the past there have been onboard fire incidents started by such masks, including one in 1996 which caused an NTSB ValuJet aircraft to crash in Florida. Following an investigation into that incident, the National Transportation Safety Board stated that expired but fully functioning chemical oxygen generators should be expended before being transported.
The devices that contributed to the Apex plant fire were past their projected service life but remained fully charged and hazardous. They originated from an aircraft maintenance facility in Mobile, Alabama, where the contents were not expended prior to transport as legally required. Their shipping documents did not identify them as unspent chemical oxygen generators, also a requirement of the Department of Transportation regulations. In Apex, the devices were misidentified as general oxidiser waste and were stored in the area where the fire is believed to have originated. They were activated by heat, releasing oxygen, which accelerated and intensified the severity of the fire.
The Impossible Economics of Nuclear Power Generation
A report published in late June 2007 by the Oxford Research Group, Too Hot To Handle - The Future of Civil Nuclear Power, demolishes many of the arguments presented in favour of nuclear-generated electricity as a solution to global climate change, as advocated by the World Energy Council. For a start, nuclear power plants must be built at the unachievable rate of four per month from now on if nuclear energy is to make a significant contribution to the control of climatic degradation. Not only is this construction rate beyond the capacity of the nuclear industry to deliver, but it would also stretch to breaking point the capacity of the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor and safeguard civil nuclear power.
At present, nuclear power generates around 16% of world electricity demand, a rate expected to increase in pace with the growth in population. By 2075, nuclear power generation would have to provide one-third of electricity if it is to play a part in controlling greenhouse gas emissions, which means the construction of four new nuclear plants per month, every month for the next 70 years. If the 2075 nuclear scenario came about, there would be 4,000 tonnes of plutonium being processed into reactor fuel each year, representing 20 times the current military stockpile.
At present only France generates most of its electrical power from nuclear plant; they have 59 reactors producing 78% of total electricity. Elsewhere, there are 429 reactors in operation, ranging from 103 in the United States to one in Armenia, with 25 more under construction, 76 planned and 162 proposed. In contrast, China is already building two new coal-fired plants every week.
There would also be a foreseeable constraint on supplies of uranium ore, leading inevitably to the exploitation of lower grade ores and therefore more carbon expended on extraction and refining.
Nuclear advocates stress the development of fast breeder reactors, which produce more radioactive fuel than they consume, but at the same time create a security nightmare leading to nuclear weapons proliferation.
DTI Has Another Name Change
The Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) is now to be known as the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR). The new department will bring together the functions of the former DTI and the Better Regulation Executive (BRE), previously part of the Cabinet Office. DBERR will have responsibilities for enterprise, business relations, regional development, fair markets and energy policy; and it will provide support to the Business Council for Britain. The Department has undergone frequent changes of title; it was once called the Department of Productivity, Energy and Industry for less than a week.
EU Plans to Turn Wine Lake into Biofuel
One of the less than rational mechanisms invented by the European Union is the creation of "mountains" of edible but unwanted food, and "lakes" of potable but unwanted drink, all the result of protective government subsidies which promote excess production by inefficient industries. The European Union currently spends €1.3 billion each year subsidising the wine industry, of which €90 million is used to pay for 'crisis distillation', a scheme under which 45 million litres of poor quality wine is distilled into ethanol for use as fuel. As a basic raw material for biofuels, ten litres of wine yields one litre of pure alcohol, so the entire process is a highly inefficient disposal route. Crisis distillation has occurred in four of the past six years.
In June 2007, the European Commission put out a tender for the opportunity to turn 200 million litres of excess wine into bioethanol, claiming that this would be the last time it pays for such a move. Crisis distillation would now be abandoned in favour of stopping excess production. However, their new strategy is based not upon economics but on preventing competition between fuel and food crops.
European Nuclear Industry Makes Slow Progress
Construction of the first new nuclear power station in Europe since 1991 was completed in late June 2007. Building of the European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPWR) at Olkiluoto, Finland, started in August 2005. The Finnish nuclear regulator, STUK, reported that it found a series of “safety deficiencies" in the manufacture and design of the plant, a setback which caused the project to fall 18 months behind schedule and about €700 million over budget. The EPWR, which represents the design favoured for future reactors in the UK, is not scheduled to operate commercially before 2011.
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