Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 35 (2015) 135e144

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Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jlp

Major accident hazard in bioenergy production

Valeria Casson Moreno, Valerio Cozzani*
 di Bologna via Terracini n.28, 40131
LISES e Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Chimica, Ambientale e dei Materiali, Alma Mater Studiorum e Universita
Bologna, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Some recent accidents involving the bioenergy production and feedstock supply chain raised concern on
Received 5 February 2015 the safety of such technologies. A survey of major accidents related to the production of bioenergy
Received in revised form (intended as biomass, bioliquids/biofuels and biogas) was carried out, and a data repository was built,
6 April 2015
based on past accident reports available in the open literature and in specific databases. Data analysis
Accepted 7 April 2015
Available online 8 April 2015
shows that major accidents are increasing in recent years and their number is growing faster than
bioenergy production. The results obtained represent an early warning concerning the major accident
hazard of bioenergies, and suggest the importance of risk awareness and safety culture in bioenergy
Keywords:
Bioenergy
production, in the perspective of a safe and sustainable exploitation of renewable resources.
Biomass © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Bioliquids
Major accident hazard
Past accident analysis

1. Introduction
Increasing the production of energy from renewable sources is a
step toward a low-carbon economy that many countries around the
world are adopting. An analysis of the latest data available in the
literature (Eurostat, 2013; Observ’ER, 2013; REN21, 2014) shows
that, in Europe, the share of energy from renewables in gross final
energy consumption is in steady progress toward the European
target for 2035 (27%) (European Commission, 2014) and is growing
despite the financial and economic crisis. Between 2005 and 2010
the electricity production from bioliquids/biofuels and biogas
doubled and that from biomass (mainly wood and wood wastes)
gave the largest contribution to the total share from renewable
sources (Eurostat, 2013). Similar trends can be observed worldwide
(EIA, 2014).
In the literature, many contributions analyse the sustainability
of bioenergy from a social, economic and environmental point of
view (Bradley and Baxter, 2002; Florin, van de Ven and van
Ittersum, 2014; German and Schoneveld, 2012; Koçar and Civaş,
2013; Mata et al., 2013; Mohr and Raman, 2013; Pantaleo et al.,
2014; Sharma et al., 2013; Smith et al., 2013; Soland et al., 2013)
but there are only few safety-related studies, mostly focused on
specific cases (Abidin et al., 2011; Cheng et al., 2014; Fischer and
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: valerio.cozzani@unibo.it (V. Cozzani).
Backes, 2010; Harper et al., 2008; Molino et al., 2012; Thivel et al.,
2008). Limited specific safety requirements are present concern-
ing the control of major accidents in the field of bioenergy in the EU,
since most of the production plants are medium to small scale and
fall below the thresholds for the application of Seveso Directives
(European Parliament and Council, 2012; Heezen et al., 2013).
Nevertheless, previous studies evidence the hazard associated with
bioenergy production technologies, in which hazardous materials
are formed, processed and stored at different stages of the process
(Harper et al., 2008; Riviere and Marlair, 2009, 2010; Salzano et al.,
2010). Several accidents were reported, resulting in relevant hu-
man, environmental and economic losses (Jenkins et al., 2013).
Harper and coworkers (Harper et al., 2008) revised some accidents
that took place in biodiesel production, and related them to the
limited experience in the management of complex industrial
chemical processes of the operating companies involved. The need
for specific guidance is highlighted as a main conclusion of the
study. The lack of safety culture, the absence of a statistically
consistent accident database and the lack of a systematic analysis of
incidents that would help to identify appropriate scenarios and
frequencies to calculate risk were also pointed out (Heezen et al.,
2013; Riviere and Marlair, 2009).
The increase in the number and potentiality of bioenergy facil-
ities associated to the scale-up to industrial production, as well as to
the industrial implementation of innovative processes and tech-
nologies, is generating an emerging risk issue according to the IRGC
definition (Paltrinieri et al., 2013). The present study focuses on the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jlp.2015.04.004
0950-4230/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
136 V. Casson Moreno, V. Cozzani / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 35 (2015) 135e144

Table 1
Definitions applied to key terms used in accident analysis.

Term Definition Source

Bioenergy energy produced from biomass, bioliquids, biofuels, and biogas.
Biomass the biodegradable fraction of products waste and residues from biological
origin from agriculture (including vegetal and animal substances), forestry
and related industries including fisheries and aquaculture, as well as the
biodegradable fraction of industrial and municipal waste.
Bioliquids liquid fuel for energy purposes other than for transport, including
electricity and heating and cooling, produced from biomass.
Biofuels means liquid or gaseous fuel for transport produced from biomass.
Biogas a fuel gas produced from biomass and/or from the biodegradable fraction
of waste, that can be purified to natural gas quality, to be used as biofuel,
or wood gas.
European Commission (European Commision, 2014)
Article 2
Directive 2009/28/EC (European Parliament and Council, 2009).
Article 2
Directive 2009/28/EC (European Parliament and Council, 2009).
Article 2
Directive 2009/28/EC (European Parliament and Council, 2009).
Annex III
Directive 2009/28/EC (European Parliament and Council, 2009).

analysis of accidents related to the production of bioenergy,
including those that occurred in the production of biomass and
bioliquids/biofuels (such as bioethanol and biodiesel) and biogas. A
database of accidents related to bioenergy production was ob-
tained, collecting data from several different literature sources. The
available data on past accidents were analysed and the results were
compared to those from accidents in conventional fuel production
and processing.
2. Methodology
2.1. Definitions
Some key terms used in the present study need an unambiguous
definition to be applied in the collection and analysis of past acci-
dent data. Table 1 summarizes the definitions assumed, mostly
derived or adapted from European Directive 2009/28/EC (European
Parliament and Council, 2009).
2.2. Retrieval of data on past accidents
Data on past accidents involving bioenergy production and raw
materials supply chain were obtained searching the scientific
literature, open web sources, specific publications and industrial
accident databases, such as the Loss Prevention Bulletin (IChemE)
(IChemE, 2014), the ARIA Database (French Ministry of Ecology
(2014)), and the MHIDAS database (UK Health and Safety
Executive, 1999).
The ARIA Database, managed by the French Ministry of Ecology,
lists accidents that harmed (or showed a damage potential for)
health or public safety and the environment. Transportation of
hazardous materials is also taken into account. ARIA currently in-
cludes more than 40,000 accidents, 37,000 of which took place in
France. The Major Hazards Incident Data Service (MHIDAS) was
started in the 1980s and collects over 14,000 incidents occurred
during processing, transport and storage of hazardous materials in
more than 95 different countries. The Loss Prevention Bulletin was
first published in 1974 after the disaster of Flixborough, and collects
information on industrial accidents (and near misses) mostly
shared by industrial companies. All sources collect data on acci-
dents that took place since the beginning of the 20th century.
The keywords used to retrieve relevant accident records were
“biomass”, “biofuel”, “bioliquid”, “biogas”, “bioethanol”, “biodiesel”,
“bioenergy” combined with the word “accident” or “incident”. The
events retrieved were retained for further analysis if: a) the criteria
to be considered as major accidents according to Article 3 of the

Fig. 1. Structure of records in the database (free text fields: white boxes; itemized fields: grey boxes).
 V. Casson Moreno, V. Cozzani / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 35 (2015) 135e144 137

Seveso III Directive (European Parliament and Council, 2012) were
fulfilled; and b) they were related to any step of the bioenergy
production and raw materials supply chain, intended as:
1. Sites in which feedstocks (biomass - BM, bioliquids or biofuels -
BB, or biogas - BG) are produced, pre-processed or prepared;
2. Sites in which feedstocks (BM, BB, BG) are stored; and
3. Sites in which feedstocks (BM, BB, BG) are converted to thermal
and/or electric energy.
2.3. Accident database
The data collected were organized in a database. The structure
of the database is reported in Fig. 1. The figure shows the free text
fields (white boxes), the itemized fields (grey boxes), and the
content of each itemized field. Free text fields allow including de-
tails about the accident, such as the original data source,
geographical information (i.e. country and city), number of injuries
and fatalities, data on economic losses, a summary of the incident,
etc.

Table 2
Summary of accident files included in the database (BB: bioliquids/biofuels; BG: biogas; BM: biomass; Feedstock: sites in which feedstocks are produced, pre-processed or
prepared; Storage: sites in which feedstocks are stored; Conversion: sites in which feedstocks are converted to thermal and/or electric energy).

No. Country Year Bioenergy Site Scenario Consequences

1 Italy 1997 BG Production Explosion 2 fatalities þ 1 injury

2 Denmark 1998 BM Storage Fire Asset damage
3 USA 2000 BB Feedstock Fire 2 injuries
4 Sweden 2004 BM Storage Fire Asset damage
5 Germany 2005 BG Feedstock Toxic Release 4 fatalities
6 USA 2005 BB Feedstock Explosion 1 fatality
7 Sweden 2005 BM Storage Fire Asset damage
8 Germany 2005 BG Feedstock Explosion 4 fatalities
9 USA 2006 BB Feedstock Fire 1 fatality
10 USA 2006 BM Conversion Fire 2 injuries
11 USA 2006 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
12 France 2007 BB Feedstock Dust explosion 2 injuries
13 USA 2007 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
14 Netherlands 2007 BM Conversion Explosion and fire Asset damage
15 Sweden 2007 BM Storage Fire Asset damage
16 Germany 2007 BG Feedstock Explosion 2 injuries
17 France 2008 BB Feedstock Fire 1 injury
18 France 2008 BG Feedstock Explosion 2 injuries
19 Philippines 2008 BG Feedstock Toxic Release 4 fatalities
20 USA 2009 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
21 USA 2009 BM Conversion Explosion Asset damage
22 India 2009 BG Feedstock Explosion 4 fatalities þ 3 injuries
23 France 2010 BG Feedstock Toxic Release Asset damage
24 France 2010 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
25 USA 2010 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
26 USA 2010 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
27 Germany 2010 BM Storage Explosion 3 fatalities
28 Netherland 2010 BM Conversion Explosion and fire Asset damage
29 Sweden 2010 BM Storage Fire Asset damage
30 Norway 2010 BM Storage Fire Asset damage
31 Germany 2010 BG Feedstock Explosion and fire 3 injuries
32 Germany 2010 BG Feedstock Explosion 2 injuries
33 France 2011 BM Feedstock Fire Asset damage
34 France 2011 BM Conversion Fire 1 injury
35 UK 2011 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
36 USA 2011 BM Feedstock Explosion Asset damage
37 USA 2011 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
38 Germany 2011 BG Feedstock Explosion 2 injuries
39 Germany 2011 BG Feedstock Explosion 2 injuries
40 France 2012 BM Conversion Explosion Asset damage
41 Netherland 2012 BM Conversion Explosion Asset damage
42 USA 2012a BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
43 USA 2012b BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
44 Denmark 2012 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
45 Denmark 2012a BM Conversion Dust explosion 3 injuries
46 Denmark 2012b BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
47 USA 2012 BM Conversion Explosion Asset damage
48 UK 2012 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
49 USA 2012 BM Conversion Fire 2 injuries
50 USA 2012 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
51 USA 2012 BM Conversion Explosion 1 injury
52 USA 2012 BB Feedstock Explosion and fire 1 injury
53 France 2013 BM Feedstock Fire Asset damage
54 UK 2013 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
55 UK 2013 BM Conversion Fire Asset damage
56 USA 2013 BM Conversion Catastrophic failure of a boiler 2 injuries (1 serious)
57 USA 2013 BM Conversion Explosion and fire Asset damage
138 V. Casson Moreno, V. Cozzani / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 35 (2015) 135e144

A total of 57 events were included in the database. Table 2 re-

ports a summary of the accident records. The time span covered by
this set of events is of 16 years (from 1997 to 2013). The accidents
are geographically distributed as follows: Europe (60%), North
America (38%), and Asia (2%). Most of the accident data included in
the present analysis (75%) were retrieved from web editions of local
newspapers, while a second relevant set (19%) was obtained from
the ARIA Database. Further records (6%) were obtained from the
OSHA web site. None of the events stored in the MHIDAS and Loss
Prevention Bulletin fulfilled the inclusion criteria.
As previously reported in the literature (Rivie re and Marlair,
2010; Salvi et al., 2011), in general the details available on acci-
dent scenarios are somehow limited, at least for past accident re-
cords obtained from local media. Thus, when needed, in the
analysis of accident data relevant sub-sets of accidents were
extracted to evaluate specific aspects, depending on the quality and
detail of the information available. Fig. 3. Number of major accidents recorded in the ARIA database for oil refineries from
1996 to 2013 (French Ministry of Ecology (2014).

2.4. Data normalization and benchmarking

biomass represents the biggest contribution to bioenergy produc-
In order to obtain further information on the trend of major
tion and the more mature bioenergy source (EIA, 2014), and most of
accidents involving the bioenergy sector, the number of accidents
the accidents reported in this study are related to its conversion,
may compared to the total operating hours of bioenergy production
this set of data was selected to normalize accident data and to relate
plants (Mannan, 2005). However, since no comprehensive data are
them to energy production. Fig. 2-a shows that the trend of elec-
available for the total of operating hours or for the total worked
tricity production from biomass and waste is increasing with a
hours in this sector, an indirect normalization was carried out. The
roughly quadratic law.
United States Energy Information Administration web site (EIA,
In order to allow a comparison with the more mature technol-
2014) provides a comprehensive set of data on the worldwide
ogies used for energy generation from fossil fuels, data on major
production of electric energy from biomass and wastes. Since

Fig. 2. Worldwide electricity net generation from biomass and waste (a) and world- Fig. 4. Number of major accidents related to bioenergy supply chain per year (a) and
wide total electricity net generation from fossil fuels (b) (EIA, 2014). aggregated on a triennial basis (b).
 V. Casson Moreno, V. Cozzani / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 35 (2015) 135e144
accidents in downstream oil processing were also obtained. A
representative data set was obtained from the ARIA Database
(French Ministry of Ecology (2014)). A query was carried out on the
time span of interest (1996e2013) using “oil” and “refinery” as
keywords. Fig. 3 reports the data collected. Data on the worldwide
total electricity net generation from fossil fuels were considered to
analyse and normalize the past accident data. Fig. 2-b reports the
data collected for electricity production from oil, evidencing a
linear increase in the production trend. Normalized trends of ac-
cidents will be discussed in the following section, with the purpose
of comparing the production of energy from bio-renewable sour-
ces, which is an emerging sector of bioprocess engineering, with
more established production processes.
3. Results and discussion
Fig. 4 shows the trend of the number of events included in the
database with respect to time. The figure shows that the number of
accidents is strongly increasing in recent years. In particular, the
number of events increased of five times in the period 2005e2007
to become ten times higher in the last 3-years period considered
(2011e2013).
As mentioned above, biomass (from wood and wastes) provides
the largest contribution to the production of energy from renew-
able sources (EIA, 2014), in accordance with the higher maturity of
the biomass to energy conversion technologies (Haas et al., 2011).
There are many types of biomass, spacing from woody plants,
Fig. 5. Accidents (%) related to the type of bioenergy production involved (a) and
number of reported accidents per type of bioenergy on three-year periods (b).All 57
records included in the database were considered.
139
herbaceous plants, agricultural crops and waste, municipal solid
waste, manure, etc. The content of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin
and extractives (biomass principal components) varies widely from
type to type, determining biomass recalcitrance to bioprocessing
meant as digestibility of the biomass itself. In order to improve this
aspect, several biomass pretreatment processes (physical, chemical,
biological, and combination of them) were proposed. An extensive
review of biomass pretreatments is available in recent scientific
literature (Agbor et al., 2011). More details on chemical pre-
treatments are available in (Galbe and Zacchi, 2007). Other forms of
processing biomass to produce bioenergy would be the production
of bioliquids and biogas, which in turn would be combusted to
produce energy.
Actually, most of the accidents considered in the present anal-
ysis are associated with the biomass supply chain and with energy
production from biomass (68%), as shown in Fig. 5-a. Fig. 5-b also
evidences that this sector is also responsible of the increasing trend
of accidents evidenced in Fig. 4.
The increase in the number of accidents may be influenced by
the increase in the number of facilities and/or of operating hours in
the bioenergy production and supply chain. To investigate this
aspect, data were normalized with respect to electricity net gen-
eration from biomass and waste (Fig. 2-b). As shown in Fig. 6-a, the
normalized number of accidents has an increasing trend, both if all
bioenergy related accidents are considered and if only those related
to biomass are accounted. This result seems to suggest that the
number of accidents in the bioenergy sector is growing faster than
energy production.
Fig. 6. Normalized trends of major accidents: (a) number of major accidents in the
bioenergy sector normalized by electricity net generation; (b) number of major acci-
dents in oil refineries normalized by total fossil fuels electricity net generation.
140 V. Casson Moreno, V. Cozzani / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 35 (2015) 135e144

In order to verify if this result is specific to the bioenergy pro-

duction sector, data on the number of accidents in oil refineries
normalized with respect to the worldwide total fossil fuels elec-
tricity net generation are reported in Fig. 6-b. As shown in the
figure, in this case the normalized trend of accidents is steady, and
shows a decrease in the last ten years. This could be explained by
the growing safety culture and high safety standards in the oil in-
dustry, also imposed by regulations such as the European Seveso
Directives (European Parliament and Council, 2012). These results
seem to confirm that the scale-up and widespread of bioenergy
technology poses concerns on the risk associated to such technol-
ogies, and requires the implementation of an appropriate safety
management of bioenergy production facilities (Harper et al., 2008;
Heezen et al., 2013).
With respect to the causes of accidents in bioenergy production,
the scarce number of documented accidents, the limited details
available and the different technological systems involved do not
allow a significant statistical analysis. Thus, available data were
analysed to obtain a fishbone diagram (Ishikawa, 1982) providing a
qualitative representation of direct causes. The results of the
analysis are reported in Fig. 7 (in green colour causes related to BM,
in orange causes related to BB, and in blue causes related to BG).
The following categories of causes could be identified:

 maintenance errors, defined as operations carried on during

maintenance that caused an incident, or the lack of maintenance
itself;
 operational errors;
 equipment failures, meant as a set of components;
 component failures;
 design errors.

It has to be noticed that the accident reports, in most of the

cases, only addressed the direct causes of the accidents so that
common underlying causes such as safety culture, operational
discipline and training could not be specifically identified. It is
reasonable to suppose that such causes may be at the origin of the
“Operational errors”.
With respect to the consequences of accidents, data on the final
outcomes of accident scenarios are reported in Fig. 8-a: fire is the
most frequent outcome (53%), followed by explosions (40%). Mul-
tiple outcomes (typically explosion followed by fire) characterized
12% of the events. In Fig. 8-b a detail of the final outcome with
respect to the type of bioenergy involved in the accident scenario is
Fig. 8. Final outcomes of the accident scenarios (a) and detail of final outcomes with
respect to the type of bioenergy involved in the accidents (b). All 57 records included in
the database were considered.
presented. In general, the more complex processing is expected to
cause more incidents with higher consequences, with the notable
exception of dust explosions which can come from very simple
process operations, as in the case of biomass. When dealing with
biomass, fires are the most likely final outcome (72% of the acci-
dents). A further analysis of the 30 accident records reporting
sufficient details on the final outcome showed that fires were

Fig. 7. Fishbone diagram for the accidents reported in Table 2. In green colour causes related to BM, in orange causes related to BB, and in blue causes related to BG. (For inter-
pretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
 V. Casson Moreno, V. Cozzani / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 35 (2015) 135e144 141

evidence an increase of injuries and fatalities in time. This is

confirmed by Fig. 11-b, that shows an increase in the number of
recorded accidents in which injuries and/or fatalities were re-
ported. Most of the recorded injuries and fatalities took place in the
biogas supply chain, as shown in Fig. 11-c.
This confirms that biogas production is associated to scenarios
that may have a high severity due to the release of toxic substances
such as hydrogen sulphide that may be formed in lethal concen-
trations when specific unforeseen operating conditions occur dur-
ing the biogas production process.
On the basis of the above discussed data, a semi-quantitative
assessment of risk associated to bioenergy production and raw

Fig. 9. Equipment items involved in fires. Besed on a sub-set of 30 accidents involving

fire.

mostly due to spontaneous combustion of sawdust in stockpiles

(36% of recorded events) and to overheating due to friction in
moving equipment as mills and conveyor belts (30% of recorded
events), as shown in Fig. 9.
In the case of explosion and toxic releases, the lower number of
events does not allow obtaining detailed data as in the case of fire.
However, for the records in which possible scenarios were explic-
itly described (48), it is possible to say that most of the explosions
were due to the presence of wood dust (16%), while toxic releases
involved mainly hydrogen sulphide (7%) and took place only in
biogas plants (100%).
The root cause of toxic release is specific to the case of biogas,
which is produced via anaerobic digestion of biomass, i.e. the mi-
crobial decomposition of biomass in a moist environment and in
absence of oxygen. Biogas produced via anaerobic digestion pre-
dominantly consists of methane (50e75 %w/w), carbon dioxide
(25e45 %w/w), and ammonia and hydrogen sulphide (each usually
less than 1% w/w).
Facilities involved in accidents were mainly biomass combus-
tion plants, wood pallet storages and biofuel production sites.
Fig. 10 shows a detail of the installations involved in accidents.
As for the final consequences of the accidents, a total of 33 in-
juries and 23 fatalities were recorded. Injuries were recorded in 17
events over the 57 analysed, while fatalities were recorded in 7
events. The trends of final consequences are shown in Fig. 11-a and

Fig. 11. Trends of injuries and fatalities related to the bioenergy production and raw
materials supply chain (a); trend of accidents in which injuries and/or fatalities were
Fig. 10. Facilities involved in the accidents. All 57 records included in the database recorded (b), overall number of fatalities and injuries with respect to the type of
were considered. bioenergy produced based (c).
142 V. Casson Moreno, V. Cozzani / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 35 (2015) 135e144
materials supply chain was carried out in order to provide some
preliminary data on the expected risk level of such installations.
Due to the scarce data available, risk matrixes were used for the
assessment. The approach based on risk matrixes is well known
(Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), 2008, 2009; Di Padova,
Tugnoli, Cozzani, Barbaresi and Tallone, 2011; International
Organization for Standardization (ISO), 2000; Mannan, 2005) and
widely applied in risk-based decision making processes, both by
public authorities (Health and Safety Executive (HSE), 2009;
Ministero dell’Ambiente, 2001) and companies (Shell Chemicals,
2008). In the present study, risk matrixes adapted from those
proposed in ISO 17776 (International Organization for
Standardization (ISO), 2000) were used (see Fig. 12). In order to
provide a preliminary risk ranking by the proposed matrix
approach, the procedure proposed by Di Padova et al. (2011) was
applied. A severity class was attributed to each event on the basis of
severity class definitions reported in Fig. 12. Accident frequencies
for each severity class were estimated dividing the number of
recorded events for each class by the time interval over which the
recorded events took place (16 years, as previously mentioned) and
by the overall estimated number of bioenergy production facilities
operating worldwide. An estimate of about 2500 facilities was
Fig. 12. Risk ranking for the bioenergy production and feedstock supply chains: (a) biomass; (b) bioliquids/biofuels; (c) biogas; (d) overall.
obtained for biomass, of 16,000 for biogas and of 1000 for bio-
liquids/biofuels, for a total of about 20,000 sites was obtained from
literature sources (Biomass Magazine, 2014; ecoprog, 2012, 2013;
European Biogas Association, 2012; REN21, 2014; U.S. Department
of Agricolture, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, & U.S.
Department of Energy (2014)). Clearly enough, the results ob-
tained for the frequency values by this procedure may be consid-
ered only as a rough estimate. However, as shown in Fig. 12, each
frequency class in the matrix usually includes frequency values that
extend over 2e3 orders of magnitude. Thus the estimated fre-
quencies should allow the estimation of the frequency class of past
accidents in the matrixes.
The analysis of Fig. 12 shows that the risk associated to major
accidents in the bioenergy production and supply chain (Fig. 12-d)
seems to be within the ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Possible)
region (United Kingdom Health & Executive, n.d.). The same risk
level may be calculated for biomass and biogas production. In the
case of bioliquids, a slightly higher accident frequency derives
from the above calculations, leading to a higher risk rank for these
installation. Although uncertainties may affect the calculations,
the two orders of magnitude of difference in the calculated fre-
quencies may reasonably derive from the higher complexity of
 V. Casson Moreno, V. Cozzani / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 35 (2015) 135e144
biofuel processing, that may lead to higher accident frequencies
re
when new technologies and processes are implemented (Rivie
and Marlair, 2010). Thus, the activities related to bioenergy pro-
duction show a non-negligible risk profile with respect to major
accident hazards when the frequency and severity of past acci-
dents is considered.
4. Conclusions
The number of major accidents in the bioenergy production and
raw materials supply chain shows a relevant increase in recent
years and is growing faster than energy production. A comparison
with the number of accidents in oil refining activities shows that
the increasing trend is specific of bioenergy. A preliminary risk
ranking of the bioenergy sector with respect to major accidents,
based on risk matrixes, confirms that a non-negligible risk profile
may be attributed to bioenergy facilities when considering the
accidents occurred. The above findings may be interpreted as an
early warning concerning the major accident hazard of bioenergies,
and suggest the importance of raising the risk awareness and safety
culture in bioenergy production. The introduction of a specific
reporting system would be beneficial to allow a more detailed
analysis of accident scenarios, and to allow the development of
effective safety barriers.
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