US Chemical Safety Board Investigations of Relevance to the ESI

摘要

The United States Chemical Safety Board (CSB) investigates most of the major chemical accidents in the United States. While many of these are at refineries, a significant number are at other industrial sites, including electricity generation. A review of the CSB investigations identifies that the circumstances under which the accidents have occurred are relevant to NZ, and valuable learnings can be obtained from the US experience. While the legislation differs between the US and NZ, the objectives of avoiding accidents and learning from events which occur is no different. This paper identifies the significant hazard areas in which accidents have occurred and which have relevance to the electricity supply industry in NZ. In each topic area relevant links to bulletins and videos on the CSB website are provided. The Safety Bulletins and Safety Videos provide significantly more information than is contained in the paper, and are recommended reading for those wishing to know more about the events and recommendations.