Lecture 2.5 Risk in the Chemical Industry / Part II

Loading...

Del curso dictado por Universiteit Leiden

Risk in Modern Society

55 calificaciones

Explore Related Videos

At Coursera, you will find the best lectures in the world. Here are some of our personalized recommendations for you

Universiteit Leiden

Risk in Modern Society

55 calificaciones

Risk has become one of the defining features of modern society. Almost daily, we are preoccupied with assessing, discussing, or preventing a wide variety of risks. It is a cornerstone notion for businesses and organizations, but also for nation states and their many levels of government. And even for individuals, risk and the avoidance or embracing thereof, is a key theme. The course Risk in Modern Society sheds light on the broad concept of risk. In five distinctive weeks, this course closely examines various types of safety and security risks, and how these are perceived and dealt with in a wide array of professional and academic fields, ranging from criminology, counter-terrorism and cyber security, to philosophy, safety and medical science. Developed in collaboration with scholars from three universities (Leiden, Delft and Erasmus), this course will search for answers to questions such as: “what is risk?”, “how do we study and deal with risk?”, “does ‘perceived risk’ correspond to 'real' risk?”, and “how should we deal with societal perceptions of risk, safety and security?

De la lección

Managing Risk

In this module, we will take a closer look at risk management, one of the most dominant approaches to dealing with risk in modern society. You will then be presented with two specific risks which illustrate how this approach is used in practice: the risk of natural hazards, and risks in the chemical industry. In the last video of this week, we will discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of the risk management approach.

Lecture 2.4 Risk in the Chemical Industry3:31

Lecture 2.5 Risk in the Chemical Industry / Part II7:13

Conoce a los instructores

Marieke Liem
Dr.
Institute Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University
Bibi van den Berg
Prof. dr.
Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University
Edwin Bakker
Prof. dr.
Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University
Jim van Steenbergen
Dr.
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) & Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC)
Sabine Roeser
Prof. dr.
Ethics/ Philosophy of technology section, TU Delft
Margreet Vos
Prof. dr.
Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Erasmus MC
Genserik Reniers
Prof. dr. ir.
Safety and Security Science Section, TU Delft
Pieter van Gelder
Prof. dr. ir.
Safety and Security Science section, TU Delft

So far, we have seen that chemical disasters can lead to anxiety,

societal disruption, and fear.

But what are the risks in the chemical industry exactly and how are these dealt with?

Risks related to chemical industrial activities are diverse.

On the one hand, there are the smaller risks such as falling from stairs,

falling from heights, tripping and slipping, and so on.

And as discussed in the introduction to this module,

these risks are called Type 1 risks and they can be found in every industrial sector.

They can be treated in a similar way in every organization.

On the other hand, the large risks or Type 2 risks in

the chemical industry are related to the industrial activities within chemical companies,

that is the use, storage,

processing of chemical substances.

Chemicals are characterized by properties that

make them hazardous such as their toxicity,

their flammability, their potential to explode, and so on.

And these hazardous materials are often contained in chemical installations,

under high pressure, and at high temperatures.

Therefore, the very nature of chemical industrial activities

determines the existence of Type 2 risks or so-called process risks,

unique to this industrial sector.

Large safety investments are required to tackle prevention and mitigation of

process risks and this is the field of

process safety management and process security management.

A factor that needs to be considered when dealing with risks in

the chemical industry is a different perception between experts and laypeople.

Experts are more inclined to mainly deal with probabilities in combination with

credible consequences and thereby tend to focus much

on Type 1 risks and also in Type 2 risks that they deemed credible.

In this way, they tend to disregard incredible Type 2 risks.

Laypeople, on the other hand,

tend to attach much more value to consequences than to

probabilities and thus they also value incredible scenarios.

Thus, civilians in Type 2 risks are

Type 2 risks driven and tend to undervalue Type 1 risks.

In case of Type 2 risks in the chemical industry,

which are risks characterized with

a very high impact in combination with a very low likelihood,

this can make an important difference.

It can lead to miscommunications and misunderstandings and eventually to

distrust between civilians and companies and governments.

Whether dealing with process safety risks or process security risks,

risks always need to be prioritized.

Budgets need to be allocated to invest in prevention

and mitigation measures based on the risk prioritization.

Here the divisions and viewpoints of laypeople and experts also has consequences.

The risk prioritization of laymen will largely be based on impact while

the risk prioritization of experts will be based on

the equal combination of impact and likelihood.

So, how can we bridge this gap in perception?

In order to bridge the gap,

it's vital to understand

the important psychological principle in the

decision making process called loss aversion.

Loss aversion refers to people's tendency to prefer

avoiding losses over equivalent gains.

Let us now consider the following example.

Assume you were given two options.

Option 1, I will give you five thousand euros with certainty and option 2,

we toss a coin and when it turns out to be heads, you'll receive nothing.

Tails, you'll receive 10,000 euros.

What option would you prefer?

By far, most people prefer the first option.

Five thousand euros with certainty.

Let's now frame this example another way,

that is in terms of losses.

Option 1, you have to pay me 5,000 euros with certainty and option 2,

we toss a coin.

If it is heads, you pay me nothing,

if it is tails you pay me 10,000 euro.

What option would you prefer this time?

By far, most people in this case prefer to gamble.

They dislike losing with certainty.

In other words, when it comes to gains people choose certainty,

when this comes to losses people prefer to gamble.

Translating this principle into safety terminology,

company top management would be more inclined to invest in production,

which are considered certain games than to invest in prevention,

which is considered as uncertain gains.

Also, top management is more inclined to risk highly improbable accidents perceived as

uncertain losses than to make large investments in dealing

with such accidents which are perceived as certain losses.

Also, top management is more inclined to risk highly improbable accidents perceived as

uncertain losses than to make large investments in

dealing with such accidents which are perceived as certain losses.

So top management and decision makers should therefore be aware of

this basic principle and take it into account when

making prevention investment decisions for dealing with process risks.

By doing so, decisions will automatically be more balanced and there

will be more alignment between experts and laymen.

So, what have we learned?

Risks related to chemical industrial activities are

diverse and can lead to fear and outrage in society.

Fortunately, not many chemical disasters

happen and the chemical industry puts a lot of attention on safety.

Every time an accident involving chemical substances happens,

the license to operate of chemical industrial activities is questioned.

So title trust goes down rightfully so since

no disaster involving hazardous chemicals should be able to happen.

However, when chemical disasters do occur,

there is a divisions in perception of risk between laymen and experts.

Risk assessors in the chemical industry, that is experts,

see risk as a combination of probability and impact whereas

the general public or layman plays a lot of emphasis on impact.

This divisions can lead to miscommunication and mistrust.

To solve this divisions,

the mentality of some decision makers needs to be improved.

If decision makers would understand that operational safety is

just as important for business as production and innovation,

then perhaps better decisions would be

made regarding process risks in the chemical industry.

This can be done by putting adequate emphasis on

loss aversion and its impact on safety investment decision making.

Many disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon offshore accident or

the Bhopal toxic gas disaster would probably not have occurred if this had been the case.

Explora nuestro catálogo

Inscríbete de manera gratuita y obtén recomendaciones personalizadas, actualizaciones y ofertas.

Coursera brinda acceso universal a la mejor educación del mundo, al asociarse con las mejores universidades y organizaciones, para ofrecer cursos en línea.

© 2019 Coursera Inc. Todos los derechos reservados.

Descargar en la App Store

Consíguelo en Google Play