Whetton, Chris
ility Engineering, United Kingdom
In Britain's north Yorkshire, there is a curious well in which the water regularly – and mysteriously – rises and falls. Not surprisingly, it is known as the Ebbing and Flowing Well. While n..
At the beginning of December, I flew over to England. I was running a week's course in reliability and maintainability as part of a MSc degree in process safety. On the way over, I had an interesting ..
Earlier, I was jotting down notes for this column while eating a greasy, undercooked breakfast, in an unheated, alcohol-free, departure lounge, waiting to board an aircraft, which had its last full se..
As we sang at Woodstock, "It's a lesson too late for the learning, made of sand, made of sand..." (If you don't know this song or have never heard of Woodstock, ask your parents or the old, white-hair..
Few situations are worse for the consultant than the client with preconceived ideas. I've had one of these recently, and it reminded me of a similar case a few years ago. In the recent case, the clien..
I've just come to the end of a major analysis1 of Year 2000 (Y2K) problems affecting the oil and gas industries in the Ex-communist Countries of Eastern and Central Europe (ECECE). Actually, we intend..
Recently, I paid a return visit to a site where I had conducted an intensive hazard study about five years previously. Sadly, not much had changed. Security had improved; they now had a guard on the b..
The expression "lies for children" is sometimes used to refer to the simplified ideas that are introduced early in the student's development, paving the way for more sophisticated ideas, which will be..
As Goya's famous etching reminds us: The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters*. Alas, the sleep of reason seems endemic in Europe, if not globally. Recently, in London, a young woman was shot in myst..
In process plants – as opposed to personal relationships – it is energy that makes the world go round. Energy makes pumps whizz, furnaces roar, and with a little help from catalysis, molecul..