Engineering-risk Books

This book provides an overview of the principles and practice of pollution Risk Assessment in the current management and regulatory context. It will be useful primarily for those concerned with the mechanisms by which pollution standards are set and enforced. However, it also includes contributions on the integration of environmental and economic assessments and on legal and political considerations. These help to emphasise the need to account for financial and social constraints in decision-making as well.

The book concludes with a discussion of the relevance of a risk perception based approach to risk management. It is a fine introduction for those concerned with the problem of pollution in the context of integrated approaches to Risk Assessment and Management.

This book is a handy and interesting read, which gives a good sense of the practice of environmental forensics. It includes material on the admissability of evidence, some case histories which outline pitfalls and opportunities in being a consultant on waste sites which enter litigation, and some valuable references for further (required) reading. Along with Murphy and Morrison's Intro. to Environmental Forensics it provides a very good overview on the black art of environmental forensics and more importanly points the way to more information.

I found this book to be a good introduction to issues of documenting accidents as well as the creation of technical reports by engineers from the narratives of people who are not engineers but with a great deal of tacit knowledge about risky environments. While the primary focus of the research documented in this book is for the coal mining idustry, the material has applications to other types of hazardous industries as well as to any project which involves people of differing specialities. For me this book pulled together some other readings on the construction of social reality and the transformation of information derived from different, non-scientific viewpoints into a technical report suitable for managers and engineers. Of especial interest to me was the section on gestures and how gestures provide information in a visual way that is seldom captured with any degree of accuracy within technical reports.

An excellent book on the subject of risk in dam design and construction for the engineering practitioner

We used the book for RCM study at work place

These proceedings contain 218 papers representing the work of authors from countries across the world. These papers cover a wide range of research and applications in safety and reliability issues that concern all types of systems, processes and structures. Some of the topics included are from aerospace, automotive, civil, mechanical, offshore, nuclear, chemical, electronics, software and other types of engineering. These two volumes should serve as a valuable reference on the state of the art of recent developments in safety and reliability.

While it is true that this book is not at high academic enough for professionals or SPC practitioners that with strong statistical knowledge, it is true that this book demonstrate the SPC essential elements for engineers who without Statistical knowledge to make SPC functional.

I recommended this book to some production engineers in my company.

This book laid the foundation of the author's later book titled "Managing Software Quality and Business Risk" (ISBN 0471926280). There are a few differences between this and the later work, and if you are among the target audience - service provider or development contractor - getting this book is a worthwhile investment.

Some of the circa 1990 material regarding development environments and practices is woefully out of date, as is some of the terminology. However, there are some gems within this book that will be invaluable to the target audience. These are:

- Chapters 2, 3 and 4 cover technical planning, risk reduction and quality planning in great detail. This material is aimed at contracting, but can be easily tailored for internal development or integration projects.

Chapters 5, 6 and 7 address creating a quality culture, planning for quality control and resource planning. These are applicable to contracting and internal organizations and the material is excellent and as relevant today as it was when this book was written 14 years ago.

In addition to the complete coverage of risk and quality that is presented in this book, the author provides detailed work breakdown structures which can serve as either a template for your own projects, or tailored to specific projects. I found this part of the book to be among the biggest reason to track down a used copy of this book.

If you work as a project manager, an engagement manager who is responsible for contract capture, or on a technical team tasked with developing responses to RFPs this book is one I highly recommend. If you have broader responsibilities within an internal organization, I recommend the later book cited above. An excellent companion resource is Software Program Managers Network (ASIN B0001M00RA).

This book is full of useful information on triazine herbicides ranging from an article about the assessment of different climate patterns and soil types for atrazine movement to groundwater to an article about the role of Fisher 344 vs. Sprague-Dawley rats' reproductive patterns in the appearance of mammary tumors. Unfortunately, over half of the citations for the toxicological studies were from sources that were not peer reviewed. Furthermore, an odd citation style was used for many chapters in which the article title was not included in the citation. The book is clearly from a pro-pesticide use position, especially indicative in the first section on economics. However, setting this bias caveat aside, the book is an achievement in putting together many pieces in the triazine herbicide story: its history and use in agriculture; its water contamination routes and degradation products, its metabolites in aquatic organisms, animals and humans; and its possible impact to those exposed.

When assessing nuclear power, the public should know about the baby tooth study which documents the nuclear emission strontium-90 in baby teeth, at birth, passing from mother to infant during pregnancy. This is linked to cancers. Look at radiation.org Have you noticed the ever increasing cancer rate seen in our younger generations? The NRC states that 50% of the US population live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant. The government's breast cancer mortality map lines up with the governments's nuclear map, all across the country!

I discovered some of this data, after having non-genetic breast cancer, 11 months after my mother died of breast cancer. She lived on Long Island, downwind of 3 nuclear plants. Be careful if you live near a nuclear plant.

I hope this author is aware of this data.

Contains perspectives on environmental risks of nuclear power compared to other energy sources.
The book is circa 1999, and some parts are out of date:
- In presenting the risks of air pollution from autos, the author points to the higher death toll from (producing electricity from coal-fired power plants) electric cars vs. relatively reduced levels of sulphor dioxide from gas-powered cars. Then, he seems way off base in saying "Los Angeles plans to completely ban gas-powered automobiles in just a few more years." Huh?
- Likewise, the book is not current in the plans to dispose of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants at Yucca Mountain, NV. He says the spent fuel will be encased in vitrified glass logs that will not corrode or release radioactive materials. The current plan is to use corrosion-resistant metal containers. He is right to say that disposal of nuclear waste is not "unsolvable" from a technical standpoint, although it remains to be seen whether it is solvable politically.

A one sided tome, missing two of the most basic facts about nuclear energy. A) The mineral, Uranium Oxide upon which today's nuclear power technology rests is depleting at the rate of between 1 and 2 percent a year. I.e. 50 - 100 year supply. (This includes all factors such as Russian missiles, etc.) B) Nuclear energy today only supplies about 8% of all world energy. Nuclear power would only last 5 to 10 years!
Once they get done explaining how safe and clean nuclear power is using today's technology, when confronted with the shortage of fuel, a quick side step is taken. Expense and dangers of bomb making technology, waste disposal at 10x the rate and magic are quickly mixed up and the lesson is over.

In this book Robert Morris does a generally credible job explaining the benefits of nuclear power. His book is factually accurate and informative, and particularly useful to people who have listened to extensive anti-nuclear rhetoric without attempting to hear the pro-nuclear arguments.

While I agree with most of the points Morris makes, I do have a couple of quibbles with the book. The first is endless, mind-numbing repetition. I don't know how many times he says that 50,000 people a year die in the US from carbon-based air pollution, but you can bet it's a lot. The basic point here is that while that is likely true, repeating it every other page for 200 pages or so does not help make the case: this book needs editing. The second issue I have with the book is the presence of grossly inflated, yet trivial arguments. There is no question, for instance, that coal and oil use are air polluters; that is a valid point to make in this book. Where the logic gets stretched, however, is when he claims that because of all this air pollution (that would not be present with more nuclear power) that humans probably have more fatal traffic accidents because carbon monoxide makes driver reaction times longer, seems improvable at best, and ludicrous at worst. These are the two big criticisms I have of the book.

While I believe his data on nuclear safety statistics, I do think that he overestimates nuclear safety features, and perhaps underestimates dangers. Safety engineering professionals study not only the accidents in an industry, but also the incidents that did not lead to accidents, yet could have. On this matter Morris is totally silent, and I think that detracts significantly from the scientific validity of some of his arguments: in other words, accidents are actually very rare, incidents more common. Since Three Mile Island the nuclear industry has become much better about sharing trend data, but this book leads readers to the conclusion that nuclear power is a 100 percent safe, utopian energy source. I personally agree that it is a generally safe source of power, and that the US would be wise to follow Europe's lead (for once) and develop more of it. Having said that, I also believe that nuclear accidents could potentially be quite dangerous, despite Morris' reassurances.

Most of the low rating reviewers here are clearly in the anti-nuclear camp, and I think it's admirable that they read the book (if they actually did). I do question where most of them got their information; some of the armchair critics seem unclear on basic physics or other issues (like Uranium ore production, for instance.) One particularly offensive reviewer thought that this book proves that Morris was worse than Hitler and hated babies. My take on that: if you can't objectively criticize the book, you must not have anything important to say...frequently like the media establishment. It is clear that Morris' assertion that the media spreads a virulently anti-nuclear message is correct, probably in part because they are politically to the left in general, but more likely simply because it sells. For the same reason that you never see a headline reading "Jetliner Lands On Time After a Smooth Flight: Passengers Enjoyed A Light Snack" you will also never see a headline reading "Nuclear Plant Releases No Radiation; Nobody Injured; Electricity Produced At A Reasonable Price." This is a differentiation that I think needs to me made, and while he attempts to make that argument in the book it falls a bit flat.

While parts of this book are a bit overblown, and the book is clearly in the pro-nuclear camp, at least Morris makes his sympathies clear at the outset. I am glad that he wrote the book, and despite a few qualms about the presentation, I think it is worthy reading for anyone on either side of the nuclear debate, preferably in conjunction with the excellent and considerably more unbiased masterwork on contemporary nuclear safety organizations, "Hostages of Each Other" by Joseph Rees.

This fact filled, convincing, and well researched book eloquently explains why we must start using Nuclear Power more extensively at the same time as it dispels many of the misunderstandings and myths surrounding Nuclear Power. Robert Morris is clearly not a fan of antinuclear activists, however, he understands the immense damage they have caused our Nation and to our children and grand children.

Nuclear Power is without any doubt the most powerful, the safest, and environmentally the cleanest viable energy source in existence. However, antinuclear activists have scared the wits out of the public for decades by disseminating deceitful propaganda, superstition and outright lies. According to Ralph Nader and other antinuclear activists nuclear plant accidents would kill many hundreds of thousands of people; they spread radiation and mutations, and leave forever deadly nuclear waste behind. All this is, of course, not just totally false but intentional lying! Unfortunately the sensation hungry media chose to believe the antinuclear activists instead of the Scientists. Until 1982, nuclear power was our cheapest source of electricity. Then the cost overruns caused by frivolous lawsuits filed by antinuclear groups made them as much as ten times more expensive. No orders has been placed for the construction of a nuclear power plant in America since 1979

Fossil fuels killed five million Americans in the twentieth century, and are estimated to kill about 50,000 Americans every year. 300,000 American former coal mine workers has died from black lung disease and 90,000 U.S. Coal miners have died in coal mining accidents since 1907. Fossil fuels are also causing global warming and acid rain, something R. Morris is discussing extensively. However, Nuclear Power has not killed a single American, not even a rabbit. Nuclear waste is a relatively small problem and most experts agree that the safe disposal of nuclear waste is a rather simple and easily solved problem. However, antinuclear activists have made this into a dangerous political issue.

Dr. Helen Caldicott, a well known antinuclear activist, predicted that if a meltdown would have occurred at the Three Mile Island reactor 3,000 people (Nader said 100,000) would have died immediately and 500,000 people would have died within 15 to 50 years. When a real meltdown plus explosions occurred in a reactor without containment barriers; 31 people died within days and 4,000 or 20,000 (depending on whom you believe) will die in 50 year period. For Three Mile Island it might have been none because of the containment barriers.

It should be noted that the Chernobyl reactor would never have been allowed to be built in the West for a number of reasons; it had a positive feedback loop (not allowed in the West), and lacked containment barriers. It was also used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons in addition to producing electricity, and it was operated in a manner that would be extremely unlikely in the west. The Chernobyl accident was made possible because the Soviet Union was a totalitarian state.

Uranium is everywhere in the earth crust, it is a very common mineral, and yes you have plenty of it in your yard. It is not very radioactive. Radon on the other hand is about 300 billion times more radioactive than Uranium. When something is extremely radioactive it disappears quickly and so does Radon. That is because there is an inverse relationship between half life and radioactive heat. However, Radon is continuously supplied from the enormous Uranium deposits in the earth crust and ends up in our basements, which is why Radon unlike Nuclear Power is a real problem. 14,000 people are estimated to die each year from the radioactivity from Radon, but no one dies from Nuclear Power.

The author also discusses alternative energy sources and explains that they have immense wastes disposal problems (solar power), efficiency/economic problems, and environmental problems. He discusses terrorism, which is a larger problem for many other energy sources; nuclear Weapons, which cannot be created from the commercial Nuclear Power plants used in the West, and he also argues that the use of commercial Nuclear Power plants does not affect this issue much.

Many of the European countries are using Nuclear Power a lot more extensively then the U.S. (U.S. about 20%, France about 80%). My home country Sweden is using a combination of Nuclear Power and Hydro electric Power to become fossil fuel independent by 2020. The U.S. cannot rely on Hydro electric Power but could use Nuclear Power a lot more. The fact that it has not done that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, maybe millions, and adding to this malaise we have global warming. Not using Nuclear Power more is clearly the largest mistake the U.S. has ever made.

I also would like to state a few facts from the book. These facts clearly support using Nuclear Power for electricity generation.

(1) No excess genetic mutations have ever been produced in any of the children born to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors after the war.

(2) The fuels antinuclear activists have forced us to use instead of Nuclear Power are releasing 40 million tons of known chemical mutagens into the air each year.

(3) We are exposed to many radiation sources, the worst ones being cosmic rays, earth, X-rays, but virtually none from Nuclear Power plants. (See table page 85)

(4) After the treated wastes from a nuclear plant have been in storage for 100 years, their toxicity diminishes, and is then equal to that of arsenic trioxide, which we often spread around the food crops in our gardens to kill various pests.

(5) Nuclear power plants produce only miniscule quantities of waste--equal to about one aspirin tablet in volume yearly for each person for whom they generate electricity.

(6) Roughly 20,000 tons of Uranium is released into the air every year when Coal is burned.

(7) Coal ashes are 180 times more radioactive than the level of radioactivity permissible for Nuclear Power Plants.

(8) On October 9 and 10 1973 Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other OPEC members seized all foreign holdings of oil reserves (and equipment). The largest theft in history amounted to 254 trillion dollars, or 25 times the U.S. GDP.

(9) Nuclear Power has not killed a single American, not even a rabbit, excluding a few hundred uranium miners (only indirectly linked).

(10) If we can effectively extract Uranium from the Ocean we will have enough Uranium to last us infinitely.


Finally I would like to mention that I switched from using Coal generated electricity to using wind power in an effort to become carbon neutral, however, if I had the choice of using Nuclear poer instead I would have.