Rockwell Automation Announces Major Leadership Changes

Rockwell Automation announced some major changes in leadership today. Click on the header for the link to the story.  Of note: Blake Moret is moving from the services business to assume the role of Senior Vice President of Control Products and Solutions.  Frank Kulaszewicz is being promoted to senior vice president of the Architecture and Software (A&S) segment.

The Ultimate Heads Up Display Geek Goggles

Recon Instruments offers a pair of ski goggles with built in heads up display and GPS.  The HUD data includes speed, time, altitude, temperature, and a lot of other stuff.  Tell me you couldn't adapt these to an industrial environment with a roving operator or maintenance technician. 

http://www.reconinstruments.com/

BP To Sell Texas City Refinery

One of the iconic refineries in America is to be sold.  Here is a link to the story in the Galveston Daily News. 

http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=e1da7df15449d254

According to the article, this was a complete shock to most of the employees there.  The refinery contributes an estimated $22 billion to the Texas economy and is the third largest in the country.  BP also announced the sale of the Carson, CA refinery. 

Shell Safety Strategy

Shell is an extremely safe company, and there are reasons for this. Here is a link to an 8 page document that neatly sums up Shell's approach to safety and, more importantly, its safety culture.

 

http://www-static.shell.com/static/environment_society/downloads/safety/process_safety_in_shell_lr.pdf

CSB Says Natural Gas Blows Inherently Unsafe

It may sound strange, but it is currently common practice power plant construction to clean pipes through natural gas blows, which essentially means blasting natural gas through a pipe to remove any obstructions. It certainly may be convenient to purge lines with your readily available supply of natural gas, but this gas can be vented into unsafe areas and find an ignition source. This was revealed to be the primary cause of the explosion at Kleen Energy in Connecticut earlier this year. According to this article in EHS Today, the State of Connecticut has now banned this practice. CSB is also making recommendations to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) to revise their existing codes to stop the practice of gas blows in favor of safer alternatives. CSB has more commentary on natural gas blows and the inherent risk thereof in its series of YouTube videos here.

ISA CAP Testing is Coming in September

And I am totally not prepared, but don't let that stop you from taking the test to get this important certification.

More information from ISA:

Upcoming CAP Exam Application Deadline

The application deadline for taking your CAP Exam in the final Testing Window for 2010 is 15 September. Testing Window 3 allows you to take your exam any time between 1 November and 31 December. Here is the link to apply