Conference: “The
Chemical Industry and The Environment” 13th. November 1990
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
by Dr. John Cox
CEng FIChemE MConsE
Two early
experiences colour my attitude to environmental issues - although neither, at the time, seemed
especially significant.
Shortly after I
started work, 30 years ago, I was assigned to a troublesome plant which, at the
bottom of a very long list, was recorded as having ‘an effluent problem’. This
low priority, I learnt, was because “the Golden Valve could deal with it”.
The “Golden Valve”
was a sluice gate that, for a period of about four hours, could retain the
entire liquid effluent on site. It had been installed for emergencies, to
prevent out-of-spec plant effluent reaching the river and to allow time for
sampling and special or extra treatment. Although occasionally still used as
originally intended, its more common use was for a quite different purpose.
In practice, few
plant supervisors care to admit to operating problems and, when upsets
occurred, many preferred to ditch the problem into the river. If they did use
the panic button they were more likely to receive a reprimand for maloperation
than praise for containment of the effluent. So the system fell into disuse.
When I joined the
company, Gate Security was the most regular user. Whenever an Inspector from
the river authority arrived, the panic button would be used to alert the
workforce. If the plant operators then thought it necessary, the Golden Valve
would be closed and a Process Water valve opened, in time to ensure that the
Inspector’s sample was inside the Consent Limits.
I would like to
believe that a new chemical engineering graduate today would rebel against such
obvious irresponsibility. Looking back, I can’t recall that I was troubled - merely relieved that one of my
problems could be put on the back-burner. This was the big wide real world of
industry and, like any new graduate, I was there to learn. It was years before
I appreciated the full enormity of what we were doing.
My second
formative experience occurred a few months later, at a different site, when I
was assigned directly and specifically to work on a site effluent problem. On
and off, over the course of 6-9 months, changes in equipment and operating
procedures were made with varying success. Then, overnight, the problem
vanished. Management had struck a deal with a waste disposal operative and all
we had to do was pump our effluent into his tankers when he arrived, 3-4 times
each day.
Whilst I do
remember wondering how an apparently uneducated lorry driver was able to
succeed where three highly-trained chemical engineers had failed, the problems
of my next assignment quickly replaced this concern. The truth only dawned
years later when I learnt that this same “waste disposal” firm had been
prosecuted for dumping effluent down a disused mineshaft. In retrospect it is
obvious that our company management knew what was taking place - but were not sufficiently
socially-conscious to persevere with their in-house efforts.
In both instances,
‘out-of-site’ meant ‘out-of-mind’. Times have changed. Few plant managements
would be as irresponsible today and few chemical engineers so naive as to
accept such procedures without questions. There is a widespread recognition of
the link between the effluents of our workplace and the quality of our
environment.
I mention these
experiences because control measures are implemented by plant workers who are
not pollution specialists and who are subject to all the usual pressures of
employment. The primary responsibility for pollution control rests with design
engineers whose goal must be to develop process routes that produce no effluent
at all.
With no disrespect
to anyone present today, effluent treatment - however clean, efficient,
sophisticated, simple or economical - is an admission of failure. I will return to
this theme many times but, for the moment merely comment that elimination is
the only truly fail-safe guarantee against operator error or misuse.
OVERVIEW
In this Overview,
I shall begin with global issues and narrow to specifics with, as necessary,
digressions on related issues. I also will take this rare opportunity afforded
me, to comment on the historical and socio-political context and to float ideas
for the quantification of environmental hazards.
Current concern
for the environment has a long pedigree - the first English law that
prohibited the dumping of polluted waste into rivers was adopted in 1388. When
I was in school, our image of the chemical industry was that of a former major polluter which, more recently,
had cleaned up its act. Post-war clean air legislation made a visible
improvement and was largely the reason for this shift in our public image.
The current
perception is very different. Whilst the focus has shifted from the visually
obvious smoke and dust, the Seveso and Bhopal accidents (and others) and the
effects of acid rain over Europe and of radioactive discharges into the Irish
Sea all have heightened fears of unseen poisonous emissions.
In common with
most professional chemical engineers, I retain an optimistic faith in our
ability to find technological answers - even to the most intractable of problems. In my
lifetime we have seen real advances in pollution control and, as a profession,
we have a far greater awareness of our responsibilities towards a cleaner
environment. I see no reason why this progress should not continue.
But optimism is
not synonymous with blind faith. In dismissing the uninformed fears of a
sceptical public, we must not minimise the real problems and the magnitude of
the challenge. My first digression will be to outline the Gala concept, as a
backdrop to discussion of the impact of the chemical industry on the global
environment.
GAIA
The essence of the
Gaia concept is that all living systems are part of an unitary organism which
maintains a stable environment throughout a large number of feedback processes.
The most well-known (the carbon, oxygen and nitrogen cycles) have been studied
for many years as mass balances but only recently as interactive heat and mass
balances which both control and modify our climate.
Before this idea
took hold, scientists wondered at the lucky coincidence that the temperature of
the earth’s surface and the oxygen content of the atmosphere are so convenient
for our life forms. We now know that both are a consequence of the
interaction between photosynthesis and respiration and between decay and growth
- so that these
feedback mechanisms actually determine and control our environment. This
apparent “coincidence” is an inevitable outcome of the evolution of a
life-friendly environment in parallel with environment-friendly life forms.
Although
self-regulating feedback mechanisms provide some assurance that our present
environment is reasonably stable, there could be more than one stable state.
The danger from global warming is not only from the prospect of a 3°C rise per
century and a consequent rise in sea levels (catastrophic as that will be for
Bangladesh, Holland and many other low-lying populated areas) but that this
could trigger radical changes to the entire global environment.
This has happened
at least once before. In the early millenniums of our planet there were fewer
life forms and, hence, fewer natural controls. Life forms developed in a C02-rich
atmosphere and became the dominant motors for environmental change. This
success polluted their own life-giving C02-rich air with poisonous
oxygen and created the oxygen-rich atmosphere we now enjoy today.
The lesson is
obvious: our continuation as a species depends on our remaining within the
limitations of the existing stable and balanced life-sustaining Gala system. We
must not allow our arrogance as a conscious species to lead us to extinction.
IMAGE
As chemical engineers
we are uniquely well-qualified to appreciate the validity of the Gala concept
and to explore the details of this fascinating and dynamic heat and mass
balance. We should respond to the challenge of pressure groups by examining the
impact of new chemicals in this global setting. It is neither valid nor wise to
dismiss each new incursion with a plea of minimal impact.
Our image problem
has been caused and exacerbated by the unwillingness of many chemical engineers
and company managements to admit a potential environmental danger to our
activities and, sadly, an arrogance towards the public which can be especially
misplaced in the aftermath of an accident. Commercial secrecy and a less than
forthcoming attitude by many companies has further increased public anxiety.
As human beings,
chemical engineers are hurt by public suspicion and resent this outside
scrutiny. Within office walls, a consensus blames the public for its lack of
appreciation of our efforts and the benefits they receive. I share these
feelings but have to say, without any equivocation whatsoever, that we have to
become far more trusting of the public if we are to improve our image. This
leads me to my second digression.
FREEDOM
OF INFORMATION
Under the heading:
“How much should the public know?”, a recent issue of The Chemical Engineer
reported that the UK Health & Safety Executive “believes that members of the public need to understand better the
nature and extent of possible risks from local industry” and suggested “that the main
responsibility for providing access to information should rest with firms as it is they who know best” and it is “difficult for the (HSE) Executive to establish which is
commercially sensitive”.
This contrasts
with the US approach. America has a long and proud tradition of open government
and Freedom of Information which continues in the TOXNET system -a national database for recording
data on effluents.
The TOXNET legislation obliges companies to
record toxic effluents for a national IBM-compatable data-base system which is
readily available for public scrutiny - at a very modest fee. In time we may expect
many more industrialised countries to adopt similar systems. Whilst elsewhere
in the world, notably in the UK, the public is denied information with pleas of
“too difficult”, “too expensive” or “commercial secrecy”, TOXNET already has been operating for three
years.
The implications
go beyond the USA. The world of industry is multinational and few major
companies do not have branches, subsidiaries or parent companies in the USA - often with similar or identical
production plants. With a little initiative, any member of the public may
access relevant US data on its local chemical plant. Only a few days ago, I had
no problem obtaining data on potential effluents from a group of UK chemical
plants by examining TOXNET data for sister plants in the USA.
To illustrate the
information that is readily available in the US on TOXNET, part of a typical entry has been
photocopied and circulated (see last page).
It is noteworthy
that less than 30 of over 20,000 companies invoked commercial secrecy when
supplying their data for TOXNET and that in every case this was merely in respect to the precise chemical
name, not the data on effluent discharges. As technology knows no national
boundaries, it may be presumed that there are no pressing commercial reasons to
justify withholding similar information elsewhere.
Apart from the
anxiety created by excessive commercial secrecy, three broad areas of public
concern have a genuine technological content and also should concern
chemical engineers - Plant Safety, Product Safety and Waste Disposal. I will say a few words
on all three although, at this Conference, the third will receive most
attention.
PLANT
SAFETY
Whilst usually
quantified in terms of risk to life and damage to plant and equipment, Plant
Safety also has an environmental dimension. The (UK) Health & Safety
Executive make this point explicit, in their guide to the regulations for Major
Hazards Installations:
“It should be noted that, in most cases, precautions taken to protect
man
should also protect the environment. However, the possibility cannot be
excluded of a major accident - that affects the environment and not man.”
A number of
spectacular accidents in the 1970s and 1980s have made Safety a public issue.
Whereas 1974 Flixborough explosion and the 1979 Bantry Bay fire raised public
awareness of the risks to life and property, Chernobyl, Seveso and the Exxon
Valdiz disasters also highlighted the risk to the Environment.
The Chernobyl
accident of 26 April 1986 sent a cloud of radioactive material over most of
Europe. In the immediate vicinity, an inner zone will remain uninhabited for
decades: an outer zone of 30 kilometres from the plant may be reoccupied in a
few years time. Restrictions on agriculture and livestock extend further again
and, four years later and thousands of miles distant, Welsh hill farmers still
may not sell their sheep on the open market - although there is some suspicion
that the Trawsfynydd and Wylfa nuclear power plants are an additional cause of
this particular radioactivity.
The Bhopal
accident of 3rd. December 1985 killed more than 2000 people and most attention
since has been concentrated on its causation and the attempts by Union Carbide
to evade its clear responsibility for the design failings and operational
shortcomings. It is worth noting however that the environmental damage
enveloped a population of tens of thousands.
On 10th. July
1976, at Seveso in Italy, dioxins were released into the atmosphere. It was 7
days before the authorities were told and 10 days before 700 people living
nearby were evacuated. 70,000 animals later died or had to be destroyed.
In all these three
cases the accidents caused long-term environmental damage but, because people
died, these were the aspects that received most publicity and remain in the
public memory. Relatively few accidents have pollution as their main outcome.
On 1st. November
1986, at Basle in Switzerland, 30 tonnes of herbicides and pesticides washed
into the Rhine during fire-fighting operations at a warehouse. Fish were killed
and drinking water supplies were affected downriver for several hundred miles
before discharging to the North Sea.
Oil spillages, as
from the Torrey Canyon and Exxon Valdiz, are best-known for their effect on the
environment - because, with no loss of human life to occupy media attention, the
visual pollution received all the publicity. Many less visible but equally
damaging toxic releases, notably when a toxic waste incinerator suffers an
operational problem, receive far less media coverage.
I turn next a
subject which until recently received very little attention but which should
cause even greater concern - when plants operate smoothly but the
commodities they produce have unforeseen harmful properties.
SIDE-EFFECTS
Europe’s first
municipal water supplies were built by the Romans and were a major advance in
public hygiene and health. Unfortunately, by using lead pipes, they also
created a new public health hazard - the first of a continuing list of product
disasters. More recent examples include the use of asbestos (in all its
forms), DDT (and its substitutes), aluminium (for water treatment), tobacco and
a variety of pharmaceutical products and many many more.
What Flixborough
did for Safety in the 1970s, the Ozone Hole has done for the the Environment in
the 1980s. The term “ozone-friendly” encapsulates public concern. There is now,
as never before, a questioning of the need for products that may have
harmful side-effects.
In this review,
the CFC disaster must take first place. Its implications go far beyond the
issue of CFCs as such and provide a useful starting point to generalise on the
limitations that the natural biological world imposes on our unatural chemical
industry. But first, in case anyone remains unaware or unconvinced of the
problem, I will digress to provide a very brief summary of the CFC issue.
CFCs
CFCs
(chlorofluorocarbons) are inert to all natural chemical processes occurring on
land, on sea and in the atmosphere. This is why they appeared ideal for a
varied range of industrial uses - refrigerants, foam-blowing agents, aerosols,
and fire-fighting equipment. By 1972, CFC production had reached 800,000 tpa
and, by virtue of this stability, atmospheric concentrations increased every
year.
With nowhere else
to go, CFCs diffuse into the stratosphere. There, in a totally new and rarefied
environment and exposed to UV light, CFCs decompose and produce free chlorine
which, in turn, initiates a catalytic-type reaction in which one molecule of a
CFC can be responsible, on average, for the destruction of 100,000 ozone
molecules.
This matters because,
without the stratospheric ozone layer, much more UV light will reach the ground
and cause damage to crops and an increase in various forms of skin cancer. It
also will alter the climatic heat balance and could change weather patterns
with dramatic consequences for world agriculture.
At some risk to my
professional reputation, I will hazard the opinion that any gaseous substance
that is benign at ground level is unlikely to remain so when, as it must
eventually, it reaches the stratosphere. The principle that effluent disposal
should be close to its origin suggests that it would be safer to use chemicals
with. known selfdestructive properties - even if this does cause some
ground-level pollution.
NOx
Nitrogenous
fertilisers are another
problem. Without their widespread application, particularly in the Third World,
the so-called “green revolution” would have been impossible and starvation
would be even more prevalent than it is anyway. But there are two environmental
consequences that have to be faced.
Locally the
problem is that excess nitrates (and other nitrogenous fertilisers) run off the
soil and pollute waterways. Gross examples of such pollution have been verified
by keen-eyed Greenpeace vigilantes in many countries and the damage is
indisputable. Globally, nitrates encourage nitrophyllic bacteria which, by a
process analogous to making CO2 by photosynthesis, increase NOx emissions.
Whilst improved
technology can reduce NOx emissions from coal, oil and petrol consumption and thus reduce the NOx component of photochemical smogs,
nitrogen-fixation for fertilisers necessarily interferes with the global
nitrogen cycle. Additional NOx from nitrophyllic bacteria is sufficiently
dispersed to pose no photochemical smog threat - but may well become significant in
relation to the Greenhouse Effect.
These examples
suffice to illustrate that, whatever new products are discovered and whatever
their apparent benefits, we must expect problems whenever we interfere with the
natural processes of nature. This, I emphasise, is not an argument
against the manufacture of any specific chemical product but, most certainly,
it is a warning that we cannot ignore the Gala theory: there’s “no such thing
as a free lunch”.
Considered in
isolation, no chemical company is likely to upset the delicate balance of
nature. It is only when several companies all seek to maximise production of
profitable outlets that problems arise. Companies need to cooperate in studying
the possible global effects of high-volume products - rather than waiting for protests
from environmental pressure groups and then, often, ignoring the evidence.
I turn next to
Waste Minimisation, which rightly has priority in this Conference, for it is
here that chemical engineers have a direct role to play.
WASTE
MINIMISATION
As always, elimination
is better than control. Many processes would not be used if the full
societal costs of effluent disposal were borne by the polluter. The imposition
of the ‘polluters pay’ principle will have a major and long-term effect on the
choice of production processes - making proven technology, such as mercury-cell
electrolysis, obsolete simply by virtue of effluent disposal costs.
The aim should be
zero-effluent - not effluent control.
However, in our
lifetimes, few genuinely effluent-free processes are likely. In dealing with
the resulting effluents, five basic principles should be recognised:
1 Waste
disposal companies encourage waste
So long as waste disposal companies exist and can charge less for this
service than it costs a company to eliminate waste, there is little commercial
incentive to do so. Just as governments, world-wide, impose petrol taxes not
only to raise revenue but also to discourage excess consumption, waste disposal
should be taxed, not subsidised, to discourage pollution.
2 Forget about
National Consent Limits
There is no point in imposing stringent controls over effluent
discharges if other countries do not. This simply encourages irresponsible
companies to relocate. Whilst we, as individuals or companies, should seek to
compete and excel in reducing waste, legislators should be devising enforceable
international controls.
3 Abolish all
trade in waste
This is a corollary to the first two principles. In particular, the
trade in toxic waste must be curbed and, as soon as practicable, made illegal.
If a company is able to export waste, it has no obligation to reduce the waste
it produces.
4 Dilution does
not reduce pollution
Dumping waste at sea is, in principle, no different to discharging
liquid effluent down a mineshaft. Raising the height of a chimney may reduce
complaints from nearby local residents but it does not reduce atmospheric
pollution. For a measure to be described correctly as ‘pollution control’, it
must reduce the amount of harmful material actually released to the
environment.
5 Conversion
does nor reduce pollution
Conversion of liquid effluent to solid effluent (for landfill) does not
necessarily reduce the mass of potentially harmful substances. Incineration
only qualifies as a measure of pollution reduction if the net amount of harm
(including any from CO2 emissions) is reduced. Waste remains waste,
whether on land, in rivers and seas or in the atmosphere and stratosphere.
These principles
are useful guidelines for a process feasibility study but, I must emphasise,
nothing short of zero-effluent should be our goal. At a recent IEO-UNEP seminar
(Industry and Environment Office of the UN Environmental Programme) this was
described as a shift from “end-of-pipe” solutions to a “cradle-to-grave”
philosophy.
Waste Minimisation
and Pollution Control are set to be ‘glamour specialisms’ in the 1990s and this
Conference is itself a reflection of the public interest in the work we do. The
IChemE has played a positive role in formulating policies on these issues and
in response to consultative papers on impending legislation and, in relation to
the concept of ‘Duty of Care’, has made the following points:
“The profession of chemical engineers feel that the way forward is by
placing attention on the prevention of waste (my emphasis), reducing its
quantity and environmental impact by recycling, recovery or treatment.”
The growing
importance of disposal technology and its greater sophistication and breadth
necessarily requires greater expertise than many smaller companies can afford -especially within Third World
countries. The lEO promotion of a “Cleaner Production Network” database may
help overcome lack of expertise in the Third World and small companies - but only if companies with advanced
know-how make it available.
Unfortunately,
there sometimes can be a commercial advantage in maintaining secrecy with
respect to Waste Minimisation and Disposal. Such instances are few and, for
obvious reasons, one must hope that companies will cooperate in sharing
experience in this area, as they do already for Safety where similar temptations
also apply.
QUANTIFYING
HARM
Because many
eco-activists began their professional life in the biological sciences, reviews
usually start with the biosphere and categorise pollutants by their target
zones (air, land, sea). Useful as this is, it does not provide a starting point
for quantifying the relative importance of dealing with each problem.
Some people object
to the very idea of quantifying environmental harm, seeing it at best as an
academic indulgence or, at worst, insensitive. I raise the issue as I see no
other alternative to informing industry and legislators of the relative dangers.
If resources are
limited, either in time or in money, there has to be a system of priorities.
The British electricity industry is to spend £2 billion (at least) investment
in flue gas desulphurisation, to reduce its current emissions of four million
tonnes of SO2 each year by 60% before the year 2003. Does this
reflect the importance of acid rain -or is it simply a response to EEC legislation?
Similar reservations
surfaced some years ago in Safety and Hazard Assessments when the need arose
for a measure of relative risks. With apologies to those present who already
are familiar with the concepts now generally accepted, I will digress with a
brief explanation of the terms ‘individual’ and ‘societal’ risk.
RISK
‘Individual risk’
may be crudely defined as the risk of a serious accident occurring to a
specific individual either working in the plant or present at a defined
location in relation to the plant. ‘Societal risk’ is a summation of
‘individual risks’ and takes account of the numbers and behaviour of people
working in and around the plant.
For reasons which
belong in the realms of social sciences rather than chemical engineering, it
seems that a worker on a plant may be allowed to be more at risk than a
passer-by or a nearby resident. ‘Individual risk’ is an indicator of intrinsic
plant safety and can be used to establish whether sufficient instrumentation
and other measures have been provided. Typical figures for ‘acceptable risk’
lie in the range 2-20 x 10-6 /year (that is, 2-20 chances in a
million each year of being killed).
‘Societal risk’ is
a measure of the risk to the community from the plant and process and
increasingly is being used by local authorities as an aid to planning - and in imposing conditions on
locations, plant layouts, emergency provisions and related matters. ‘Societal
risk’ is plotted on FN-curves where the y-axis is the Frequency (F) of an accident resulting in N fatalities and the x-axis is the
Number of fatalities (N).
In relation to
Plant Safety, typical* values for acceptable ‘societal risk’ at any chemical
plant installation are:
Fatalities
(N) Frequency
(F)
10
l0-3/year
100
10-5/year
1000
10-7/year
The underlying
logic is that big disasters are less acceptable than small disasters. The
figures have evolved from historical accident frequencies and our judgements of
the need for and practicality of improving safety standards. If these figures
correctly represent social acceptability, a ‘one million death disaster’ would
seem likely to be unacceptable above a ‘one in a Billion’ level of risk in any
one year.
*NOTE: Some governments and authorities have more stringent criteria for
small accidents and less stringent criteria for major disasters. The Hong Kong
values for the above are l0-4, l0-5 and l0-6
respectively.
Environmental
Impact Assessments differ from Safety Studies and it is never wise to push
analogies beyond the point of legitimacy. The common ground is the need for a
categorisation that rates pollutants in terms of their impact on their
immediate and ultimate environments - analogous to individual and societal risks.
One difference is
that safety starts with the individual and continues upwards to societal risk
whereas, in contrast, pollution starts with societal risk and ends with the
global consequences. Another is that the effects of pollution are
time-dependent and add a third dimension to any scientific appraisal. In short,
the risks from pollution may be shown on a two-dimensional FN-plot for societal
risk and a three-dimensional FNT-plot for the long-term global consequences.
POLLUTANT
CATEGORIES
A comparison of
the potential environmental harm from smoke and CFCs will illustrate the
underlying principles of this analysis.
Smoke (and dust)
are earliest known pollutants and their abatement costs industry more than any
other branch of pollution control. This is not because of their intrinsic harm
but a reflection of their visibility and their immediacy. By contrast, CFCs are
invisible and, even after the recent, yet belated, international agreement to
end their production, their harmful effects have yet to peak. So smoke might be
rated a greater ‘societal risk’ whilst CFCs would score higher as a ‘global
risk’.
This analysis
hides assumptions about the amount of smoke and CFCs produced - and their distribution. On 15
December 1985, a huge fire started at an oil well in India and continued for 16
days. Two days into the fire, atmospheric ozone (in the immediate vicinity)
suddenly began to decrease, reached a nadir of 10% after 10 days arid did not
fully recover until 11 days after the fire ended. If this were a typical
occurrence, smoke would be a greater ozone-eater than CFCs.
On the other hand,
CFCs have 20,000 times the greenhouse potential of CO2 although,
because of the relative quantities, CO2 accounts for seven times
more global warming. Another factor is the capacity of nature to absorb
contaminants: the exchange of CO2 between the oceans and the
atmosphere is 20 times that of CO2 emissions, in contrast to CFCs
which have no natural interaction of any kind. All these factors have relevance
when rating pollutants by their potential to harm the environment.
The £2 billion to
be spent
in the UK on flue gas
desuphurisation is many times the cost of replacing CFCs to prevent the
destruction of the ozone layer - and, for what it’s worth, FGD operations
increase CO2 emissions. Whilst I don’t dispute that acid rain must be
eradicated, I doubt whether this emphasis and priority for FGD reflects a
considered technological assessment. Without an agreed scientific measure of
the relative harm of various pollutants, international priorities will be
‘determined by the whims of politicians and pressure groups rather than genuine
scientific needs.
A scientific
appraisal of environmental harm must assess local and global effects, tonnes
released, time to take effect and how long these persist, interactions and the
ability of the natural world to absorb the disturbances. On this scale of
measurement, the greenhouse gases must be the frontrunners for the ‘Pollutant
of the World’ title.
On current trends,
the greenhouse effect could cause a 3°Celsius rise in the next Century and a rise
in sea water levels that would flood most of Bangladesh. Details remain
imprecise but there is no doubt that the ‘one million deaths disaster’ is many
orders of magnitude more likely than ‘one in a Billion’ per year (indicated
earlier as a measure of possible global acceptability). Although neither
Britain nor Ireland is likely to suffer such a catastrophy and, indeed,
actually might benefit from limited Global Warming, our industries already
cause more than our per capita share of this effect.
GREENHOUSE
It comes as
something of a relief to discover that the chemical industry is not the major
culprit with respect to greenhouse gases. Most of the greenhouse contribution
derives from the internal combustion engine and electricity generation.
Although
scientific opinion remains divided on details, it seems that about two-thirds
of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapour (itself a variable of climatic
interchange) and the remainder to CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
Within the latter, over half is due to CO2, nearly a quarter due to
methane, with CFCs and NO~ the least important. Allowing 5% for CO2
emissions due to the consumption of fuel and power, the chemical industry
may cause 20% of the current greenhouse effect.
With CFCs and NO~
emissions on the decline and methane so far immune to control, CO2 is the major solvable
problem, with considerable scope for energy savings in industrial activities
and in our reliance on the internal combustion engine. The impediments are
political rather than technological - notably, the fact that our countries will have
to pay more than most to reduce CO2 emissions whilst having less to
fear from the effects of Global Warming.
GROWTH
Some years ago I
wrote a paper on energy and mineral reserves, fitting the usual curves for population and
growth trends and confirming that,
if new discoveries were made at the same rate as now, nothing serious could
upset our lifestyles.
A different
picture emerges if one realises the social and political consequences of
accepting current trends. As we all know, the world is divided into ‘haves’ and
‘have-nots’ - and the gap is widening. The USA, with 2% of the world’s population,
consumes 25% of its oil. England, which has no problem feeding its
citizens, imports half its food whilst Africa, where starvation is common, is a
net exporter.
I doubt whether it
is politically possible for this to continue. As a mathematical exercise, I
have calculated how much oil, gas, coal, uranium, iron, copper and lead would
be available if the entire world enjoyed the standard of living of the US in
1970 (that is, a small drop in living standards for the richest and a
substantial rise for the poorest). The sobering result emerged that, apart from
coal and iron, which would have an 8-10 years lifetime, the average period
before resource depletion would be 2-3 years. If the world consumed oil at the
US rate, CO2 emissions would rise ten-fold.
Moreover, there is
a direct relationship between industrial activity and pollution. As we all know,
waste minimisation relies on experience as well as on equipment and there is
ample evidence that, in relation to industrial output, pollution in
newly-developing countries exceeds that in older industrialised countries. It
is prudent to assume therefore that my modest scenario for worldwide growth
would result in greater environmental damage than that previously and currently
experienced in our countries.
Whilst equality
with US levels is improbable, it would be technologically feasible to raise the
food production of the ‘have-nots’ above subsistence levels within a few years.
Yet, if this occurred whilst the growth of the ‘haves’ merely halved, it still
would necessitate a five-fold worldwide increase in industrial
production with, as a corollary, the prospect of a similar rise in pollution
levels and CO2 emissions.
As I am sure
everyone in this audience will appreciate, five-fold improvements in energy
efficiency and waste minimisation will not come easy. Whilst the politicians
struggle with the problem of reconciling our living standards with those
“enjoyed”, if that’s the right word, by the rest of the world, we need to set
ourselves the goal of zero-effluent and minimum-energy utilisation in all our
endeavours. The task may be beyond us but I fear for the future of our
grandchildren if we do not succeed.
APPENDIX: Example of TOXNET declaration
FNI~1 —
PFIZER PHARMACEUTICALS INC.
FAD -
HWY. 2 KM. 58.8
FCTY -
BARCELONETA
FST —
PR
FZIP —
00617
FCO -
BARCELONETA
FIPS —
72017
-
PUBC —
EDGAR A. PEREZ
TEL —
(809) 846—4300
SIC —
(2833) Medicinals and botanicals
CLAT —
Deg 018 Mm 27 Sec 24
CLaNG— Deg 066 Mm 32 Sec 18
FDBN —
09—034—6909
EPAN —
PRD090346909
PNM -
PFIZER
INC.
-
PDBN —
001326495
NAME -
TOLUENE
RN —
108—88—3
\-
SEC -
NONSECRET
OUSE —
(3a) As a chemical processing aid
MAX
—
(04) 10,000—99,999 lbs. (50,000M)
AIRNE
o AIRNR— NON—POINT AIR RELEASE: 6,200 lbs./rep yr— 1988 Spec. Est.
o AIRNB- BASIS OF ESTIMATE (0) Other Approaches AIRPE
o AIRPR- POINT AIR RELEASE: 1,400 lbs./rep yr- 1988 Spec. Est.
o AIRPB- BASIS OF ESTIMATE: (0) Other Approaches
AIRT -
7,600 lbs./rep yr — 1988 WE -
o RSTR - RECEIVING
STREAM
NA
o WR - WATER
RELEASE
0/0 lbs./rep yr -
1988
o SPER - PERCENT FROM
STORMWATER 0.00%
WT —
0 lbs./rep yr — 1988
UINJ -
o UINJR- UNDERGROUND INJECTION: 0/0 lbs./rep yr -1988 RELEASE
UINJT— 0 lbs./rep yr - 1988
LAND
E
o LANDM- DISPOSAL METHOD: (D02) Landfil
o LANDR- LAND RELEASE 0/0 lbs./rep yr -
1988 LANDE
o LANDM- DISPOSAL METHOD: (D03) Land
Treatment/Application/Farming
o LANDR- LAND RELEASE: 0/0 lbs./rep yr -
1988
LANDE
o LANDM— DISPOSAL METHOD: (D05) Surface Impoundment
(Closed As A Landfill)
o LANDR- LAND RELEASE: 0/0 lbs./rep yr -
1988 LANDE
o LANDM- DISPOSAL METHOD: (D99) Other Disposal
o LANDR- LAND RELEASE: 0/0 lbs./rep yr -
1988
LANDT— 0 lbs./rep yr — 1988
ERELT— 7,600 lbs./rep yr — 1988
TREAT-