An increase in major natural disasters-and the growing number of damaging events involving gas, electric, water, and other utilities-has led to heightened concerns about utility operations and public safety. Due to today's complex, compliance-based environment, utility managers and planners often find it difficult to plan for the action needed to help ensure organization-wide resilience and meet consumer expectations during these incidents. Emergency Planning Guide for Utilities, Second Edition offers a working guide that presents new and field-tested approaches to plan development, training, exercising, and emergency program management. The book will help utility planners, trainers, and responders-as well as their vendors and suppliers-to more effectively prepare for damaging events and improve the level of the utility's resilience. It also focuses on planning needed in the National Incident Management System and ICS environment that many utilities are embracing going forward. In doing so, utilities will be able to improve the customer experience while reducing the impact that damaging events have on the utility's infrastructure, people, and resources.

Within the nuclear field, a vast body of knowledge, involving scientific, technical and managerial fields, is distributed among many organizations of different types. Managing and provisioning distributed knowledge is therefore becoming one of the major challenges in federated organizational environments. This publication provides information to organizations dealing with nuclear knowledge and its management. It covers an introduction to semantic information technologies, the Worldwide Web standards developed for interoperability, the construction of knowledge bases on the basis of distributed knowledge, and the development of knowledge driven applications. In addition to providing insight into the development of distributed knowledge bases, the intent of this publication is to provide examples of applications of semantic technologies specifically in the nuclear field.

Safety, reliability, and productivity in the nuclear industry result from a systematic consideration of human performance. A plant or other facility consists of both the engineered system and the human users of that system. It is therefore crucial that engineering activities consider the humans who will be interacting with those systems. Engineering design, specifically instrumentation and control (I&C) design, can influence human performance by driving how plant personnel carry out work and respond to events within a nuclear power plant. As a result, human-system interfaces (HSIs) for plant operators as well as the maintenance and testing of the I&C system cannot be designed by isolated disciplines. The focus of this publication is to integrate knowledge from the disciplines of human factors engineering (HFE) and I&C to emphasize an interdisciplinary approach for the design of better HSIs and consequently improved human performance in nuclear power plants. This is accomplished by practical explanations of the HFE processes and corresponding outputs that inform the I&C development. More specifically, the publication addresses issues in the design process where collaboration between HFE, I&C and other important disciplines and stakeholders is paramount and identifies key tools and tasks for exchanging inputs and outputs between different design disciplines, particularly I&C and HFE. The practical information provided in this publication is intended to support Member States' capabilities to improve their approach to I&C through the consideration of HFE.

The identification and assessment of threats provides an essential basis for the selection, design, and implementation of nuclear security measures. For nuclear material and other radioactive material that is under regulatory control, and associated facilities and activities, the results of this identification and assessment are expressed as a design basis threat or representative threat statement describing the intentions and capabilities of potential adversaries against which the materials and associated facilities and activities are to be protected. An Implementing Guide was issued in 2009 under the title of Development, Use and Maintenance of the Design Basis Threat which was updated and revised. The result of this revision is the current publication. It provides a step?bystep methodology for conducting a national nuclear security threat assessment including both physical and computer security aspects, and for the development, use and maintenance of design basis threats and representative threat statements.

This book addresses key questions on biofuels within agrarian political economy, political sociology and political ecology. Contributions are based on fresh empirical materials from different parts of the world. The book starts with four key questions in agrarian political economy: Who owns what? Who does what? Who gets what? And what do they do with the surplus wealth? It also addresses the emergent social and political relations in the biofuel complex and, given the impacts on natural resources and sustainability, engages with questions about people-environment interactions. At the same time, the book is concerned with the politics of representation, that is, what are the discursive frames through which biofuels are promoted and/or opposed? The book analyses the institutional structures, and cultures of energy consumption on which a biofuels complex depends, and the alternative political and ecological visions emerging that call the biofuels complex into question. Across sixteen chapters presenting material from five regions across the North-South divide and focusing on fourteen countries including Brazil, Indonesia, India, USA and Germany, these topics are addressed within the following themes: global (re)configurations; agro-ecological visions; conflicts, resistances and diverse outcomes; state, capital and society relations; mobilising opposition, creating alternatives; and change and continuity. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Nuclear power is often characterized as a "green technology." Technologies are rarely, if ever, socially isolated artefacts. Instead, they materially represent an embodiment of values and priorities. Nuclear power is no different. It is a product of a particular political economy and the question is whether that political economy can helpfully engage with the challenge of addressing the environmental crisis on a finite, inequitable and shared planet. For developing countries like India, who are presently making infrastructure investments which will have long legacies, it is imperative that these investments wrestle with such questions and prove themselves capable of sufficiency, greater equality and inclusiveness. This book offers a critique of civilian nuclear power as a green energy strategy for India and develops and proposes an alternative "synergy for sustainability." It situates nuclear power as a socio-technical infrastructure embodying a particular development discourse and practice of energy and economic development. The book reveals the political economy of this arrangement and examines the latter's ability to respond to the environmental crisis. Manu V. Mathai argues that the existing overwhelmingly growth-focused, highly technology-centric approach for organizing economic activity is unsustainable and needs to be reformed. Within this imperative for change, nuclear power in India is found to be and is characterized as an "authoritarian technology." Based on this political economy critique the book proposes an alternative, a synergy of ideas from the fields of development economics, energy planning and science, technology and society studies.

China's rapid economic growth has led to a huge increase in its domestic energy needs. This book provides a critical overview of how China's growing need for oil imports is shaping its international economic and diplomatic strategy and how this affects global political relations and behaviour. Part One is focused on the domestic drivers of energy policy: it provides a systematic account of recent trends in China's energy sector and assesses the context and processes of energy policy making, and concludes by showing how and why China's oil industry has spread across the world in the last fifteen years. Part Two analyses the political and foreign policy implications of this energy-driven expansion and the challenges this potentially poses for China's integration into the international system. It examines a number of factors linked to this integration in the energy field, including the unpredictabilities of internal policymaking; China's determination to promote its own critical national interests, and the general ambition of the Chinese leadership to integrate with the international system on its own terms and at its own speed. The highly topical book draws together the various dimensions of China's international energy strategy, and provides insights into the impact of this on China's growing international presence in various parts of the world.

Oil Spaces traces petroleum's impact through a range of territories from across the world, showing how industrially drilled petroleum and its refined products have played a major role in transforming the built environment in ways that are often not visible or recognized. Over the past century and a half, industrially drilled petroleum has powered factories, built cities, and sustained nation-states. It has fueled ways of life and visions of progress, modernity, and disaster. In detailed international case studies, the contributors consider petroleum's role in the built environment and the imagination. They study how petroleum and its infrastructure have served as a source of military conflict and political and economic power, inspiring efforts to create territories and reshape geographies and national boundaries. The authors trace ruptures and continuities between colonial and postcolonial frameworks, in locations as diverse as Sumatra, northeast China, Brazil, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Kuwait as well as heritage sites including former power stations in Italy and the port of Dunkirk, once a prime gateway through which petroleum entered Europe. By revealing petroleum's role in organizing and imagining space globally, this book takes up a key task in imagining the possibilities of a post-oil future. It will be invaluable reading to scholars and students of architectural and urban history, planning, and geography of sustainable urban environments.

Stern Magazine, the Black Scorpion: "we will aim at everything - even if it is not moving" Surrey Life magazine: "George S Boughton was an oil engineer in Nigeria during the 1967 to 1970 Biafran War and what emerges from this intense, emotional memoir is a withering indictment of governing elites and the destructive consequences of their out-of-control behaviour. Around a million people starved to death or were killed in the fighting; yet the news vacuum meant that Boughton and other expat workers were often in the dark about the true extent of what was going on. Black Gold Black Scorpion is a fascinating, first-hand account of how a nation at war with itself became a magnet for cold war politics as it sank into moral darkness". Recounted are the lives of a young oil engineer, his wife and newborn child, during the War, when they inadvertently lived through one of the worst episodes of African history. Working in an industry that has gone on to pollute massively with oil, theirs is a different story of Africa, oil and aid. The author describes the political elites and those, like Ojukwu and Adekunle, who fought them - having himself been captured and detained, one to one, by the mythically ruthless Black Scorpion; this, the strangest of events, enabling him to observe at close range the disintegration of a powerful personality. More especially, the author's and his family's interaction with the people of the area, the people of Igboland, serves to underline how most of Africa continues to be let down by the pillars of the modern world - political elites, capitalists, the media and warring world powers.

Project management for oil and gas projects comes with a unique set of challenges that include the management of science, technology, and engineering aspects. Underlining the specific issues involved in projects in this field, Project Management for the Oil and Gas Industry: A World System Approach presents step-by-step application of project management techniques. Using the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK(r)) framework from the Project Management Institute (PMI) as the platform, the book provides an integrated approach that covers the concepts, tools, and techniques for managing oil and gas projects.
The authors discuss specialized tools such as plan, do, check, act (PDCA); define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC); suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, customers (SIPOC); design, evaluate, justify, integrate (DEJI); quality function deployment (QFD); affinity diagrams; flowcharts; Pareto charts; and histograms. They also discuss the major activities in oil and gas risk assessment, such as feasibility studies, design, transportation, utility, survey works, construction, permanent structure works, mechanical and electrical installations, and maintenance.
Strongly advocating a world systems approach to managing oil and gas projects and programs, the book covers quantitative and qualitative techniques. It addresses technical and managerial aspects of projects and illustrates the concepts with case examples of applications of project management tools and techniques to real-life project scenarios that can serve as lessons learned for best practices. An in-depth examination of project management for oil and gas projects, the book is a handbook for professionals in the field, a guidebook for technical consultants, and a resource for students.

Since the late 1980s, when the current tide of environmental concern began to rise, every improvement made by the oil industry has been followed by new demands for further progress. New problems have been placed on top of the old ones; first smog in the inner cities and oil spills on the beaches, then acid rain and forest die back followed by major tank disasters and renewed attention to urban air quality and finally, climatic change. The purpose of this book is to investigate whether the oil industry is able to extend and renew its social legitimacy as it faces its toughest agenda in a century — the challenges stemming from its impact on the environment and the consequent public questioning of its role in society. To find out whether and how the oil industry has responded to environmental issues in general and climatic change in particular, five indicators of change — vision & image, R&D, investments, and government relations — have been selected. These have been assumed to be expressions of an environmental strategy which can be identified as reactive, cautious or creative. The empirical analysis begins with case studies of the environmental response of five major oil companies: Shell, Exxon, BP, Amoco and Statoil. The next step is a case study of the refinery sector, which is the most environmentally sensitive part of the industry in many ways. In addition, a brief description of how three industry associations have tackled the same environmental issues is included. The main readership for this book will be policy makers, planners and researchers in the oil industry, and environmental consultants.

On March 11,2011, Japan experienced the largest earthquake in its history, causing massive property damage. This book summarizes and critically analyzes the natural events and human shortcomings responsible for the failure of the Fukushima reactors during the first year following the accident, and governmental and civilian responses to the emergency. It covers the plant's safety history, the tsunami and earthquake, and the implications of the events on the nuclear reactor industry.

Oil Spaces traces petroleum's impact through a range of territories from across the world, showing how industrially drilled petroleum and its refined products have played a major role in transforming the built environment in ways that are often not visible or recognized. Over the past century and a half, industrially drilled petroleum has powered factories, built cities, and sustained nation-states. It has fueled ways of life and visions of progress, modernity, and disaster. In detailed international case studies, the contributors consider petroleum's role in the built environment and the imagination. They study how petroleum and its infrastructure have served as a source of military conflict and political and economic power, inspiring efforts to create territories and reshape geographies and national boundaries. The authors trace ruptures and continuities between colonial and postcolonial frameworks, in locations as diverse as Sumatra, northeast China, Brazil, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Kuwait as well as heritage sites including former power stations in Italy and the port of Dunkirk, once a prime gateway through which petroleum entered Europe. By revealing petroleum's role in organizing and imagining space globally, this book takes up a key task in imagining the possibilities of a post-oil future. It will be invaluable reading to scholars and students of architectural and urban history, planning, and geography of sustainable urban environments.

Sustainable Transport Fuels Business Briefing explains, for a global business audience, the latest developments in the world of sustainable transport. Not the vehicles or modes of transport themselves, but their means of propulsion. New technologies and players are coming and going with bewildering speed. Some observers are putting their money on electric vehicles, others on hybrids; some see electric vehicles as a mere stepping stone to hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles, already being seen on city streets. The mere mention of biofuels often provokes fierce arguments about their sustainability, yet they, too, are here to stay and will be filling more and more fuel tanks. By the time you finish this book, you will understand not only the pros and cons of all these technologies, the programs around the world furthering their development, and the players large and small, but also the catalysts for change, and the successful partnerships and innovative business models being employed. You'll be able to make informed decisions about investments, whether you're considering a new fleet, haulage or mobility of any kind, or whether to install an electric vehicle charging point in your property.

Renewable and carbon-neutral energy have been promoted as the future of energy production in the United States. Non-traditional energy sources show promise as alternatives to fossil fuels and may provide a sustainable source of energy in increasingly uncertain energy markets. However, these new sources of energy face their own set of political, administrative, and legal challenges. Green vs. Green explores how mixed land ownership and existing law and regulation present serious challenges to the development of alternative energy sources in the United States. Analytically examining and comparing five green energy sectors; wind, solar, geothermal, biofuel and hydro power, Ryan M. Yonk, Randy T. Simmons, and Brian C. Steed argue that discussing alternative energy without understanding these pitfalls creates unrealistic expectations regarding the ability to substitute "green" energy for traditional sources. The micro-goals of protecting individual areas, species, small-scale ecosystems, and other local environmental aims often limits ability to achieve macro-goals like preventing global climate change or transitioning to large-scale green energy production. Statutes and regulations designed to protect environmental and cultural integrity from degradation directly conflict with other stated environmental ends. Although there is substantial interest in adding clean energy to the grid, it appears that localized environmental interests interfere with broader environmental policy goals and the application of existing environmental laws and regulations may push us closer to gridlock. Green vs. Green provides a fascinating look into how existing environmental law created or will create substantial regulatory hurdles for future energy generations.

The global crude oil market is critically important in many respects. It is the fuel that drives the global economy and, as such, is the focus of climate policies. Moreover, crude oil is the basis of a tradable financial asset. It is therefore connected to several outstanding macroeconomic developments of recent years, including financial market fluctuations, the financial crisis and the exceptional conduct of monetary policy. This book investigates the impacts of monetary policy and the financial system on the global crude oil market. Furthermore, it outlines how monetary policy may also be used to guarantee stability and to contribute to ecological sustainability. This unique and innovative book will appeal to students and economists interested in macroeconomics, the environment, energy and monetary policy. It will also be essential reading for policy makers and those interested in economic policy that will benefit both society and the environment.

The book sheds understanding on the relations between development and global energy security by looking at China and India. It addresses the following issues: what is the new definition of energy security? How does it affect global politics and international relations? What are the energy security concerns of China and India, and what policies and approaches have they taken to deal with energy security issues? Since China and India are searching for oil and gas in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia, would their acquisition efforts conflict with the interests of other energy giants such as the U.S., Japan, and would their growing overseas activities challenge U.S. policy in those energy-rich regions? The book provides insight into what the new global energy order may be and how the growth models and energy structures may shape the economic growth and energy. It analyzes both the state-centered approach and market-oriented approach in the global quest for energy resources. It also examines how China and India can adopt a cooperative approach for beneficial relations. The book will be of interest to anyone who is keen to learn how the World especially U.S.A. can accomodate and adapt to the new global energy dynamics and on China and India as new players in global energy markets.

This book provides an overview of crude oil refining processes and presents a deep analysis of the current context and challenges imposed on players in the downstream industry. Crude Oil Refining: A Simplified Approach covers traditional processes of the refining industry, the impact of current trends, and technological routes available to help these players survive in a highly competitive environment. FEATURES Offers a simplified approach to crude oil refining processes Discusses economic information related to the downstream business, including refining margins and profitability Introduces newer trends in the industry, such as petrochemical integration, crude-to-chemicals refineries, and renewables coprocessing in crude oil refineries Presents the challenges related to these new trends and offers technological solutions to overcome them for profitable and sustainable operations Describes how the use of biofuels can minimize the environmental impact of transportation fuel in nations of high demand like Brazil Offering a contemporary view of current challenges and opportunities in the downstream oil and gas business, this practical book is aimed at readers working in the fields of petroleum and chemical engineering.

Based on extensive original research, Globalisation, Transition and Development inChina explains China's development strategy and its underlying forces, and the success of this strategy. It examines China's gradualist approach which emphasizes development first and regards transition and globalization as secondary, enacting liberalization of domestic markets and integration into the world economy in a paced way, avoiding dramatic changes which might impede or even reverse development, and argues that this approach is broadly correct. It considers China's failures, including the failure to build large globally competitive corporations despite the intention to do this, and shows how China's economic strategy has been implemented in detail with a case study of the large and important coal industry.

According to recent estimates, around 6,000 people - mostly children under five - die every day from diseases caused by inappropriate water and sanitation (WS) services. Much of the academic and political debate surrounding this issue has focused on private sector participation. By shifting the attention towards the influence of governance, Krause examines the political and sectoral institutions that are essential for the provision of WS services. Utilizing data from sixty-nine developing countries, Matthias Krause demonstrates that the level of democracy has a statistically significant positive impact on access to WS services and that low-quality governance of sub-national governments compromises the internal efficiency of providers and the widespread access to services. This book makes a critical contribution to the water and sanitation research and will help academics and policy-makers to rethink the way in which they deal with water issues.

This book examines the coordination of renewable energy policies in the European Union using an innovative theoretical approach to explain national policy making. David Jacobs asks, why are national support instruments for electricity from renewable energy sources converging, even though the harmonisation of these frameworks at the European level has failed? Which causal mechanisms lead to cross-national policy similarities? And what are the implications for policy coordination in the EU? The author traces the evolution of feed-in tariffs - the most successful and most widely used support mechanism for renewable electricity - in Germany, Spain and France. He reveals increasing cross-national policy similarities in feed-in tariff design - despite the failure of harmonizing instruments at the European level. He explains these increasing policy similarities by applying policy convergence theory. Policy convergence can occur voluntarily, based on transnational communication, regulatory competition and technological innovations and these findings have important implications for European policy steering. The key to this book is the interrelation of an innovative theoretical concept (coordination of policies in the international arena via voluntary cooperation) with a very topical empirical research focus - the promotion of renewable energies in the EU. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of environmental policy, comparative politics and European studies.

The "Fisher Investments On" series is designed to provide individual investors, students, and aspiring investment professionals the tools necessary to understand and analyze investment opportunities--primarily for investing in global stocks. Each guide is an easily accessible primer to economic sectors, regions, or other components of the global stock market. While this guide is specifically on Utilities, the basic investment methodology is applicable for analyzing any global sector, regardless of the current macroeconomic environment.

Following a top-down approach to investing, "Fisher Investments on Utilities" can help you make more informed decisions within the Utilities sector. It skillfully addresses how to determine optimal times to invest in Utilities stocks and which Utilities industries have the potential to perform well in various environments.

Divided into three comprehensive parts--Getting Started, Utilities Details, and Thinking Like a Portfolio Manager--"Fisher Investments on Utilities" Explains some of the sector's key macro drivers--like regulation, economic cycles, and investor sentimentShows how to capitalize on a wide array of macro conditions and industry-specific features to help you form an opinion on each of the industries within the sectorTakes you through the major components of the industries within the global Utilities sector and reveals how they operateOffers investment strategies to help you determine when and how to overweight specific industries within the sectorOutlines a five-step process to help differentiate firms in this field--designed to help you identify ones with the greatest probability of outperforming

Filled with in-depth insights, "Fisher Investments on Utilities" provides a framework for understanding this sector and its industries to help you make better investment decisions--now and in the future. With this book as your guide, you can gain a global perspective of the Utilities sector and discover strategies to help achieve your investing goals.

A timely contribution and incisive analysis, this is the story of the British experiment in privatizing the nuclear power industry and its subsequent financial collapse. It tells how the UK's pioneering role in nuclear power led to bad technology choices, a badly flawed restructuring of the electricity industry and the end of government support for nuclear power. In this volume Simon Taylor has combined interviews with former executives, regulators and analysts with his own unique insight into the nuclear industry to provide an analysis of the origins of the crisis and the financial and corporate strategies used by British Energy plc. Arguing that the stock market was a major factor in the company's collapse by misunderstanding its finances, over-valuing the shares and giving wrong signals to management and that the government policy of trying to put all responsibility for nuclear liabilities in the hands of the private sector was neither credible nor realistic. The book concludes that failure was not inevitable but resulted from a mixture of internal and external causes that casts doubt on the policy of combining a wholly nuclear generator with liberalized power markets. This book will be of great interest to students engaged with the history of nuclear power in the UK, privatization, regulation and financial and corporate strategy, as well as experts, policy makers and strategists in the field.

In recent years, the federal government's increasing inability to address major societal challenges has arguably hampered America's commitment to renewable energy initiatives. Individual U.S. states have stepped into this void and adopted their own policies, leading some to believe that the states can propel America's renewable energy industry forward. There is no guarantee, however, that the states will invent their own pioneering policies rather than copy existing templates from each other. Moreover, we know very little about how legislative and regulatory dynamics within America's states might accelerate or hinder renewable energy policy creation. In Following in Footsteps or Marching Alone?, Srinivas Parinandi explores how the states have devised their own novel policies, and how the political workings of legislatures and public utilities commissions have impacted state renewable energy policy design. Through the meticulous study of nearly three decades of state-level renewable energy policy-making, he finds that their creation is primarily driven by legislatures, and that ideologically liberal legislatures largely push the envelope. To the extent that public utilities commissions craft these policies, they do so with an eye toward avoiding pushback from electric utility companies. The book suggests that a limit of having a predominantly state-driven renewable energy effort can lead to uneven and patchwork-based policy development outcomes, and a possible solution is to try to more successfully federalize these issues. Parinandi urges readers, scholars, and policy practitioners to consider whether a state-led effort is adequate enough to handle the task of building momentum for renewable energy in one of the world's largest electricity markets.

In recent years, the federal government's increasing inability to address major societal challenges has arguably hampered America's commitment to renewable energy initiatives. Individual U.S. states have stepped into this void and adopted their own policies, leading some to believe that the states can propel America's renewable energy industry forward. There is no guarantee, however, that the states will invent their own pioneering policies rather than copy existing templates from each other. Moreover, we know very little about how legislative and regulatory dynamics within America's states might accelerate or hinder renewable energy policy creation. In Following in Footsteps or Marching Alone?, Srinivas Parinandi explores how the states have devised their own novel policies, and how the political workings of legislatures and public utilities commissions have impacted state renewable energy policy design. Through the meticulous study of nearly three decades of state-level renewable energy policy-making, he finds that their creation is primarily driven by legislatures, and that ideologically liberal legislatures largely push the envelope. To the extent that public utilities commissions craft these policies, they do so with an eye toward avoiding pushback from electric utility companies. The book suggests that a limit of having a predominantly state-driven renewable energy effort can lead to uneven and patchwork-based policy development outcomes, and a possible solution is to try to more successfully federalize these issues. Parinandi urges readers, scholars, and policy practitioners to consider whether a state-led effort is adequate enough to handle the task of building momentum for renewable energy in one of the world's largest electricity markets.