Private risk reduction will be socially efficient only when firms are liable for all the damage that they cause. We find that environmental insurance can achieve social efficiency even when two traditional policy instruments--ex post fines and risk management mandates with ex ante fines--do not. Inefficiency occurs with ex post fines, when small firms declare bankruptcy and escape their liabili...

during recent years oil products has decreased because of growing population and increasing demand to oil products and decreasing of crude oil extraction at compare to export. however, to achieve suitable levels of production, the use of improved technologies should be considered. another way to prevent the evaporation and leakage from oil storage tanks and their products are using of storage t...

The potential for aerobic methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) degradation was investigated with microcosms containing aquifer sediment and groundwater from four MTBE-contaminated sites characterized by oxygen-limited in situ conditions. MTBE depletion was observed for sediments from two sites (e.g., 4.5 mg/liter degraded in 15 days after a 4-day lag period), whereas no consumption of MTBE was observ...

A stand of five conifers (Pinus sp.) bordering a gasoline service station was studied to estimate the methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) emission rate from gasoline-impacted groundwater. Groundwater was impacted with gasoline oxygenates MTBE and tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) at combined concentrations exceeding 200,000 microg/L. Condensate from trees was collected in sealed environmental chambers and an...

Thermal energy storage is an essential component of solar heating systems. A numerical analysis of thermal stratification in hot water storage tanks suitable for solar water heating applications is presented in this paper. Transient, axi-symmetric, turbulent natural convection in fully and partially charged storage tanks for varying Rayleigh Number in the range of 10 to 10 is studied. Mix Numbe...

Abstract: Chemical storage tank leakage in petrochemical wharf is a serious economic, environmental and safety problem. Risk assessment is an effective way to identify chemical storage tank hazards and provides a guide for accident prevention in petrochemical wharf enterprises. Based on the characteristics of chemical storage tank zone, this paper proposes a real-time relative risk assessment m...

the current study assesses the root causes of hydrogen blisters on low strength carbon steel equipment. for this purpose, some experiments including hardness test, non-destructive test (ndt), metallography, and fractograpghy are conducted. the microstructure of two blisters is assessed by means of optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (sem). the microstructural studies show that t...

BACKGROUND Between September 17 and October 3, 2009, hundreds of workers employed in a manufacturing factory in Shenzhen, a city in south China developed a sudden onset of acute gastroenteritis. A retrospective cohort study is designed to identify the risk factors and control this outbreak. METHODS Information on demographic characteristics, working place, the history of contact with a person...