Field Notes
Writing about ammonia refrigeration, PSM compliance, the workforce, and what we’re building.
Walking the Map
A map shows where the elements sit; one coalescer change shows the route between them.
Read→The Fog of War in Process Safety
The gap between the job on paper and the job on the floor is a scouting report — and most programs never write it down.
Read→The Temporary Operation Your Program Says You Don't Have
Any plant that has pumped out a compressor this way already has a temporary operation — even when the program says none are expected.
Read→The Botnet We're Building Ourselves
AI agents are assembling the largest botnet in history — not through malware, through access you already granted. Process safety already ranked the controls.
Read→The Masters of the Maze
The owner holds the charge, the permit, and every consequence — and none of the authority to say whether his own plant is compliant.
Read→You Already Know How to Run This
Managing powerful dumb machinery is the most developed capability this profession owns — and it is exactly the operating discipline AI requires.
Read→Garbage In, Garbage Detected
Two objections to AI in PSM are built on real findings. Both indict the system we already have, not the one that can cross-reference it.
Read→Higher Ground
The Flood said the bottleneck is knowledge transfer speed. r717.ai is the build for that — a record that still belongs to the person who earned it.
Read→The Two Elements That Turn Paper Into Safety
Training and employee participation look like documentation. They're what the other twelve elements run on — and the two we treat like a sign-in sheet.
Read→Who Gets to Pull the Cord?
The floor knows first. The org chart hears last — and the people who write the rules never stand under the arch.
Read→The Root Cause That Fits Every Incident
Operator error fits every incident ever recorded — which is exactly why it explains none of them.
Read→The Forcing Function
When one company uses AI as an operating principle, the rest aren't falling behind linearly — they're staying the same speed while the other compounds.
Read→The Old View of Safety
There's a poster in every breakroom in this industry. Different injuries, same message: the system is fine, you're the risk.
Read→Compliant and Fragile
A clean audit file, a current binder, an RMP five-year history with nothing in it — every signal that a plant is safe is a record of something that hasn't gone wrong yet.
Read→The Rule Keeps Changing. The Hazard Doesn't.
The STAA mandate wasn't written for ammonia refrigeration. The concept behind it has been here all along.
Read→The Mechanic Who Sells You the Car
The mechanic who sells you the car never sells the most reliable one on the lot. Compliance software with a service sideline has the same incentive.
Read→The Future of Process Safety
Process safety has always been a knowledge problem disguised as a documentation problem. That's changing.
Read→The Flood Is Coming. The Ammonia Industry Isn’t Ready.
Everyone’s saying “learn a trade.” But what happens when millions take that advice at the same time?
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