Occupational Risk Assessment for Hydrogen Sulfide Concentrations from a Geothermal Power Plant

Abstract

One of the main risks in a geothermoelectrical power plant, are the gasses emitted in this type of industries. Sulfur gasses (SO2 y H2S), and the carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), are of a greater interest in its monitoring due to the damage that it´s presence can provoke in the equipments and installations; such as in human beings and the environment. H2S is a volatile compound, in which many environmental factors infer in it´s oxidation rank, like radiation, precipitation, temperature and other substances concentration; that could determine the presence of dangerous concentrations. Therefore, this is one of the substances that carry a great danger for human´s health (due to the exposition of the worker when is performing his activities in this kind of plants) because it is emitted in the natural geothermical areas as steem; and it is observed that when a new geothermical generation power plant is developed, these emissions are increased. In this work the risk is assessed on the worker´s health during the electrical power generation process in the Generation Units in a Geothermoelectrical Power Plant by three main methods: EPA’s Risk Assessment, Lopez’s “Modified In Site Diagnosis” and the NOM-010-STPS-1999’s “Risk Cualitative Classification”. The main objective is to determine and to characterize the apparent danger and the work environment inherent risks, having studied the hydrogen sulfide´s concentration. By the end of this research, it was obtained valuable information about the danger´s characteristics such as duration, frequency and intensity; which determine the health risk’s degree.