World Futures Fall 2021

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-disasters-caused-corrosion-samuel-cowlishaw/ Surfside condominium collapses- June 2021: The main contributing factor under investigation is long-term degradation of reinforced concrete structural support in the ground-level parking garage under the housing units. Genoa, Italy Bridge Collapse- August 2018: The bridge was only 51 years old and the steel cables supporting the bridge failed likely due to damage from corrosion. Fall of Railway Traffic Lights- November 2014: A train traveling through England struck the railway traffic lights near an intersection. The post holding the lights fell due to corrosion and then struck by an oncoming train. Sinking of the Erika - December 1999: The Maltese taker broke into two while traveling near the coast of Britany France. Nearly 20,000 tons of oil were spilled. Multiple parts of the ship that had failed were compromised by corrosion. Bhopal, India Incident-December 1984: Corrosion caused toxic gas from a pesticide plant to leak into the atmosphere. More than 500,000 were exposed to the gas and official numbers says the tragedy caused 2,259 fatal victims. Unofficial sources say the number can be close to 8,000 fatal victms. Balcony Collapse at University of Virginia- May 1997: A balcony collapsed during the spring commencement ceremony. Rust had eaten way at the metal rods inside the balcony, which failed under the wight of the attendees. An engineering firm hired by the university said the collapse likely was caused by the failure of one of the four hangar rods that suspended the balcony.

The Department of Defense's (DOD) Office of Corrosion Policy and Oversight (Corrosion Office) provides information, including the needed funding levels for the military departments' Corrosion Control and Prevention Executives (Corrosion Executives), in its Corrosion Office Annual Reports to Congress. Corrosion Executives are responsible for overseeing efforts to prevent and mitigate corrosion of weapon system programs and infrastructure.

"According to the 2019 Women in STEM Decadal Plan, prepared by the Australian Academy of Science (AAS) and the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, every organisation in Australia is increasingly reliant on STEM skills to thrive, whether they operate in government, academia, industry, or the education sector. "All these stakeholders face a common challenge: the need to tackle the significant under-representation of women in the STEM workforce, because we can ill afford to under-utilise all of the nation's available talent. To achieve this requires removing barriers to participation at every point of the STEM pipeline. We must create an environment where girls and women can readily engage in STEM education and then use those skills to progress through their careers to senior levels," the AAS report states. In many ways, the corrosion industry reflects this general state of affairs, being reliant on researchers - investigating both the process of corrosion and ways to control it - and practitioners managing its application."

"Corrosion is a dynamic process, more so than even most corrosion engineers realize. It typically has a number of influencing factors that can vary with time and process variables, and so cause corrosion events or upsets to occur. The reason for the lack of appreciation of this situation is that historically long time intervals associated with inspections and off-line measurements do not afford the opportunity to correlate corrosion excursions with operating and process parameters This paper illustrates the importance of implementing an appropriate and correspondingly dynamic means of corrosion appraisal to help manage industrial processes and related corrosion prevention treatments, and to minimize corrosion upsets and failures, and maximize the availability of the plant assets. Value statements are provided that show the potential savings associated with online, real-time corrosion monitoring."

The global impacts of corrosion are significant and far-reaching, and until recently, so were the negative effects of anti-corrosion coatings on our environment as well as human health and safety. Innovative eco-friendly additives should be good news for economies, industry and ecosystems.

he new Russian steel called Severkor for oil pipelines has been created by materials scientists at NUST MISIS in order to reduce the environmental risks of oil production and increase its efficiency due to increased corrosion resistance. A year ago, the first test pipe from the developed steel was installed at the Kokuysky oil and gas field in the Perm Krai territory in Russia. In the fall of 2019, Lukoil company has presented an expert opinion confirming Severkor's unique resistance to the aggressive environment of crude oil and salt solutions.

Rising temperatures and lack of protection, both politically and from the environment, may be leading to an increase in farmworker deaths.

1. Mortgage rates may slide even more 2. Home prices and sales will rise 3. Housing counselors will be in demand 4. Millions of renters may be evicted 5. Homes will go to well-off buyers 6. Black households will fall further behind 7. Suburbs may grow at cities' expense 8. Ability-to-repay rule may be revised

A report on stablecoins, now circulating among top officials, will kick off a Biden administration bid to bring federal oversight to digital assets

"Fun" facts about the current state of payday lending in the US

"Fun" facts about the current state of payday lending in the US

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have revealed results suggesting that personalized deep brain stimulation (DBS) can produce a sustained antidepressant effect by targeting a brain circuit linked to low mood.

"The aim of this paper is to describe the factors within a tunnel environment that may contribute toward a corrosive atmosphere, and considering these, to determine the corrosivity of the atmosphere throughout a tunnel environment and present methods to mitigate against corrosive damage."

"Fort Lauderdale is interested in using a tunnel to ease traffic on one of its busiest roads, and Elon Musk wants to build it. This week, Ford Lauderdale's city government accepted a proposal from Musk's urban tunnel-digging outfit, the Boring Company, to carve out an underground passageway that will deliver people from downtown to the beach via self-driving Teslas."

structural steel beams set in concrete allowed them to frame tall buildings that were more fire resistant and more structurally sound than cast iron. Since that time, steel (an alloy made by combining iron and carbon) has not only become the best building material for commercial construction but closely tied to economic health. In fact, many experts look to the steel industry as an indicator of how well the economy is doing [source: Pamuk]. Steel has a long history in the construction industry, but is it still the best material for building?" While no one alternative has become a standard to replace steel, materials like engineered timber and metal composites are becoming more common in new construction projects. "Timber companies tout wood as a durable, renewable resource, and engineered timber is gaining some traction as an alternative to steel. For example, the new arts and media building at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology in New Zealand used engineered wood in place of typical steel and concrete construction, and the company that worked on that building says that it's taking on more and more contracts that would have gone to steel construction companies [source: Nelson Mail]."

"Sealers, overlays, noncorroding rebars, anticorrosion admixtures, or cathodic protection systems can prevent corrosion"

"Approximately 85% of all steel produced is carbon steel and therefore susceptible to natural oxidation and galvanic corrosion. The rate of corrosion is well understood in typical atmospheric conditions, but for the design engineer, the precise localized or micro-environment conditions must be well understood for him/her to have confidence in the ultimate durability of the design. Other micro-environments include exposure to fresh and salt water (in or very near) or in soil. "

"Lead leached from old pipes after the city began using the Flint River in 2014 without adding corrosion-control chemicals. Flint returned in 2015 to Detroit's water system.(...)Residents in Flint whose homes still may need new water lines due to lead contamination may have a new benefactor in Elon Musk. The tech billionaire caused a stir on Twitter Wednesday, tweeting Wednesday that he was committing to "fund fixing the water in any house" with contamination above federal levels."

Corrosion is a huge cost to the environment. These range from structural failures resulting in environmental contamination, to harmful pollutants being released from iron corrosion, to the over-utilization of natural resources when repairing and replacing damaged metals (Hanson, 2011).(....)the longevity of the metal assets in question across key industries such as O&G, aerospace and architecture is one of the largest drivers for innovation in the coatings industry.

"Corrosion has a huge economic, environmental and sustainability impact on virtually all facets of constructional materials, from highways, bridges, and buildings to oil and gas, chemical processing, desalination, nuclear, power facilities, water, and wastewater systems. In addition to causing severe environmental damage and threats to public safety, corrosion disrupts operations and requires extensive repair and replacement of failed assets. The annual cost of corrosion worldwide was estimated to exceed $U.S.2.5 trillion in 2016, which translates to 3 to 4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of industrialized countries according to NACE IMPACT study report. (...) To reduce the huge cost and the environmental impact of corrosion and enhance the sustainability of materials used for construction, available corrosion control practices such as proper material design and selection, the use of corrosion inhibitors, coatings, cathodic protection etc., are recommended and could lead to savings of between 15 and 35% of the cost of corrosion. This translates to between US$375 and $875 billion annually"