Transportation inherently safer chemical processes

However, the benefits of air transportation, primarily speed, make it an attractive alternative for longer trips. These benefits have justified the expenditure of large amounts of money for providing extensive layers of protection to overcome the inherent hazards of air travel. The result is that air travel, while inherently more hazardous, is in fact safer than automobile travel for long trips. Similar situations can be expected to occur in the chemical process industry. 

Major environmental trends that we see for land, air, water, and transportation of environmentally hazardous materials are shown in Box 9. These trends require that we get ahead of these issues and lead the chemical industry in the reduction of toxic metal (e.g., Sb, Sn, As) compounds, greenhouse gases, mercury emissions, and sulfur from gasoline and diesel, and find ways to control and sequester C02. Reduction of arsenic, as well as nitrates and ammonia, in drinking water is necessary. It is also imperative in these days of terrorism that we reduce transportation and storage of hazardous materials and continue our drive to develop inherently safer processes. 

Numerous studies and institutions interpret and quantify the vulnerability of chemical sites, processes, and transportation methods to the varied threats of mechanical failure, human error, industrial accident, natural disaster, vandalism, theft, or terrorism, including the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. As a result, most facilities have instituted a combination of voluntary and mandatory security measures to consistently improve their safety record. Nevertheless, it is an incontrovertible fact that no amount of security guards, fences, alarms, or containment structures can entirely eliminate risk at a site that produces, uses, or stores hazardous material. In contrast, when the chemists and engineers responsible for industrial process design seek to modify the process itself, inherently safer conditions can be permanently and irreversibly built into the chemical industry and its facilities. 

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