"Risk"

     The concept of failure is crucial to understand, and, most importantly, accept, when it comes to engineering structures, systems or devices. Engineering is putting together science and technology to devise and create in order to meet society’s needs and demands. To accomplish this, creations must be made efficiently and cost-effectively. However, in the engineering field, society’s safety is of utmost importance, otherwise there would be no satisfaction with the engineered product. Often times, complete safety and satisfaction of the customer cannot be met, leading to the failure of engineering.

     Failure in a product can be seen when it does not meet its proper function. This can occur due to a variety of factors: material selection and ability, static loading, creep and fatigue, infrastructure, design, miscommunication, financial costs, population and even weather conditions. To counter these failure extremes, engineers work to understand past mistakes, and rebuild upon them in order to succeed the next time round. To fix a mistake, engineers try to design for reliability, based on experience from past failures. They utilize standards and codes, compile the worst case scenarios, use parallel designs, train and design for operation and maintenance and rely on safety factors. All these measures are in attempt to counter a failed design, structure, or system so that society can be kept safe and satisfied. The importance of being risk free makes for a safer usage of engineering.

     Risk can actually be calculated through the probabilistic risk assessment (PRA)

by computing numbers to ascertain what might go askew, how likely is it to occur, and what would be the eventual consequences. There is a formula for risk: vulnerability times rate of occurrences times cost, all divided by mitigation. The first three factors are important in finding the consequences of failure. Vulnerability is the susceptibility to an attack, or in this case, to failure. When one is vulnerable, his, her or its defenses are down and is open to demise from outside, or internal, destruction. The amount of exposure something has to destruction is necessary to think about when it comes to risk. Rate of occurrence would obviously be the frequency or potential for failure. This can be determined by looking at past failures. Next is cost, or the amount of damage in money, lives, or environmental demise, a threat has on the society. I think all three of these factors looks at the worst case scenarios of an engineered product. It is critical, though, to take all these into consideration. The likelihood of something coming under attack needs to look at how often that attack or risk can occur. And in the off chance that it does, there are always repercussions to consider, and how they would affect society. The last factor to the risk formula is mitigation, which is defined as the making of a condition less extreme or severe. In the case of engineering, mitigation is done by conjuring ways to produce better models, perhaps using better facilities, in order to reduce any of the aforementioned factors. I like how the formula brings in this possibility of optimism for more successful engineering. By dividing the likelihood of failing and any future consequences by the ability to reduce it, the formula solves for risk and its liability to affect society.

     In our own perception of risk, psychology is fairly influential. We always have preconceived notions of matters, and this affects our decision and judging skills. In particular, there exists bias when it comes to thought processes. There is overconfidence, by which one would believe that the engineered product is more than capable of meeting the demands and needs of society and that it won’t be susceptible to failure. And there’s availability bias, in which there’s an overestimation of the probability of events to occur due to past experiences. So for instance, if the disaster has already happened, one might remain pessimistic that it will occur again. Another influencing factor is social media. The public is able to formulate and morph opinions when it comes to matters, small or large. In the case of engineering disasters, which may put society into danger due to the failure of the product, popular media, which covers only parts of the story, sheds illumination through bias. Each source of media has its own opinion, and so it would work to promote that rather than an entirely objective showcase of the situation.

     Based on the risk equation, I would like to look at the failure of the 400 MW Vishnuprayag Hydroelectric Project, situated across the Alaknanda river in Uttarakhand, a state in northern India and the first dam that was built under a private-public partnership on the river. In June of this past year, Uttarakhand suffered through extreme flash floods due to torrential rainfall and cloudburst, having received more than 73 centimeters of rain. Lives and property were easily destroyed, with a death toll of more than 1000 (but is actually expected to be much higher due to a large amount of missing persons) and 37,000 square miles of land affected, all according to the United Way of India report from July. Uttarakhand has over 80 existing hydroelectric projects, with many more to be proposed, and 70 of them were affected during the floods. The Vishnuprayag project was extensively damaged, completely covered in debris, while the river had also changed its course. Although, in accordance to Udayan Sharma, the manager of investor relations for Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd, the main structure of the project, the powerhouse, was unharmed due to it being located further downstream. “It will take only three to four months after the monsoons to clear the debris from the barrage and power generation could be resumed, he said” (Bagga, Web).

     The risk of the project failing should have been considered seriously, but I don’t think it was mainly because there exists so many hydroelectric power plants already in Uttarakhand, with at least 11 with a total capacity over 500 MW. The plant was vulnerable to environmental destruction in particular because there will always be a monsoon season in Uttarakhand, which is usually from July to September with about 50 centimeters of rain. The floods in the last monsoon season were caused by unprecedented amount of rainfall, as it was one of India’s more devastating natural disasters since the tsunami in 2004. Thus, the occurrence in of failure wouldn’t have been very high, seeing as this disaster was a very sudden and unexpected one. However, the cost of the damages is something to really consider. First are the damages prior to the shutting down of the plant. the building of hydroelectric plants is quite costly on the environment: heavy deforestation, which directly increases the chances of landslides and floods, tunneling and blasting of the land, which weakens the mountains greatly, the generation of muck and debris. In particular with the Vishnuprayag project, during the flooding of the river, the gates did not open, so boulders ended up accumulating behind the dam, leaving no space for water flow. The water then had to flow around the dam, leading to the sudden flash flood in the area further down, damaging more land and property than necessary. And of course, after the closing down of the plant, the main consequence would be the inability to generate hydroelectric power for the survivors of the disaster. Mitigation can luckily be considered because of the powerhouse having not been damaged. The infrastructure of the plant can be rebuilt with tougher material in the case where flooding might occur again. The engineers should also consider though, how much it would cost and affect the civilians, who the majority have lost their homes and jobs already. Though the need for hydroelectric power is great, the important matter is letting everyone and everything recuperate from the tragedy. All in all, the failure of this project was something unexpected due to environmental conditions. It would have functioned well, but I am not sure if it would have been cost efficient, considering the amount of environmental damage hydroelectric power plants cause. Susan Narain, director general of the Center for Science and Environment, said that “so many dams have been planned and there is no criterion for distance. They will literally be zero kilometers from each other, and parts of the river could go dry for months” (Basu, Web)

     This assignment has taught me the true meaning of the possibility of risk. Through the formula, I’ve learned which factors can lead to failure and consequences of such disaster. Risk cannot be solely defined in negative, pessimistic terms, like the vulnerability of the engineered product, its likeliness to fail and the aftereffects it would elicit were it to fail. The idea of mitigation is important to think about when it comes to calculating risk; there is always a way to better the engineering process to yield greater satisfaction from society. Like with the hydroelectric power plants being built all around India, which are indeed harming the environment greatly. At the same time though, hydroelectric power is the most widely used form of renewable energy, produced on over 150 countries. It is a cost efficient means of producing energy and will continue to be used. Still, in cases like India, it is extremely important to not overdo the implementation of hydroelectric plants, especially if the landscape cannot take it. Engineers must devise plans for these plants to be environmentally friendly, cost efficient and stable. This kind of thinking is applicable to everyday life, but in particular, it is necessary in the medical field, which I hope to enter on day. In medicine, it is important to be innovative, but the patient’s health and life is always what needs to be kept in check. The field requires many trial and errors, and success is never guaranteed, but keeping in mind the probability of risk is something that will help me, or anyone for that matter, in such an intense field like medicine.

MLA Citation

Bagga, Bhuvan. “Deathly Surge: Flash Floods Revive Debate on Ecology Threat of

       Mushrooming Hydel Plants.” Mail Online India. Associated Newspapers Ltd, 27          June 2013. Web. 24 February 2014.                     <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2350225/Deathly-surge Flash-floods-revive-debate-ecology-threat-mushrooming-hydel-plants.html>

Basu, Soma. “Vishnuprayag Hydel Project Suffers Extensive Damage.” Down to              Earth. CSE Webnet, 13 July 2013. Web. 24 February 2014.<http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/vishnuprayag-hydel-project-suffers-extensive-damage>

Vishnuprayag Hydroelectric Project before

Vishnuprayag Hydroelectric Project ruined