The safety and reliability of complex energy processing systems

A common characteristic of large-scale, complex energy conversion, generation, and processing systems, such as fossil fuel/thermoelectric power plants, gas processing facilities, off-shore rigs, and high-capacity compressor and pumping stations, is that large amounts of potentially flammable, combustible, or pressurized materials are concentrated and processed in single sites under the centralized control of a few operators (working in a control-room environment). The effects of human error in these facilities are often neither observable nor reversible; therefore, error recovery is either too late or impossible. Catastrophic breakdowns of these systems, created by man-made and natural causes, pose serious threats and long-lasting health and environmental consequences for workers in the facility, for the local public, and possibly for the neighboring region and the whole country. For the foreseeable future, despite increasing levels of computerization and automation, human operators will remain in charge of the day-to-day controlling and monitoring of these systems. Thus, the safe and efficient operation of these technological systems is a function of the interactions among their human (i.e., personnel and organizational) and engineered subsystems. This article attempts to (a) review the causes of complex technological systems' failures, (b) demonstrate that Human-Organization-Technology interactions play a critical role in the safe and efficient performance of complex energy processing systems, (c) raise some additional related and critical issues for developing countries, and (d) make recommendations for improving the performance of human and organizational factors of energy processing installations during normal as well as emergency situations.