2 workers dressed in appropriate PPE work on piping at the Center for Petrochemical, Energy, and Technology at San Jacinto College

The Center for Petrochemical, Energy, and Technology (CPET) facility at San Jacinto College offers students a unique, hands-on opportunity to learn about industry standards and provides training to future Houston-area plant workers. During this visit, PCAC attendees learned about CPET’s background and toured portions of the 151,000-square-foot complex.

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Derek Maytubby of LyondellBasell Refinery presented information about the typical timeline and steps for planning a major turnaround (TA). He shared a definition from the Project Maintenance Body of Knowledge and explained that TAs are complex events with many things that need to be considered. (Turnarounds may also be called shutdowns or outages or maintenance…

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Blythe Mansfield, MD, Chief Medical Officer for Unilever, NA, formerly of Kelsey Seybold Occupational Medicine, shared information about what air pollution is, kinds of exposure, and specifics about the EPA’s criteria pollutants, benzene, and 1-3, butadiene. She also described environmental and occupational causes of health problems and EPA’s proposed actions to advance environmental justice related…

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Scott Kolb of Afton Chemical presented the annual report on PCAC plant air emissions.  (PCAC plants rotate serving as the presenter.) The annual report derives its data from two annual inventories:  the Air Emissions Inventory (EI), which plants submit to the TCEQ, and the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), which plants submit to the EPA.  The…

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