Historically, doctors have not always acknowledged that they have an obligation to prevent suicide, partly because they shared the prevalent idea that most suicides were caused by moral crises, no concern of theirs—and indeed suicide was a criminal matter until quite recently; but more, perhaps, because a fatalism has characterized their attitudes to its prevention, even where the suicide was clearly suffering from mental illness. Yet two recent American studies have shown more than 90 per cent of suicides to be mentally ill before their death (17, 8); this finding and the familiar clinical observation that suicidal thoughts disappear when the illness is successfully treated provide a strong case for a medical policy of prevention.

To ensure the continued safety of SERFs employees, the community, and the environment, NREL commissioned an internal audit of its photovoltaic operations that used hazardous production materials (Ht'Ms). As a result of this audit, NREL management voluntarily suspended all operations using toxic and/or pyrophoric gases. This suspension affected seven laboratories and ten individual deposition systems. These activities are located in Building 16, which has a permitted occupancy of Group B, Division 2 (B-2). NREL management decided to do the the following. l) Exclude from this SAR all operations which conformed, or could easily be made to conform, to B-2 Occupancy requirements. 2) Include in this SAR ali operations that could be made to conform to B-2 Occupancy requirements with special administrative and engineering controls 3) Move ali operations that could not practically be made to conform to B-2 Occupancy requirements to alternate locations. In addition to the layered set of administrative and engineering controls set forth in this SAR, a semiquantitative risk analysis was performed on 30 various accident scenarios. Twelve presented only routine risks, while 18 presented low risks.. Considering the demonstrated safe operating history of NREL in general and these systems specifically, the nature of the risks identified, and the layered set of administrative and engineering controls, it is clear that this facility falls within the DOE Low Hazard Class. Each operation can restart only after it has passed an Operational Readiness Review, comparing it to the requirements of this SAR, while subsequent safety inspections will ensure future compliance. / .

This paper summarizes the methodology we use to ensur_'_¢safe-use-of ...... ..... hazardous materials at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). First. we analyze the processes and the materials used in those processes to identify the hazards presented. Then we study federal, state, and local regulations and apply the relevant requirements ).o our operations.When necessary, we generate internal safety documents to consolidate this information. We design research operations and support systems to conform to these requirements. Befo,,_ we construct the systems, we perform a semiquandtative risk analysis on likely accident scenarios. Ali scenarios presenting an unacceptable risk require system or procedural modifications to reduce the risk. FoLlowing these modifications, we repeat the risk analysis to ensure that the respective accident scenarios present an acce0table risk. Once ali risks are acceptable, we conduct an operational readiness review (ORR). A managementappointed panel performs the ORR ensuring compliance with all relevant requirements. After sac_ completion of tlm ORR, operafioas can begin. INTRODUCTIONNREL conducts research on virtually the entire spectrum of renewable energy technologies. A port/on of NREL's internal research activities is in advanced material technologies for photovoltaic (PV) applications. The fabrication ofPV devices often involves the use of materials, chemicals, and processes with intrinsic hazards.These hazards include the use of toxic, corrosive, flammable, and pyrophoric gases, liquids, and/or solids; known as hazardous production materials (HPMs) under the Uniform Fire Code (UFC -Section 51.102) I. The NREL systems using these chemicals are not production-scale operations. The quantifies of chemicals in use are small. However, they have one or more hazard makings of 3 or 4 and are used directly in research processes. Therefore, they meet the clef'tuitionof an HPM.We present in this paper a methodolo_' for ensuring the safe use of HPMs in our facilities. In the past, the elements of this methodology were applied informally. Recendy, with the assistance of Environment, Safety, and Health (ES&H) experts from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), we have formalized the process. Figure 1 is a flow chart that illustrates the individual steps of this methodology. IDENTIFICATION OF HAZARDSThe fin'st step in this process is the identification of hazards. There are basically two areas that we investigate to identify hazards. First we look at the materials involved in PV device fabrication. By analyzing the material safety data sheets and