The Governance of Energy: Understanding How Harm Occurs

Dose, tolerance, and the nature of harm

Paracelsus observed that “all things are poison… only the dose makes the thing not a poison.” Although written in the context of toxicology, the principle extends well beyond chemistry. In modern risk terms, dose is the relationship between energy and human tolerance.

Humans are, bluntly, squishy creatures. We operate within narrow biological limits. The body can tolerate only finite levels of heat, force, voltage, pressure, acceleration, chemical concentration, or fatigue before damage occurs. The same energy may be harmless in one context and catastrophic in another, depending on how it is delivered.

A fall from standing height may bruise. A fall from height, at speed, onto a hard edge, at the wrong angle, produces a very different outcome. The difference is not intent or complexity, it is energy transfer.

Hazards as energy

Viewed through this lens, hazards are not abstract. Hazards are stored or moving energy. Harm occurs when energy transfers into people, plant, product, or environment beyond what they can tolerate.

Crucially, not all hazards are alike. Some are functional. Some are non-functional.

Functional hazards are those we deliberately harness inside our systems, electricity, rotating machinery, pressure, stored loads, chemical reactions. They enable production, transport, communication, and growth. Remove them and the organisation stops.

Non-functional hazards exist outside the system but can intrude, lightning, flood, seismic movement, external fire. They are not part of intended operations, but they can overwhelm them. Electricity in a lighting circuit allows us to see in the dark.

Electricity in a lightning strike sends us into it. The energy is identical. The difference lies in containment.

This distinction, recognised in barrier analysis literature, reframes risk. The challenge is not eliminating hazards. It is governing the energy we choose to harness, and defending against the energy we do not.

The real task of control

Organisations do not remove energy from their systems. They design, channel, and contain it.

The problem is rarely energy itself. The problem is loss of control, commonly through:

• design that did not anticipate real operating conditions

  
  

• construction, installation, or modification that introduced weakness

  
  

• maintenance that did not keep pace with degradation

  
  

• operational practices that normalised workarounds

  
  

• governance that relied on risk registers and likelihood scores, rather than testing whether higher-order controls were in place for the highest-energy hazards

When energy escapes its intended pathway, it transfers to the nearest vulnerable target. If it does not interrupt production or injure a person, it may pass unnoticed. This is how organisations drift. Uncontrolled energy can exist as repeated near misses long before it produces serious harm.

The better question

A more disciplined question is therefore not, “Do we have a safety system?” It is:

"Where is the energy stored, how could it escape, and what is preventing that transfer today"?

This is the same lens applied after serious events, when decisions and controls are examined under pressure. Organisations that perform well are not those with the most documentation. They are those able to demonstrate that their barriers are proportionate, maintained, and verified.

The dose that Paracelsus described is rarely determined at the moment of harm. It is shaped earlier, in design, investment, supervision, and oversight.

Energy is neutral. Its governance is not.

Functional Hazard Reference: Trost, W.A., & Nertney, R.J. (1995). Barrier Analysis. Technical Research and Analysis Center, Scientech Inc, Idaho