Vulnerability

The infrastructure that delivers oil from producers to consumers is vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Targeting a few specific points could shut down nearly the entire infrastructure, with devastating consequences. The pipeline, refining, and sea transport systems are particularly imperiled. The EIA recognizes seven major choke points in the oil transportation system Bab el-Mandab, the Bosporus/Turkish Straits, Druzhba pipeline in Russia, the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca, the Suez Canal, and the Panama Canal. The most crucial of these would be the Strait of Hormuz, which, if closed, would divert 13 mbd to longer transport routes (EIA 2006c). 

In addition to transportation routes, processing facilities in Saudi Arabia, if destroyed, also could significantly impact the flow of oil. Baer (2003) writes about the vulnerability Various confidential scenarios have suggested that if terrorists were simultaneously to hit only a few sensitive points downstream in the oil system... they could effectively put the Saudis out of the oil business for about two years. And it just would not be that hard to do. For example, if the world s largest oil-processing facility, the Abqaiq complex located near the northern end 

Not only does the United States lack excess capacity, but much of its infrastructure is located in the Gulf Coast region, which accounts for 47% of total refining capacity in the United States. The Houston area is responsible for refining approximately 3 mbd, followed by the New Orleans area at over 1.2 mbd (API 2006). 

Figiire 3.5. United States refining capacity, 1980-2004. (Source EIA, 2006f). 

Hurricanes Rita, Katrina and Quit oii Naturai gas operations 

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Corrosion protection is indispensable, especially concerning certain vulnerable parts of the aircraft such as the combustion chamber and turbine. The potential hazards are linked to the presence of sulfur in various forms mercaptans, hydrogen sulfide, free sulfur, and sulfides. 

Environmental vulnerability varies considerably from area to area. For example the North Sea, which is displaced into the Atlantic over a two year period,-is a much more robust area than the Caspian Sea which is enclosed. Regional standards should reflect those differences. 

The double bond is not stronger than the single bond on the contrary, it is more vulnerable, making unsaturated compounds more chemically reactive than the saturates. 

Impingement demister systems are designed to intercept liquid particles before the gas outlet. They are usually constructed from wire mesh or metal plates and liquid droplets impinge on the internal surfaces of the mist mats or plate labyrinth as the gas weaves through the system. The intercepted droplets coalesce and move downward under gravity into the liquid phase. The plate type devices or vane packs are used where the inlet stream is dirty as they are much less vulnerable to clogging than the mist mat. 

If produced gas contains water vapour it may have to be dried (dehydrated). Water condensation in the process facilities can lead to hydrate formation and may cause corrosion (pipelines are particularly vulnerable) in the presence of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. Hydrates are formed by physical bonding between water and the lighter components in natural gas. They can plug pipes and process equipment. Charts such as the one below are available to predict when hydrate formation may become a problem. 

Tension leg platforms (TLP) are used mainly in deep water where rigid platforms would be both vulnerable to bending stresses and very expensive to construct. A TLP is rather like a semi-submersible rig tethered to the sea bed by jointed legs kept in tension. Tension is maintained by pulling the floating platform down into the sea below its normal displacement level. The legs are secured to a template or anchor points installed on the seabed. 

In areas where seabed relief makes pipelines vulnerable or where pipelines cannot be justified on economic grounds, tankers are used to store and transport crude from production centres. The simplest method for evacuation is to pump stabilised crude from a processing facility directly to a tanker. 

The uncertainty may be addressed by constructing a base case which represents the most probable outcome, and then performing sensitivities around this case to determine which of the inputs the project is most vulnerable to. The most influential parameters may then be studied more carefully. Typical sensitivities are considered in Section 13.7, Sensitivity Analysis . 

Flowever, it also necessitates a strictly constant ratio of field to frequency, over the duration of the experiment. Although the master frequency source can be held very constant by a thennostatted source, the field is always vulnerable to local movements of metal, and to any non-persistence of the magnet current. Therefore the field is locked to the frequency tlirough a feedback loop that uses continuous, background... 

A matrix with a large condition number is commonly referred to as ill-conditioned and particularly vulnerable to round-off errors. Special techniques. 

The Peterson reaction has two more advantages over the Wittig reaction 1. it is sometimes less vulnerable to sterical hindrance, and 2. groups, which are susceptible to nucleophilic substitution, are not attacked by silylated carbanions. The introduction of a methylene group into a sterically hindered ketone (R.K. Boeckman, Jr., 1973) and the syntheses of olefins with sulfur, selenium, silicon, or tin substituents (D. Seebach, 1973 B.T. Grdbel, 1974, 1977) illustrate useful applications. The reaction is, however, more limited and time consuming than the Wittig reaction, since metallated silicon derivatives are difficult to synthesize and their reactions are rarely stereoselective (T.H. Chan, 1974 ... 

The exocyclic 1,3-dioxolane ring is much more vulnerable to acid hydrolysis than the ring connected with the acetal group. Partial deprotection of the side-chain is easily achieved by treatment with sulfurie acid. 

Reaction that can be carried out by the oxidative coupling of radicals may also be initiated by irradiation with UV light. This procedure is especially useful if the educt contains oleflnic double bonds since they are vulnerable to the oxidants used in the usual phenol coupling reactions. Photochemically excited benzene derivatives may even attack ester carbon atoms which is generally not observed with phenol radicals (I. Ninoraiya, 1973 N.C. Yang, 1966). 

The activated position is the most vulnerable to nucleophilic attack... 

Multiply unsaturated linolenic and linoleic acid residues make triglycerides more vulnerable to oxidative degradation than oleic acid which is relatively stable. It is therefore desirable to hydrogenate the most unsaturated residues selectively without production of large quantities of stearic (fully saturated) acid. The stepwise reduction of an unsaturated oil may be visualized as ... 

Film and sheeting materials test methods have been standardized by ASTM, DIN, and others. As with all materials, the test specimens must be carefiiUy prepared and conditioned. Thin-film specimens are vulnerable to nicks and tears which mar the results. Moisture and temperature can affect some materials. Common test methods are Hsted in Table 1. 

Essentia.1 Oils. Essential oils (qv) are extracted from the flower, leaf, bark, fmit peel, or root of a plant to produce flavors such as mint, lemon, orange, clove, cinnamon, and ginger. These volatile oils are removed from plants either via steam distillation, or using the cold press method, which avoids heat degradation. Additional processing is sometimes employed to remove the unwanted elements from the oils, such as the terpenes in citms oils which are vulnerable to oxidation (49,50). 

The upper use temperature for annealed ware is below the temperature at which the glass begins to soften and flow (about Pa-s or 10 P). The maximum use temperature of tempered ware is even lower, because of the phenomenon of stress release through viscous flow. Glass used to its extreme limit is vulnerable to thermal shock, and tests should be made before adapting final designs to any use. Table 4 Hsts the normal and extreme temperature limits for annealed and tempered glass. These data ate approximate and assume that the product is not subject to stresses from thermal shock. 

Quicklime and hydrated lime are reasonably stable compounds but not nearly as stable as their limestone antecedents. Chemically, quicklime is stable at any temperature, but it is extremely vulnerable to moisture. Even moisture in the air produces a destabilizing effect by air-slaking it into a hydrate. As a result, an active high calcium quicklime is a strong desiccant (qv). Probably hydrate is more stable than quicklime. Certainly hydrated lime is less perishable chemically because water does not alter its chemical composition. However, its strong affinity for carbon dioxide causes recarbonation. Dolomitic quicklime is less sensitive to slaking than high calcium quicklime, and dead-burned forms are completely stable under moisture-saturated conditions. 

Dual-beUows assembhes, ie, universal-type expansion joints, are particularly vulnerable to squirm, and can experience elastic squirm at one-fourth the pressure of an individual bellows. When large amounts of offset are encountered, as is often the design basis, a pinwheel effect occurs because of unbalanced pressure forces. This effect tends to rotate the center-spool pipe which may lead to bellows mpture. Eor this reason the center spool should always be stabilized by hinges or tie-rod lugs to prevent such rotation. 

Soft Tissue Injuries. Some of the more common soft tissue injuries are sprains, strains, contusions, tendonitis, bursitis, and stress injuries, caused by damaged tendons, muscles, and ligaments. A sprain is a soft tissue injury to the ligaments. Certain sprains are often associated with small fractures. This type of injury is normally associated with a localized trauma event. The severity of the sprain depends on how much of the ligament is torn and to what extent the ligament is detached from the bone. The areas of the human body that are most vulnerable to sprains are ankles, knees, and wrists. 

Heat Release and Reactor Stability. Highly exothermic reactions, such as with phthaHc anhydride manufacture or Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, compounded with the low thermal conductivity of catalyst peUets, make fixed-bed reactors vulnerable to temperature excursions and mnaways. The larger fixed-bed reactors are more difficult to control and thus may limit the reactions to jacketed bundles of tubes with diameters under - 5 cm. The concerns may even be sufficiently large to favor the more complex but back-mixed slurry reactors. 

The phase Doppler method utilizes the wavelength of light as the basis of measurement. Hence, performance is not vulnerable to fluctuations in light intensity. The technique has been successfully appHed to dense sprays, highly turbulent flows, and combustion systems. It is capable of making simultaneous measurements of droplet size, velocity, number density, and volume flux. 

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