生活物语 之 "The Art of Safety"

The above picture is about the inter-chaining of ‘safety pins’ to form a uniform art piece. The same goes in the line of industrial safety where every safety regulation should be complied with care and vigilance to minimise the occurrences of industrial risks.

Today, I attended a safety orientation course which is meant to drill some basic safety knowledge for those who will be working in heavy industries such as Oil/Petrochemical. The trainer, Hassan talks about safe practices and his own experiences working in the industry. He showed us many visual images of industrial accidents, video recordings of real-life accidents and a touching video about “The Story of Bong”. Those are too much to be described on my blog. I will tell you next time we meet… please remind me okay? =)

However, the trainer side-tracked to talk about something else that is out of the context of industrial safety. He brought up the topic about the recent calamities around the world and I m quite impressed that he has managed to present it in a simple and logical manner.

Crude oil from below earth surface acts as an insulator between the inner hot earth and the surface of earth. Without this insulator, the heat from the inner earth can get to the surface easily.

Hassan started with oil rigging business… The way to do it is to drill into an oilfield and pump in water to displace the oil to surface since water is denser. When the crude oil is pumped completely, the gaps are filled with water and sealed. Imagine over the years, these water are in close contact with the hot inner earth and boiled to form steam. Over time, it developed into ‘super steam’ and there will be a time where the pressure is too high and a large explosion is caused. It seemed that the 2004 tsunami was caused this way. It was an explosion in the middle of Andaman sea that causes huge ripples that turned into Tsunami. These ‘super steam’ underneath can cause a lot of environmental calamities over time. Just look at the recent disasters that are happening around the world today, earthquakes, cyclones, etc. Somehow it can be associated with oil and the ways man are infringing into the balance in our ecosystem and geological structures around the earth today.

One day, our earth will come to an end, some say in another 300-500 years later. I do not know… but from the way we were living now, the waves of technological developments comes with a heavy price tag!