The CSB doesn't regulate and it can't issue fines. They also don't show up unless you've already had an incident. When they do show up, it's simply to document and investigate the root causes, so they can issue recommendations to one of the regulatory agencies that actually enforces things. You need to have really fucked up for an agency with literally 40 staff overseeing one of the largest industrial economies in the world to notice you.
Have a buddy that switch to chemical from mech, and he likes talking a lot of shit in college.
Now he helps design food processes in factories. Said it’s hell, he got to look at the peanut butter and chocolate for Herseys and he can’t stick his fingers in the vat. The horror.
They let them have all the rejects. It’s a brown paper bag filled with ugly chocolates. He said how they taste better because most of the time they are not homogenous. Might get a big yummy blob of peanut butter or something.
I mean, sure, things like that are super dangerous, but at least they're obviously, flashily dangerous and for that reason have a lot more attention paid to them. The real nasties are arguably the ones that aren't so flashy but are much more common amd don't have immediate effects. Formaldehyde and benzene will give you cancer, and acrylate monomers will make it so you one day wake up allergic to the modern world.
Oh sure, but the comic says "most hectic chemical engineer workday".
In the article Lowe describes a spill incident:
It burned its way through a foot of concrete floor and chewed up another meter of sand and gravel beneath, completing a day that I'm sure no one involved ever forgot. That process, I should add, would necessarily have been accompanied by copious amounts of horribly toxic and corrosive by-products: it’s bad enough when your reagent ignites wet sand, but the clouds of hot hydrofluoric acid are your special door prize if you’re foolhardy enough to hang around and watch the fireworks.
The thing I am currently afraid of is solvent recovery. It's becoming more and more a thing in my work. We are heating up something that explodes and using high voltage. What part of this is sane?
As someone who does safety audits and advice for both civil and chemical, the main difference is that when something goes wrong on a chemical site, it takes hours. When something goes wrong at a civil site it takes like 3 seconds.
They both have their ups and downs. I still don't know if I should prefer sudden and dramatic collapse, or the "shelter in place because running will kill you" alarm while in what's basically a drafty garage.
The cracks etc. on the Miami bridge collapse developed over... weeks? They just said "nah, it's fine" and failed to even measure how big and deep they actually are. I mean if you ignore everything up to the collapse, then it really is sudden. Not saying that you are generally wrong, but usually it is more a lack of data or ignoring it.
I've only ever seen their work on Twitter or Facebook (at least from the source). Or maybe I should say heard of it being there, and it makes me sad. I kind of wish they had their own site.