Occupational health impacts: offshore crane lifts in life cycle assessment |
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Authors: | Johan Pettersen Edgar G Hertwich |
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Institution: | 1.Industrial Ecology Programme and Department of Energy and Process Engineering,Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU),Trondheim,Norway |
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Abstract: | Background, Aim, and Scope The identification and assessment of environmental tradeoffs is a strongpoint of life cycle assessment (LCA). A tradeoff made
in many product systems is the exchange of potential for occupational accidents with the additional use of energy and materials.
Net benefits of safety measures with respect to human health are best illustrated if the consequences avoided and health impacts
induced by additional emissions are assessed using commensurable metrics. Our aim is to develop a human health impact indicator
for offshore crane lifts. Crane lifts are a major cause of accidents on offshore oil and gas (O & G) rigs, and health impacts
from crane lift accidents should be included in comparative LCA of O & G technologies if the alternatives differ in the use
of crane lifts.
Materials and methods Accident records for mobile offshore petroleum installations were used to develop an empirical occupational health indicator
for crane lifts in LCA. Probabilistic parameters were introduced in the procedure, and results were calculated by Monte Carlo
simulation. The disability adjusted life years (DALY) framework was used to classify health outcome. The characterization
factor for offshore crane lifts was applied in three comparisons to evaluate the significance of crane lifts to human health
impacts from drilling technology.
Results The mean occupational health impact per crane lift was 4.5∙10−6 DALY, with cumulative percentiles {P
2.5, P
50, P
97.5} = {6.0∙10−7, 3.1∙10−6, 1.7∙10−5}. Analogously, the fatal accident frequency was described by {P
2.5, P
50, P
97.5} = {7.6∙10−9, 3.9∙10−8, 2.0∙10−7}, with mean 5.6∙10−8 lives lost per crane lift.
Discussion The uncertainty in the results is caused mainly by the random nature of accidents, i.e., variability in accident frequency.
Applications of the characterization factor indicate that although crane lifts may not be significant to the overall health
impact of the life cycle of drilling fluids, they are important to the occupational safety of employees on offshore drilling
rigs and contribute significantly to the life cycle health impact of loading technologies used to transport drilling waste
to shore. A comparative LCA of technologies for loading and off-loading drilling wastes shows that a recently developed hydraulic
system performs better than the traditional crane lift alternative in terms of human health impacts.
Conclusions With the availability of statistics to assess the risk of single mechanical operations, safety aspects may well be included
in LCA. For the case of offshore crane lifts, the uncertainty in the characterization factor compares favorably to what is
indicated for other human health impact chains. In further work of quantifying occupational health impacts in DALY using accident
statistics, it is advised to see if records of non-recoverable injuries (fatalities and amputation cases) can be used to simplify
the damage assessment procedure as recoverable injuries were insignificant to the total burden from crane accidents.
Recommendations and perspectives The characterization factor for crane lifts identifies contributions to life cycle health impact from loading technologies
that otherwise would have been overlooked in LCA. While many contest the inclusion of occupational accidents in LCA, our results
show that such impacts can be included and that their consideration adds valuable insights. |
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Keywords: | Crane lifts Disability adjusted life years Fatal accident rate (FAR) Fatality Health Injury LCIA Life cycle impact assessment Monte Carlo Risk Working environment |
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