Mulbawer

Risk: Theory and Application

I. The science and philosophy of risk

Embracing paranoia

One of Murphy’s’ famous laws states that “left to themselves, things will always go from bad to worse.” This humorous prediction is, in a way, echoed in the second law of thermodynamics. That law deals with the concept of entropy. Stated simply, entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. Thethermodynamics law states that “entropy must always increase in the universe and in any hypothetical isolated system within it” [34]. Practical application of this law says that to offset the effects of entropy, energy must be injected into any system. Without adding energy, the system becomes increasingly disordered.
Although the law was intended to be a statement of a scientific property, it wasseized upon by “philosophers” who defined system to mean a car, a house, economics, a civilization, or anything that became disordered. By this extrapolation, the law explains why a desk or a garage becomes increasingly cluttered until a cleanup (injection of energy) is initiated. Gases diffuse and mix in irreversible processes, unmaintained buildings eventually crumble, and engines (highly orderedsystems) break down without the constant infusion of maintenance energy.
Here is another way of looking at the concept: “Mother Nature hates things she didn’t create.” Forces of nature seek to disorder man’s creations until the creation is reduced to the most basic components. Rust is an example—metal seeks to disorder itself by reverting to its original mineral components. If we indulgeourselves with this line of reasoning, we may soon conclude that pipeline failures will always occur unless an appropriate type of energy is applied. Transport of products in a closed conduit, often under high pressure, is a highly ordered, highly structured undertaking. If nature indeed seeks increasing disorder, forces are continuously at work to disrupt this structured process. According to this way ofthinking, a failed pipeline with all its product released into the atmosphere or into the ground or equipment and components decaying and reverting to their original pre manufactured states represent the less ordered, more natural state of things.
These quasi-scientific theories actually provide a useful way of looking at portions of our world. If we adopt a somewhat paranoid view of forcescontinuously acting to disrupt our creations, we become more vigilant. We take actions to offset those forces. We inject energy into a system to counteract the effects of entropy. In pipelines, this energy takes the forms of maintenance, inspection, and patrolling; that is, protecting the
pipeline from the forces seeking to tear it apart.
After years of experience in the pipeline industry, expertshave established activities that are thought to directly offset specific threats to the pipeline. Such activities include patrolling, valve maintenance, corrosion control, and all of the other actions discussed in this text. Many of these activities have been mandated by governmental regulations, but usually only after their value has been established by industry practice. Where the activity hasnot proven to be effective in addressing a threat, it has eventually been changed or eliminated. This evaluation process is ongoing. When new technology or techniques emerge, they are incorporated into operations protocols. The pipeline activity list is therefore being continuously refined.
A basic premise of this book is that a risk assessment methodology should follow these same lines ofreasoning. All activities that influence, favorably or unfavorably, the pipeline should be considered—-even if comprehensive, historical data on the effectiveness of a particular activity are not yet available. Industry experience and operator intuition can and should be included in the risk assessment.

The scientific method

This text advocates the use of simplifications to better under­ stand and...