Energy and safety in China

The safety aspect in the production and consumption of energy is of high importance also in China.
According to the Institute of nuclear energy Technology of the Qinghua University, nuclear energy will play an important role and be indispensable to be rapidly developed in China. Taking into account, that the the primary energy demand will increase by a factor of more than 3 from 1990 to 2050 and the electricity demand by a factor more than 7, it is a great challenge to meet the projected demands for electricity generation and primary energy supply.
Safety concerns are still voiced when nuclear power is discussed. Only the best international know-how can overcome this concerns.

Improving Safety in Energy Production

The three key factors for improving technological risk and on-the-job safety management to reduce the dangers of energy production with the goal of increasing sustainabiliy are technical excellence, efficient organization, and improved attitudes and behavior.

Ensuring that everyone commits to enhancing safety is a critical improvement driver. This is particularly true for management, which must set an example to ensure that safety principles are disseminated and embraced.

Making everyone more responsible entails increased participation by employees in analyzing operations. To give an example: Hutchinson, world market leader in the industrial rubber sector and part of Atofina, the chemical branch of Total Group, recently expanded the deployment of its Safe Ring safety management system by developing participatory processes such as cross-workstation audits and risk sheets to be filled in by everyone and discussed and analyzed regularly.

Employee motivation and commitment are raised by recognition of good performance. For example, in 2002 Atofina held its first-ever competition to identify and reward the best safety records of facilities, awarding five safety trophies. Total’s subsidiary in the United States won the Safety Award for Excellence 2002 from the regional regulatory authority for the safety and environmental results concerning operation of the Virgo platform in the Gulf of Mexico.