Arnett: chemists should go to bat do for chemistry what Carl Sagan has done for astronomy, said William R. Moore, chairman of the chemistry department at West Virginia University, Morgantown. In the face of scorn from some of his fellow scientists, Sagan brought the wonder of the cosmos to the average American, and that translated into public support for space programs. But another chemist posed a vexing question: Is the chemical community willing to tolerate a popularizer of chemistry even if he or she, like Sagan, doesn't always get the facts right? Turro noted that chemistry is like any other product: No matter how good it is, it has to be packaged and marketed effectively for it to sell. Several attendees also suggested that the Pimentel Report could be used to entice students into discovering that chemistry is, after all, glamorous. Chemistry teachers at community colleges, said one, could present the report to their computerstruck students as evidence that "there's something else out there besides computers." Another suggested making the report available to freshmen to get them hooked on chemistry early. As Pimentel and others have said, chemistry, unlike astronomy and
physics, is more of a diffuse cottage industry with many practitioners working on numerous small projects. It doesn't propose massive projects like the Hubble Space Telescope or the Superconducting Super Collider, which tend to mesmerize nonscientists in Congress. As one scientist noted recently, the cold fact that "most Congressmen are lawyers, not scientists" means that chemistry and its opportunities must be explained to legislators in nontechnical language. The evangelistic fervor of some of the panel members occasionally burst into full view. Chemist Edward M. Arnett of Duke University, for example, told audience members that no one is going to "go to bat for you and your chemistry if you're not willing to do it yourself." And NRC board member Turro, at the end of the first evening's session, announced, "We have all got to go out and convince one Congressman before we go to sleep tonight." Convincing legislators will mean swimming upstream against the currents trying to control the deficit, NSF's Hayes said. As the cautionary apostle at t h e m e e t i n g , he warned that Congressmen don't deal well with long wish lists of varied proposals. To assure major funding increases, he advised the chemistry community to pitch a small number of broad research initiatives. He also cautioned chemists not to "turn on the juice" too much; that could cause a backlash. Arnett pointed out that British and Japanese research councils last year issued independent reports appraising where the future opportunities in chemistry lie. Their conclusions agree closely with those of the Pimentel Report. Furthermore, he commented, Soviet bloc and other nations have expressed interest in studying the Pimentel Report. The message is clear, Arnett says. As he and a colleague wrote earlier this year: "If the American government is unable, or unwilling, to provide realistic support for chemical sciences, there are foreign competitors who will eagerly assume as much of the leadership in chemistry as we are willing to forfeit by parsimony or default." D
Book helps evaluate chemical plant hazards Procedures for evaluating hazards in chemical plants are the subject of a book published last week by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. It is the first product of its six-month-old Center for Chemical Plant Safety. The center was established by AIChE as a response to public concern about plant safety, aroused by the release of toxic gas in Bhopal, India, last December (C&EN, April 29, page 6). The 200-page "Guidelines for Hazard Evaluation Procedures" was written by Battelle Columbus Laboratories from information developed by a task force of company health and safety officer members of the AIChE center. The center plans other books on storage and handling of toxic and reactive materials, safety in plant operation, and safety training. Although established and producing, the Center for Chemical Plant Safety hasn't been formally staffed or given a physical location. But AIChE has now hired Thomas W. Carmody as director of the center. Carmody, recently retired as corporate director of product safety at Union Carbide, will locate the center in Connecticut, but a decision hasn't yet been made on the city. Besides publishing the additional handbooks, Carmody says, the center will sponsor such research as laboratory and field evaluation of models for dispersal of heavier-thanair gases. The first chapter in the guidelines covers elements of an accident from initiating event to response and consequences. The second chapter describes 11 hazard evaluation procedures, including the skills, staffing, data, time, and cost needed to carry out each type. It points out the times in the lifetime of a plant from research and design through operation and final shutdown appropriate to each procedure. The third chapter advises how to select each procedure based on consequences of an accident and opportunities for reducing risks. The fourth chapter gives instructions for using the 11 procedures. October 28, 1985 C&EN
7
News of the Week Among the 11 hazard evaluation procedures are check lists, internal safety reviews, preliminary hazard analyses for units still in design stages, human error analyses, and brainstorming sessions of "What if . . . " situations. Another brainstorming technique is hazard and operability studies, which use combinations of such guide words as " n o " or "more" with "pressure" or " f l o w " to trigger ideas of what might happen in a process. Closely related are failure modes, effects, and criticality analyses of how pieces of equipment could fail and what the consequences would be. Also included is calculation of risk indexes for fire and toxic material releases from units according to methods used by Dow Chemical and Imperial Chemical Industries' Mond division.
The book covers fault tree analyses as well, which start with a particular accident type and branch down through all possible events that could cause it. By contrast, event tree analyses begin at the bottom with a malfunction type and work upward through responses of operators and equipment, branching according to whether intended responses succeed or fail in breaking the chain of events that leads to an accident. Cause-consequence analyses start at the beginning event or the final accident and use fault trees for each step along the way, and result in a quantitative analysis of risks. "Guidelines for Hazard Evaluation Procedures" is available from AIChE, 345 E. 47th St., New York, N.Y. 10017, priced at $35 to members and $75 to nonmembers. G
Chemical earnings continue to slide Early reports from chemical companies in the U.S. indicate that the earnings slide is far from over. After average year-to-year declines of 17% in this year's second quarter and 24% in the first quarter, earnings have taken another tumble in the third quarter, assuring that fullyear profits for chemical companies will be lower than last year's. For 16 large chemical firms surveyed, after-tax earnings from op-
erations, excluding nonrecurring and extraordinary items, fell an average of 21% in the third quarter from a year earlier to an aggregate of about $517 million. Total sales remained essentially unchanged at $13.8 billion. This drove profit margins for the group down to 3.7% from an average of 4.7% in last year's third quarter. The reasons given by the companies for their earnings declines in-
clude many of the same problems that have plagued the chemical industry over the past nine months and more. These include poor pricing of products, sluggish demand for agricultural products in the farm belt, increased competition from imports and poor export markets, and severe overcapacity in many sectors of the industry. Some of these problems may have shorter-term solutions, but others—such as foreign competition and pricing—-may be around for some time. The pricing problem, which to a large extent is a function of overcapacity brought on by sluggish demand and foreign competition, may be much longer lasting. Industry analysts say that for some chemical products, the growth rate is so low that overcapacity may not be worked out of the system until 1990 or beyond unless some producers bite the bullet a n d close d o w n plants. The largest year-to-year drop in third-quarter earnings was posted by Reichhold Chemicals, whose after-tax profits declined 89%. Close behind was an 87% drop for International Minerals & Chemical, which was hit hard by poor pricing of its fertilizer products. Most eagerly awaited was the third-quarter report from Union Carbide, which was expected to give some hints as to its restructuring program. Carbide earnings from op-
Profits at most chemical companies dropped in third quarter NINE-MONTHS 1985
THIRD-QUARTER 1985 Sales
Earnings* ($ millions)
Air Products American Cyanamid Chemed Dow Chemical
Change from 1984 Sales Earnings
Profit margin" 1984 1985
$ 476.4 852.3 96.9 2873.0
$ 38.1 29.3 5.2 107.0
Ethyl Freeport-McMoRan W. R. Grace Hercules
386.0 161.5 1734.3 613.8
35.1 17.8 24.8 33.3
-9 -21 3 -9
-1 -17 -29 -40
9.1 11.0 1.4 5.4
International Minerals Monsanto Nalco Chemical Olin
315.1 1741.0 167.2 427.1
4.1 31.0 18.4 5.5
-15 9 3 -1
-87 -60 -3 -58
PPG Industries Reichhold Chemicals Rohm & Haas Union Carbide
1040.0 208.6 474.1 2254.0
73.9 0.7 34.8 58.0
-5 6 -2 -4
-4 -89 -10 -25
14% -1 9 2
20% -23 15 18
Sales
Earnings"
($ millions)
Sales
Earnings
Profit margin 6 1985 1984
6% 0 9 -1
5% -27 63 -6
8.0% 3.9 6.3 4.3
Change from 1984
$111.4 104.2 17.5 372.0
8.4 10.5 2.1 8.3
1167.7 567.1 5246.9 1951.0
99.2 63.1 102.2 111.1
-9 -9 5 0
4 -5 -28 -27
8.5 11.1 1.9 5.7
7.4 10.7 2.8 7.8
1.3 1.8 11.0 1.3
8.4 4.9 11.8 3.0
1194.0 4992.0 497.6 1360.5
51.9 242.0 54.8 31.3
-3 -3 0 -1
-37 -39 -2 -52
4.3 4.8 11.0 2.3
6.8 7.8 11.2 4.8
7.1 0.3 7.3 2.6
7.0 3.2 8.0 3.3
3250.0 628.9 1580.5 6684.0
243.7 5.2 116.5 214.0
2 1 0 -6
3 -74 -21 -28
7.5 0.8 7.4 3.2
3.2 9.3 4.2
a After-tax earnings from continuing operations excluding nonrecurring and extraordinary items, b Earnings as a percentage of sales.
8
October 28, 1985 C&EN
8.1% 5.4 4.2 4.5
7.6% $1394.1 2646.0 4.4 278.5 5.1 8628.0 3.2
8.0% 3.4 5.4 3.7
7.4
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