Health and safety implications of alternative energy technologies. III. Fossil energy
This paper reviews both innovative fossil energy sources (tar sands, oil shale, and unconventional natural gas), and more established technologies that are being considered as suppliers of gaseous and liquid fuels (that is, coal gasification and liquefaction). Potential health and safety issues related to the technologies are discussed, although the absence of commercial-scale facilities in the United States restricts the discussion to health effects information derived from related processes. The available epidemiological and carcinogenic studies give cause for concern. The study of the health and environmental impacts of the emerging fossil fuel technologies will be important for quantification of adverse effects and rectification of problems before commitment to large-scale commercialization occurs.
Coal gasification and occupational health.
Identification and prevention of health effects due to occupational exposures in coal gasification processes requires a basic knowledge of the technological process by which gasification proceeds. This paper presents an overview of the technology and a rational approach to health hazard identification based upon the concept of the unit operation specific micro environment. A final section is devoted to summarizing current research efforts being carried out under the aegis of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
The denial of death and the out-of-the-body experience
The out-of-the-body experience is a phenomenon which continues to be reported and continues to be interpreted in many ways. It seems, however, that more attention is given to finding a spiritual base for this occurrence than a psychological understanding of it. This paper considers the psychological forces of denial as a suitable explanation for the OBE and suggests that these experiences may be understood as hallucinations caused by traumatic events rather than genuine previews of the afterlife. That is: “Do these people transcend their bodies and also time and space to acquire these experiences, or could it be that nothing has been transcended at all save the need to deny death and thus transcend its feared consequence, which is ‘not being’?”