CCSP Congress to Address IST Issues

Thanks to some prodding by a reader from DHS, I just finished taking a look at the program for next weeks Center for Chemical Process Safety’s (CCPS) 6th Global Congress on Process Safety. The reason for the DHS interest is explained in this quote from the CCPS web site:

“The US Department of Homeland Security’s Chemical Security Analysis Center (CSAC), part of the Directorate of Science and Technology, has initiated an effort to enhance the safety and security of hazardous chemicals. As a first step, AIChE’s Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) has received a contract to develop a formal scientific and technical definition of Inherently Safer Technology (IST). This definition is intended to help inform discussions of the role of IST in chemical plant and refinery security.”

Back in February the CCPS and DHS held a workshop for technical experts in the field in Houston, TX. The formal report from that session will be presented at next weeks Global Congress on Process Safety. In fact, there will be two half-day sessions at the meeting in San Antonio that will specifically address the issues surrounding IST and chemical facility security. Both sessions will take place on Monday, March 22nd. The morning session will include:

10:00 am - Overview of Inherently Safer Technology (Dennis C. Hendershot) 10:30 am - The DHS Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards – A Risk-Based Approach to Chemical Facility Security (Larry Stanton) 11:00 am - Inherently Safer Technology Trade-Offs (Jatin Shah)

The afternoon session will include:

1:30 pm - Federal View of Inherently Safer Technology From the CSB Perspective (John Bresland) 2:00 pm - ACC Philosophy On the Appropriate Application of Inherently Safer Principles (Peter N. Lodal, Laurie A. Miller) 2:30 pm - Applying Inherently Safer Systems – Contra Costa County's Experience (Randall Sawyer) 3:30 pm - Facilitated Panel Discussion and Audience Q&A/Discussion Session

The panel for the afternoon’s discussion will include all of the earlier presenters. While the CCPS is preeminently a safety organization (recognized throughout the world for their safety expertise) they also provide information and expertise that is critical to the thoughtful development of security procedures and processes. As we have come to expect, there will be a number of other presentations at this process safety meeting that will address issues of concern to the chemical security community. They will include:

● Simulating the Consequences of an HF Release and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Safeguards to Reduce those Consequences (Randy Hawkins, Daniel Sheahan) ● Atmospheric Storage Tank Explosion Modeling (Jérôme Taveau, Jérôme Richard) ● Update of “Guidelines to Vapor Cloud Explosion, Pressure Vessel Burst, BLEVE and Flash Fire Hazards” (Quentin A. Baker, Adrian J. Pierorazio, John L. Woodward, Ming Jun Tang) ● Consequence Modeling of Chlorine Release (Prakash Amulakh Shah, Chandrakant J. Patel, Ms. Raja Kirthi Kalluri) ● Learning the Lessons From Buncefield (Ian Travers) ● Process Safety and Chemical Security—the Need for Company Specific Risk Criteria (Brad A. Fuller)

If you can make the time and get to San Antonio, TX next week, I think that the sessions would certainly be worth your time. Registration is still open and CCPS is allowing people to register on each day of the meeting.