Superfund reassessment and reauthorization : hearings before the Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Control, and Risk Assessment of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session.

"April 27, and May 4, 9, and 11, 1995"--Pt. 2.

Oil spill environmental risk assessment of stationary sources in offshore zones (Innovating a mathematical model)

Nowadays, risks arising from the rapid development of oil and gas industries are significantly increasing. As a result, one of the main concerns of either industrial or environmental managers is the identification and assessment of such risks in order to develop and maintain appropriate proactive measures. Oil spill from stationary sources in offshore zones is one of the accidents resulting in several adverse impacts on marine ecosystems. Considering a site's current situation and relevant requirements and standards, risk assessment process is not only capable of recognizing the probable causes of accidents but also of estimating the probability of occurrence and the severity of consequences. In this way, results of risk assessment would help managers and decision makers create and employ proper control methods. Most of the represented models for risk assessment of oil spills are achieved on the basis of accurate data bases and analysis of historical data, but unfortunately such data bases are not accessible in most of the zones, especially in developing countries, or else they are newly established and not applicable yet. This issue reveals the necessity of using Expert Systems and Fuzzy Set Theory. By using such systems it will be possible to formulize the specialty and experience of several experts and specialists who have been working in petroliferous areas for several years. On the other hand, in developing countries often the damages to environment and environmental resources are not considered as risk assessment priorities and they are approximately under-estimated. For this reason, the proposed model in this research is specially addressing the environmental risk of oil spills from stationary sources in offshore zones.

A Preliminary Assessment of Aqueous Ethanol Pulping of Bagasse: the Ecopulp Process

SRI has examined the organosolv (organic solvation) pulping of Australian bagasse using technology supplied by Ecopulp. In the process, bagasse is reacted with aqueous ethanol in a digester at elevated temperatures (between 150ºC and 200ºC). The products from the digester are separated using proprietary technology before further processing into a range of saleable products. Test trials were undertaken using two batch digesters; the first capable of pulping about 25 g of wet depithed bagasse and the second, larger samples of about 1.5 kg of wet depithed bagasse. From this study, the unbleached pulp produced from fresh bagasse did not have very good strength properties for the production of corrugated medium for cartons and bleached pulp. In particular, the lignin contents as indicated by the Kappa number for the unbleached pulps are high for making bleached pulp. However, in spite of the high lignin content, it is possible to bleach the pulp to acceptable levels of brightness up to 86.6% ISO. The economics were assessed for three tier pricing (namely low, medium and high price). The economic return for a plant that produces 100 air dry t/d of brownstock pulp is satisfactory for both high and medium pricing levels of pricing. The outcomes from the project justify that work should continue through to either pilot plant or upgraded laboratory facility.