Quantitative assessment in safety reports of the consequences from the detonation of solid explosives

Safety reports are mandatory documents in member states of European Union whenever any threshold limits of amounts of either stored or processed hazardous substances are exceeded. After a short introduction to EU Seveso Directives on major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances and to the transposition and implementation by member states, with a brief comment on last 2012/18/EU Directive (also known as Seveso III directive), the paper focuses on drafting of safety reports for industrial activities involving solid explosives. Specifically, the quantitative assessment of consequences from detonation is tackled respect to the side-on overpressure and the debris production. Both direct and inverse problems are illustrated to determine respectively the overpressure value at a given distance, and the explosive amount that allows respecting the regulations. Their solution is based on either analytic or numerical techniques and being based on recent scientific publications on the matter either evaluates or zeroes nonlinear algebraic equations. The availability of these equations avoids grounding the consequences assessment on diagrams and nomograms that otherwise would lead to interpretation and usage errors besides avoiding the automatic solution of the inverse problem. The paper focuses also on details such as embankment, crater, munitions, rocket propellant, building structure, and wall material that, at different levels, play a role in the assessment of detonation consequences. A discussion on debris formation, the available literature, and the evaluation of the impact probability of fragments on both fixed and moving targets closes the paper.     

Resources and international climate change policy gridlock

Few other policy zones are as complex as the issue of climate change. If the more pessimistic projections of climate change doom are correct, then the failure to address the issue is likely to be catastrophic and irreversible. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted the potential extinction of many species and that the existence of small-island and other vulnerable countries will be threatened if business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions continue. Climate change is a transboundary problem and requires unprecedented levels of cooperation between states and serious and sustained responses from major emitters. However, the growing demand and consumption of natural resources for continued energy security and cornucopian economic growth have undermined the outcomes of international climate change negotiations. It is argued here that there is a strong connection between the major emitters’ positions at United Nations’ climate talks, their possessions, dependence and consumption of natural resources, and the continued undermining of international climate change policy for unsustainable growth. This paper assesses the resource politics of the US, China, India, Canada, Russia, and Saudi Arabia and their positions at climate talks to show the link between lack of climate change policy progress and the positions of these main players.     

The new geometry of climate governance

ABSTRACT

Scholars and practitioners have focused in recent years on the potential for achieving cooperation in small “clubs” of countries. While solutions to global climate change will eventually require widespread cooperation, club strategies could help to catalyze that outcome. Unlike the Paris Agreement, which has achieved widespread but relatively shallow cooperation, it could be easier to tailor agreements that allow deep cooperation within smaller groups. This essay extends that logic to clubs whose geometry varies two-dimensionally across countries but also along a third dimension: within countries. Most of the key elements of international relations and international law theory that explain how clubs achieve cooperation are directly applicable to three-dimensional clubs. Most of the relevant experience for these clubs has occurred in the west; overdue is a close assessment of how key units – such as provinces and firms – within China and other emerging economies.     

美国颗粒物污染防治政策对中国的启示

大气颗粒物污染可对公众健康和区域环境造成严重的不良影响,有效控制颗粒物排放是我国当前亟待突破的环境问题。美国颗粒物污染防治工作起步较早;联邦政府以推动空气质量达标为核心目标,分别针对电力、工业、机动车等不同排放源开展了一系列技术改造和总量控制的环境管制措施,目前颗粒物减排已取得了显著成效。回顾分析美国的颗粒物治理历程和相关经验,有助于探索和制定针对我国国情的颗粒物污染控制路线和措施,促进我国颗粒物有效减排、空气质量逐步改善。     

Development of inherent safety and health index for formulated product design

The numerous formulated products which are introduced to the market consist of chemical ingredients that may cause various safety and health hazards to the consumers. Therefore, it is extremely important to practice a systematic methodology to formulate products with acceptable safety and health performances. This work presents an index-based methodology to assess the safety and health hazards of the ingredients during the early formulation stage of product design. Hence, new inherent safety and health sub-indexes are introduced to improve the current safety and health hazards that are needed in formulated product design. The inherent safety and health sub-indexes are assigned with scores based on the degree of potential hazards. A higher score indicates a higher safety risk or severe health effect, and vice versa. The proposed methodology will greatly assist the users to identify the adverse safety and health effects caused by the ingredients. Hence, it is pivotal to eliminate or reduce the safety and health impacts from product usage. A case study on common ingredients used in the formulation of paint is presented on this study to describe the proposed method.     

美国的土壤污染防治体系分析与思考

追溯美国上世纪70年代发生的第一起由土壤二噁英(Dioxine)类物质导致的"腊夫运河污染事故"及1980年颁布"超级基金法"的成因.在此基础上美国构建了一套在法律、管理制度以及技术规范方面比较完善的土壤污染防治体系.论述美国政府处理土壤污染的政策法规以及相关体系的目的在于为我国治理土壤污染问题提供参考和借鉴.     

A Report on the International Conference on Climate Policy after Marrakech: Towards Global Participation

The East-West Center convened the international conference on climate policy in Honolulu, Hawaii, on September 4–6, 2003. Sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, Industrial Technology Research Institute (Taiwan), and Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (Japan), this major event covered almost every important issue and featured perspectives from the most important parties and stakeholders in formulating and implementing climate policies and taking international climate negotiations further. It brought together a remarkable cross-section of world opinion on climate policy after Kyoto. This report provides a summary of each presentation and highlights discussions organized under the following six session headings: Session 1: Climate Change in Focus – From Science to Policy; Session 2: U.S. Climate Policy and Perspectives; Session 3: European Union Climate Policy and Perspectives; Session 4: Challenges for other Major Industrialized Countries; Session 5: Issues Related to Developing Countries; and Session 6: Panel Discussions: Where Do We Go from Here?.     

State-By-State Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil Fuel Use in the United States 1960–2000

Time series of fossil fuel carbon emissions from 1960–2000 for each of the U.S. states and the District of Columbia are presented and discussed. Comparison of the nationally summarized results with other national datasets shows generally good agreement, usually within 2%, and gives insight into the quality of all the data series. Our extension of the state-by-state emissions estimates back to 1960 reveals patterns of change that are coherent across states and can be related to historic events such as energy crises and federal legislation. Most notable is the changing pattern of coal usage, as coal-producing states produce increasingly more energy (mostly for electricity) for other states so that per capita CO₂ emissions diverge for states that import as opposed to those that export electricity. The decline in carbon emissions from petroleum products following the 1970s is also evident. Per capita emissions range over an order of magnitude for the different states. The data suggest that differences in per capita emissions arise from differences in many technological, physical, resource, social, and economic factors. The data presented here and the few correlations briefly noted pose a challenge for trying to use per capita emissions as a measure of equity or to provide mitigation targets.     

Scaling down the “Netherlands Fallacy”: a local-level quantitative study of the effect of affluence on the carbon footprint across the United States

Much quantitative research examining the determinants of the ecological footprint has been conducted cross-nationally, where data on cross-boundary flows have been readily available. While local-level studies of the footprint do exist for specific localities, most quantitative research at this scale has examined direct environmental impacts attributed to the internal activities of the locality, for instance, carbon emissions. Our analysis builds on this previous work by exploiting a local-level carbon footprint dataset with coverage for 28,321 zip codes across the United States. Following prior research, we focus on the effect of local affluence, measured in terms of median household income. In spatial regression models, we regress the per capita carbon footprint on local affluence, controlling for a variety of other factors. Consistent with previous work, we find that affluence is positively correlated the carbon footprint and there is no evidence of an environmental Kuznets curve. In the conclusion, we review the results of the study and discuss their implications for policy, specifically in terms of cross-boundary environmental problems.