Month: January 2021

In December 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor updated the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Site-Specific Targeting (SST) Directive inspection program, emphasizing recordkeeping requirements.

The Site-Specific Targeting (SST) Directive is OSHA’s primary targeting program for non-construction workplaces with 20 or more employees. The agency selects establishments based on injury and illness data employers submitted on Form 300A for calendar years 2017-2019.

The new directive replaces Site-Specific Targeting 2016, and includes these significant changes:

• The creation of a new targeting category for establishments indicating consistent injury and illness rate increases over the three-year data collection period, and
• Allows records only inspections to occur when a compliance safety and health officer determines incorrect data led to an establishment’s inclusion in the program. This change ensures OSHA will conduct a full inspection only when the employer has an actual elevated injury and illness experience.

The new directive replaces Site-Specific Targeting 2016, and includes the following significant changes:

• The creation of a new targeting category for establishments indicating consistent injury and illness rate increases over the three-year data collection period, and
• Allows records only inspections to occur when a compliance safety and health officer determines incorrect data led to an establishment’s inclusion in the program. This change ensures OSHA will conduct a full inspection only when the employer has an actual elevated injury and illness experience.

In addition to the SST program, OSHA implements both national and local emphasis programs to target high-risk hazards and industries.

OSHA’s On-Site Consultation Program offers no-cost and confidential occupational safety and health services to small- and medium-sized businesses to identify workplace hazards, provide advice for compliance with OSHA standards, and assist in establishing and improving safety and health programs. On-Site Consultation services are separate from enforcement and do not result in penalties or citations.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role is to help ensure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and providing training, education, and assistance.

The auto and technology industries have long pressed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to modify existing vehicle safety standards that boosted the cost of automated cars and trucks.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued new rules that would allow manufacturers of automated vehicles to sidestep certain crash standards required of conventional vehicles in order to cut production costs. The NHTSA has stated last Thursday the rules would exempt automated vehicles that are designed to carry only goods, not people, from some crash standards. The new rules would give a freer hand to manufacturers of 

passenger-carrying autonomous vehicles to design vehicles without standard controls, such as steering wheels.

According to  Deputy NHTSA Administrator James Owens, “We do not want regulations enacted long before the development of automated technologies to present an unintended and unnecessary barrier to innovation and improved vehicle safety.”

It is the first time the NHTSA has taken a significant move to remove barriers to deployment of vehicles without the usual, human controls. This includes dropping the requirement of a driver’s seat in self-driving vehicles. NHTSA’s final rule says it seeks “to remove unintended and unnecessary barriers to vehicle designs.”

Although the agency released the text of a single final rule encompassing the changes and signed on Wednesday, it is not clear when it will be formally published in the Federal Register.

The Self-Driving Coalition, a group including Alphabet Inc’s Waymo, Ford Motor Co, Uber and others, said the rule addresses “barriers to innovation while preserving the important safety protections afforded to vehicle occupants by NHTSA’s current standards.”

The NHTSA has estimated its rule would save automated vehicle manufacturers up to $5.8 billion in the year 2050, or about $995 per vehicle based on an estimated production of 5.8 million vehicles.

Currently, air travel generates up to 12% of all transportation-related CO2 emissions globally, but that may all change.

In a new study published in the journal “Nature Communications”, a team of researchers affiliated with multiple universities in the UK and Saudi Arabia, have proven that it is possible to turn carbon dioxide into jet fuel. If carbon dioxide gas were used to manufacture jet fuel rather than oil, the aviation industry’s carbon footprint would dramatically decrease.

According to ScienceNews, by using a new, inexpensive iron-based catalyst, (with added potassium and manganese) CO2 could be transformed into hydrocarbons found in jet fuel when combined with hydrogen, citric acid, and carbon dioxide, preheated to 350 degrees Celsius.  The Oxygen atoms from the CO2 also join up with Hydrogen atoms and form water molecules. Additionally, according to the study, byproducts of this “organic combustion method” include light olefins, ethylene, propylene, and butenes, and according to ScienceNews,  ethylene and propylene can be used to make plastics. 

The researchers declare that with this method, planes would be carbon-neutral and this new process uses less electricity and costs significantly less than compared to the conventional fuel production methods. They also add that this process can be installed in any high-carbon dioxide generating plants such as coal plants.