tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62691099097495446202024-03-17T23:03:34.856-07:00The Poop EngineerAndy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-37520525669482159052020-05-15T19:54:00.000-07:002020-05-15T19:54:23.265-07:00A Rose by Any Other Name<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho3veNLBpCvrduQiN2VRTcNFyRQ6jo5GF9o4Q4e7d29O3tTplWvGQKJcft8l4nVZGRNWU_H0N72LDA8Hr2COBKUHz9ZEToNQpcYON_pYy5D6L2wKQbus3OfPBBgWEixNHceU99tlkHvLw/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5184" data-original-width="3456" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho3veNLBpCvrduQiN2VRTcNFyRQ6jo5GF9o4Q4e7d29O3tTplWvGQKJcft8l4nVZGRNWU_H0N72LDA8Hr2COBKUHz9ZEToNQpcYON_pYy5D6L2wKQbus3OfPBBgWEixNHceU99tlkHvLw/w213-h320/meghan-schiereck--2eJaLtf_bI-unsplash.jpg" title="Photo by Meghan Schiereck on Unsplash" width="213" /></a></div><br /></div><div>OK, I turn 50 later this year and I'm wondering if that's old enough to officially be a grumpy old man? My reason for asking is I realize that there's something that bugs me. I hate buzzwords. Actually I don't think it's a grumpy old man thing as I've always had a dislike for buzzwords along with an even stronger distaste for using unnecessarily complicated or pretentious language. I'm sure I'm guilty of using both, but nothing pleases me more than explaining complicated ideas using plain and simple language. In my mind the responsibility for good communication lies with the person doing the communicating. If they can't get across what they're saying so that the intended audience understands it nice and clearly then they need to try again. The person reading or listening should not have to consult a dictionary or Google the latest buzzword list because someone is trying to appear cool or more intelligent.</div><div><br /></div><div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Buzzkill</h2><div>Now I should be careful, I guess, because there is the argument that putting a new name to something can create a "buzz" (I guess that's why it's a buzzword?). It can create new interest in something old. There's also the argument that sometimes a new word or expression captures an idea or concept better somehow than however it was expressed in the past. Still I can't shake the thought that it's often the case that someone is trying to say something is new, when really it's just repackaging of an old idea and giving it a new name. Like I said, I may really be a grumpy old man already!</div><div><br /></div><div>OK, OK, grumpy old man, give us some examples so we can see what you're talking about. Alrighty then young whipper-snapper, here is my "top 5" (or is that bottom 5?) of buzzwords that rub me the wrong way, starting from the least offensive to the one that will cause me to use <a href="https://timhawkins.net/products/alternative-cuss-words-poster" target="_blank">almost cuss words</a>...</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h3>1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_economy">Circular economy</a></h3><div>This one used to bug me a lot more, but I've slowly warmed up to it. It basically means to use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_cycle_thinking" target="_blank">life cycle thinking</a> about a product or process and the way it affects the environment. Having done a fair bit of work on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_assessment" target="_blank">life cycle assessments</a> (LCA) to look at environmental impacts it really bothered me when people used the expression "circular economy" to say the same thing, more or less. But, I guess if you use "economy" in an expression then the bean counters will pay attention, and maybe it's a snappier title than having to explain a whole bunch of concepts with life cycles? I don't know. I give this just 2.5 out of 5 on my grump-o-meter. </div><div><br /></div><h3>2. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_proposition" target="_blank">Value proposition</a></h3><div>Hmmm, I remember the first time I was in meeting and someone kept talking about "value propositions" and I had no clue, so I leaned over to my colleague and asked him what the heck it means. "It means a business case." Ah. Then why not say "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_case" target="_blank">business case</a>" then? I should add that I'm a technical poop engineer and until that time I'd managed to avoid the cold realities of business stuff and business-speak, but here I am now dealing with a different type of fecal linguistics. Yeah, "value proposition" still rubs me the wrong way, but it's here to stay I guess. 3.0 on the grump-o-meter... unless you want to really get my juices flowing and shorten it to "value prop." and then I'll give you 3.5 or even 4.0.</div><div><br /></div><h3>3. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_twin" target="_blank">Digital twin</a></h3><div>I have to be careful with this one so that I don't violate my own dislike of pretentiousness. I've worked with computer models for more than 20 years and messed around with computers since the 1980's (yup I had a Sinclair <a href="https://www.worldofspectrum.org/" target="_blank">ZX Spectrum</a> and I was proud of it!). So here we are in 2020 and all of a sudden everything is freakin' "digital." Arghh. So, a "digital twin" is in fact a "computer model." Why we can't say that I don't know. Definitely a 3.5 on my grump-o-meter despite the fact that I use the term myself now on occasion as it's creeping into more conversations... and hate myself for doing so, just a little.</div><div><br /></div><h3>4. <a href="https://www.saint-gobain-pam.co.uk/totex-based-approach-reshaping-water-sector" target="_blank">Totex</a></h3><div>OK, I tried to look this up on Wikipedia to give you an official definition, but I think it's beneath them to even have this. According to Wikipedia it's a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totex" target="_blank">Japanese company</a> that makes weather balloons. I actually much prefer that over the current vogue in the UK water sector where TOTEX is the name given to accounting for both operating expenses (OPEX) and the capital expenditure (CAPEX) in a project combined as... you guessed it... TOTEX, short for "total expenditure" or something like that I guess. It's an all new and fancy way of looking at projects... no wait a minute. It's a basic economic evaluation of operating and capital costs or value over time that's been called a "net present value" (NPV) or "net present cost" for years and years. That's how we've evaluated every project I've ever worked on since I was a poop engineer, I think. So what's new and shiny about "Totex"? Nothing. It's a basic and sensible economic evaluation that every sensible engineer has done since they graduated from university. 4.9 on my grump-o-meter. Please do shoot me if I ever use the expression. Or at least slap me very hard.</div><div><br /></div><h3>5. <a href="https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-ideation-and-how-to-prepare-for-ideation-sessions" target="_blank">Ideation</a></h3></div><div>Number 5 and an easy 5.0 on my grump-o-meter. Who came up with this word? It's not a real word. Let me go and slap them a little. Oh wait, it's an <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideation" target="_blank">old word from 1818</a>, though it appears it was originally a psychiatric term for suicidal thoughts. Huh, I'd never have guessed. Still, it's current usage is slap-worthy. It's a precocious way of saying "idea generation" or "brainstorming," but only if you think you're a cool person. Please, don't. It's really not cool.</div><div><br /></div><div>OK so that was my rant for the day. I should say that I really don't feel too strongly about any of these words if you really, really do want to use them. Go ahead. I won't slap you really. Well not much. In my next post perhaps I'll make the pitch to have the word "squoze" added to the dictionary. English is, after-all, a consensus language!</div><div><br /></div><div>I'd better go and ideate a new digital twin, being careful to include totex in my value proposition under the nexus of the circular economy.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiMW_ncmozC1qGxEuooxKZcUW5oS7vbSs5P17NPe7j_KHTI2gjoYztyu0fJ_VSiumqLn05VQw9vAeUpRAOdW5UBzxSNziNHOH_NoxILOEpD4KkIQnd_CMoMIQI3bTdK4W0e2N05veIURn8oE30Qrt72wh2ecUN-xhmCOIjItMnmWC0wRlG63Ltm2MSIqGI1GKPUMvmAAvSMhRv1a4_d_L0-KY4NSPfenJOVHsSuUqQWhxYFxCVjTDg=s2048" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiMW_ncmozC1qGxEuooxKZcUW5oS7vbSs5P17NPe7j_KHTI2gjoYztyu0fJ_VSiumqLn05VQw9vAeUpRAOdW5UBzxSNziNHOH_NoxILOEpD4KkIQnd_CMoMIQI3bTdK4W0e2N05veIURn8oE30Qrt72wh2ecUN-xhmCOIjItMnmWC0wRlG63Ltm2MSIqGI1GKPUMvmAAvSMhRv1a4_d_L0-KY4NSPfenJOVHsSuUqQWhxYFxCVjTDg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-32606887669337187152020-03-26T21:57:00.001-07:002020-03-26T21:57:49.307-07:00WAH WAH WAHNo I'm not crying yet, but I am limiting the amount of news I watch now we're in the middle of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic" target="_blank">COVID-19 pandemic</a>. It's serious enough without the media hype, so I think I'll read the news on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/news/daily-rundown/" target="_blank">LinkedIn </a>or other less hyperbolic outlets for a while.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjirt0cHoB7vU4XxfxzjHBBmEPGh33br5xafYBZcXDcerGtJjObdxhWfmrH_Rf3vuZMP5SbR9VJGl28gplo0S2DV08gwne_qWaMzV4mHMqP1Ykh2iQl-xpveTJ_gX33c_n_c4v6rUErO1o/s1600/marco-albuquerque-EyItxWgbefc-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjirt0cHoB7vU4XxfxzjHBBmEPGh33br5xafYBZcXDcerGtJjObdxhWfmrH_Rf3vuZMP5SbR9VJGl28gplo0S2DV08gwne_qWaMzV4mHMqP1Ykh2iQl-xpveTJ_gX33c_n_c4v6rUErO1o/s320/marco-albuquerque-EyItxWgbefc-unsplash.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #111111; font-family: , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "san francisco" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "ubuntu" , "roboto" , "noto" , "segoe ui" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap;">Photo by </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/@relaxmarco?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #767676; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "San Francisco", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration-skip: ink; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out, opacity 0.1s ease-in-out; white-space: nowrap;">Marco Albuquerque</a><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #111111; font-family: , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "san francisco" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "ubuntu" , "roboto" , "noto" , "segoe ui" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap;"> on </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/yelling?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #767676; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "San Francisco", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration-skip: ink; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out, opacity 0.1s ease-in-out; white-space: nowrap;">Unsplash</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The topic for this blog <i>is</i> related to what's going on right now - working at home (WAH) - which is what a whole bunch of people are being forced to do in order to limit the spread of the virus. This is also know as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommuting" target="_blank">telecommuting</a>, working from home (WFH), teleworking, mobile working, remote working and who knows what else. But I prefer "WAH" just because that's what I used to put on our out of office sheet (a lot!) when I worked in Kansas City and it sounds like I'm a big baby!<br />
<br />
In a previous blog I talked about the <a href="https://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2018/03/work-life-balance-or-blend.html" target="_blank">work-life balance/blend</a> and in it I mentioned listing out the pros and cons of WAH and so, given that so many of us are stuck at home working now, I thought I'd take a shot at listing my own perspective on the pros and cons from working at home a fair amount over the years, as well as some pitfalls to avoid your WAH becoming "wah, wah, wah"! So here goes with 10 of each...<br />
<br />
<h2>
10 Pros of WAH</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<ol><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAAumBji8s-OhY6Sq9hQw_LgzGC9XEO9qdlg6s1RQmj6MTGiA2dwAjZoTrvN8diJEbl7O0eJ4YlbCo__WXr4EsDtDpDploTVw3DDmXdscrsubqezWaTCOeWrN02D_iDQcpWPQpLSV1cdE/s1600/CEA483FC-8EF4-48E7-940D-D98A36EF7E05.heic" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAAumBji8s-OhY6Sq9hQw_LgzGC9XEO9qdlg6s1RQmj6MTGiA2dwAjZoTrvN8diJEbl7O0eJ4YlbCo__WXr4EsDtDpDploTVw3DDmXdscrsubqezWaTCOeWrN02D_iDQcpWPQpLSV1cdE/s320/CEA483FC-8EF4-48E7-940D-D98A36EF7E05.heic" width="320" /></a>
<li><b>No commute.</b> Whether you have to fight traffic or fight the crowds in the subway, there's no denying it's a lot less stressful shuffling off to your home office or kitchen table in your bunny slippers (see Pro item 3).</li>
<li><b>An extra hour or two in your day. </b> Linked to not having to commute, but in my mind worth separating out as a benefit on its own, is that the time you used to spend traveling to and from work is wasted time that you now get back to use as you see fit. Many people make the most of that time by listening to <a href="https://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/discover/" target="_blank">podcasts</a>, making calls, listening to <a href="https://www.audible.com/" target="_blank">audiobooks</a> etc. but to me that's more that they're making the most of a bad situation. If you WAH you can listen to that favorite podcast when you want, make a call that won't drop, or actually read a real book!</li>
<li><b>Very relaxed dress code.</b> Sure, wear your <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bunny+slippers&ref=nb_sb_noss_1" target="_blank">bunny slippers</a>. Heck wear a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tipsy-Elves-American-Jumpsuit-Medium/dp/B00KVOTHPO/ref=sr_1_19?crid=1CCKHI2I4DLN2&dchild=1&keywords=onesie+adult+men&qid=1585274564&sprefix=onesie%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-19" target="_blank">onesie</a> if you feel like it. Hmmm, maybe not if you're going to do any video conferencing.</li>
<li><b>Better connectivity and IT</b>. I need to be careful here so that I don't offend my employer, and maybe it's because I'm a geek with my own preferences when it comes to computer stuff, but over the years I've generally had a better internet connection at home (thanks <a href="https://my.xfinity.com/" target="_blank">Xfinity</a>), and a printer and scanner that work better than the office one. Also, I can use my own Mac or iPad when my work laptop is grinding to a halt because of Windows issues or the standard software I can't configure gets bogged down for random reasons. Now, I must say that my current work laptop is working a whole lot better than some have in the past and, generally speaking, the days of my laptop grinding to a halt are mostly gone.</li>
<li><b>Better coffee.</b> If you've read my previous post, you knew this one was coming. Whether you're a <a href="https://www.nespresso.com/us/en/" target="_blank">Nespresso</a> fan like me, or you grind your own <a href="https://dimbulahcoffee.com/" target="_blank">favorite beans</a>, or pick out your fave <a href="https://www.keurig.com/Beverages/Dark-Roast/Dark-Magic%C2%AE-Coffee/p/Dark-Magic-Extra-Bold-Coffee-K-Cup-Green-Mountain:24_CT" target="_blank">K-cup</a>, you generally have a better selection and control over what you can drink at home. Many offices are pretty good in stepping up their game in the coffee department - our office provides a <a href="https://www.keurig.com/coffee+makers/c/coffeemakers101" target="_blank">Keurig machine</a> - but unless you work at a fancy startup that has candy bowls and it's <a href="https://www.ollacoffee.com/your-office-barista" target="_blank">own barista</a>, you can generally get better coffee at your own abode.</li>
<li><b>Flexible working hours.</b> This is where I should refer back to the <a href="https://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2018/03/work-life-balance-or-blend.html" target="_blank">work-life balance/blend </a>article. If you do it right then the flexibility of shifting your work hours can be really useful. You can do that with a job where you go to an office but it's much easier to do it when you're working from home.</li>
<li><b>Lower your carbon footprint.</b> Well maybe. According to <a href="https://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/05/22/will-flexible-working-really-shrink-your-carbon-footprint" target="_blank">this article</a> it depends. I think in my case the GHG emissions from driving my little hybrid to the office is probably balanced by the need for the AC in our house when I WAH. I should check...</li>
<li><b>Dogs. </b>Yup, I share my home office with my dogs (and a cat sometimes). They are awesome. Now if I could take them to the main office, perhaps...?</li>
<li><b>Your own refrigerator.</b> Your favorite snacks, leftovers... all in your very own refrigerator. You don't have to share the space with the rest of the office, and it's not all thrown out on Friday afternoon by the cleaners, your favorite container and all (well not in our house!).</li>
<li><b>The bar.</b> My company has strict alcohol policies that forbid booze to even be on their premises. In my house it's perfectly legal. When 5 o'clock comes around...</li>
</ol>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIVVn9QEVKZ5h2PpbYB6-nNLOgVt3noIrKdtem1EkDLWed9f-FZC-7DxkionfNygfplp4M2AxMEKGQTcrDBSXJk6AF5qKVltMKONd5MByY1bRw1hv0_wAlXv-ADl0sMS2vaYtLTt57CUU/s1600/1325DCDC-DC0A-4CA6-B252-86A2B989A09A.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIVVn9QEVKZ5h2PpbYB6-nNLOgVt3noIrKdtem1EkDLWed9f-FZC-7DxkionfNygfplp4M2AxMEKGQTcrDBSXJk6AF5qKVltMKONd5MByY1bRw1hv0_wAlXv-ADl0sMS2vaYtLTt57CUU/s320/1325DCDC-DC0A-4CA6-B252-86A2B989A09A.heic" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
10 Woes of WAH</h2>
OK, you can see my obvious bias with the long list of "pros" for WAH. But it's not all roses. Here are some downsides to WAH...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DYu_bGbZiiQ/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DYu_bGbZiiQ?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<ol>
<li><b>No in-person communication. </b>Yeah you can overcome this somewhat with video chat, if you can persuade your shy co-workers to turn on their camera, but it's not quite the same. And when it comes to group calls hmmm, that can be an amusing challenge...</li>
<li><b>Working longer hours. </b>In the "pros" I highlighted the time you get back from not having to commute, but it's easy for that to become extra work time. You need to manage that carefully to avoid burnout.</li>
<li><b>No decompression/transition time.</b> Ironically, that long commute that I listed as a negative in the previous list, is actually useful for some people as a time to transition from work to home life (particularly if you're listening to your Podcast on how to deal with stress at work!). Without that some folks struggle to transition out of their work mode to home mode.</li>
<li><b>Work-life blur. </b>So there's work-life balance, or the flexibility of work-life blend, but what can happen is that you never turn off from work. Now this can happen even if you don't work from home, but I think it's a bigger danger when you do WAH. Checking e-mails in the evening and as soon as you wake in the morning are tell-tale signs your work is dominating everything and the balance/blend is just a blur.</li>
<li><b>Interruptions.</b> When we bought our house in Texas we purposely looked for one with an office, so I'm generally well set up to avoid interruptions, but if you're using common space like the kitchen or, like many poor souls right now you're having to manage your kids home from school and try to work at the same time, it can be a challenge. I'm guessing there are many <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh4f9AYRCZY" target="_blank">BBC dads</a> out there right now. I feel for ya.</li>
<li><b>No meeting space.</b> Right now we're practicing "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_distancing#/media/File:Covid-19-Transmission-graphic-01.gif" target="_blank">social distancing</a>" to combat the spread of the coronavirus, but when we get back to normal business life, one challenge of WAH is you don't have a place to meet people in person. It would be kind of weird and unprofessional to meet people at your home, unless you know them really well, so then you're stuck with arranging a meeting at a coffee shop maybe. But what about meeting or presenting with multiple people? There are <a href="https://www.wework.com/" target="_blank">ways of doing it</a>, but they're not as easy and convenient as using the common spaces and meeting rooms of most offices.</li>
<li><b>Reduced office facilities.</b> For some reason FedEx doesn't pick up from my house every evening and despite my bragging about superior IT at home, I have no way of printing out full- or half-sized drawings. There are just some things provided in an office setting that aren't there at home. So you have to figure that out (Thanks <a href="https://www.fedex.com/en-us/office.html" target="_blank">FedEx</a> and <a href="https://www.theupsstore.com/" target="_blank">UPS)</a></li>
<li><b>VPN and Internet Woes.</b> A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network" target="_blank">Virtual Private Network</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network" target="_blank"> </a>(VPN) allows you to connect to your corporate network via the internet over a secure connection. Very useful and very smart... and slow and not always available. Again, this is much better today than it was a few years ago, but still it can be a source of pain sometimes.</li>
<li><b>No <a href="https://www.thewatercoolercompany.com/Where-to-Position-Your-Water-Cooler-in-the-Office" target="_blank">water cooler conversations</a>.</b> I think this is an American idiom, but it basically means those unplanned conversations you have when you meet a colleague in a common space or in the corridor. Sometimes they are very useful and fruitful. When you're holed up at home you don't have those opportunities or conversations except with your significant other or the dog!</li>
<li><b>Personal hygiene.</b> Not sure how to put this delicately, but just a week into us all working from home, I'm noticing some of my colleagues on video chat have maybe not shaved as frequently as they used to. For sure I'm guilty as charged. </li>
</ol>
<h2>
Avoiding Pitfalls</h2>
<div>
On balance I definitely see the pros of WAH outweigh the woes, but beyond that, and being stuck at home whether we like it or not, we can overcome some of the downsides if we think about them a little. Here are a few tips to help overcome some of the pitfalls of WAH.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><b>Set a schedule.</b> In order to avoid overworking and the danger of work-life blur, be intentional about setting your daily schedule. Try to work fixed hours as you would in the office setting, but use the flexibility to suit you when you need it, still making sure you work the hours you need to, and not too much more.</li>
<li><b>Take a break.</b> Linked to the schedule, make sure to take breaks, go for a walk (take the dogs!), have a lunch break etc. At the end of your working time, take time to decompress and transition out of your work mode if you need to.</li>
<li><b>Take care of yourself.</b> For the sake of your significant other and your own dignity, please take a shower! Exercise and eat well. These apply as much for WAH as working in an office.</li>
<li><b>Be gracious, flexible and lighten-up.</b> It can be a bit weird to work from home, so let's cut each other some slack. Enjoy the "pros," and help each other in dealing with the cons by being a little more understanding and flexible ourselves. And let's have fun with it all. Life's too short not to!</li>
</ol>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, there is my take on WAH. I'd be interested to hear other's thoughts and experiences, so please share in the comments section.</div>
</div>
Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-71953701693880724812019-02-19T19:47:00.000-08:002019-02-19T19:47:48.334-08:00Resilient Wastewater TreatmentIt has been a while since I've blogged, perhaps because I don't feel like I had anything original to say since last time?! What I have been pondering of late is the topic of resilience (or <a href="https://grammarist.com/usage/resilience-resiliency/" target="_blank">resiliency</a> if you prefer.)<br />
<br />
<h2>
What is Resilient Wastewater Treatment?</h2>
Resilience isn't a <i>new</i> topic in the world of water, but having moved to Houston, Texas a couple of years ago it's certainly a <i>hot</i> topic in this part of the world. Interestingly the notion of resilience became a big deal in Texas in the area of water supply through the <a href="https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=dffc0cc0063f44c7a2ad2f572726dd09" target="_blank">2011-2015 drought</a> and indeed where you hear the term most is in relation to being able to provide a robust water supply no matter what the weather may not bring. Then along came <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Harvey" target="_blank">Hurricane Harvey</a> and all of a sudden all the talk about resilience that had been focused on <i>lack of </i>water was faced with dealing with <i>too much</i> water! So for water resources, the topic of resilience is tied to dealing with too much or too little water. But what about resilience in the context of wastewater treatment?<br />
<br />
There are many definitions for resilience, but a simple and useful one I found comes right from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: “<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resilience" target="_blank">an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change</a>.” Now breaking this down a little we need to think about what we need our plants to be <i>resilient against</i> (the "misfortune"), and what <i>facets</i> or features we need in order to "recover from or adjust easily to" said misfortune, which I'll do in the next couple of sections.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Facing Misfortune</h3>
So what misfortunes might our wastewater treatment plants face? The very nature of all municipal wastewater treatment facilities and many industrial facilities is very dynamic, with diurnal flows and loads, seasonal shifts, having to deal with flows no matter what is coming down the pipe and managing all of this even if pieces and parts of the plant break down now and then. None of this could be classed as "misfortune" as it's within the realm of the normal operation of the facility and it's what it's designed to do.<br />
I'd like to suggest 5 potential misfortunes we should consider if we want to make our facilities more resilient:<br />
<ol>
<li><i><b>Excessive Flows</b></i> - I guess you could argue that many facilities have a maximum flow above which they're not expected to give full treatment (<a href="https://www.epa.gov/npdes/peak-flows-sewage-treatment-plants" target="_blank">which is a whole can of worms</a>), but having lived through the deluge of Harvey and having worked on plants with very high "peaking factors" when the rains come, I think this is worth categorizing as a misfortune, particularly as we see more frequent and extreme wet weather in many parts of the world.</li>
<li><i><b>Power Outages</b></i> - In most facilities, particularly those above a certain size, it's common to have some kind of<a href="https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/cyfair-news/article/Storm-lessons-Water-providers-get-new-generators-1585304.php" target="_blank"> back-up electricity generation</a>, but even with these, no plant is 100% invulnerable to power outages, and most plants use plenty of pumps and aeration devices that need continuous power in order to function.</li>
<li><i><b>Toxicity</b></i> (Chemical, biological, or radiological) - Either through mishap, some industry not thinking through the possible impact of dumping off-spec materials, or even some nefarious person seeking to cause mischief, the introduction of too high a load of certain chemicals or biological or radiological agents into a sewer system can cause acute or chronic toxicity to biological treatment systems. I was part of a team that investigated some ways to handle this in a <a href="https://www.werf.org/WERFDownload.aspx?ContentKey=eae021e1-e617-4804-8448-9b67df71f115&ContentItemKey=c8cdd3d1-f304-405b-a210-deeae0b3fc79" target="_blank">WERF project</a> a few years ago.</li>
<li><i><b>Physical Damage</b></i> - From someone accidentally dropping a wrench into a mechanism, or something large or sharp finding it's way down the sewer, to the same nefarious individual from misfortune #3 deciding to blow up the poop plant, or even the more likely scenario of an earthquake there are misfortunes that can cause physical damage to the plant and it's equipment.</li>
<li><i><b>Cyber Attack</b></i> - In the age of the "internet of things" (IoT), no list of potential dangers is complete without thinking about potential cyber attacks. When the North Korean/Chinese/Russian/American hackers get bored with trying to cause mayhem on the more high profile infrastructure like nuclear power plants, they could turn their attention to the more mundane target of a poop plant. Might not be able to persuade <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2717822/" target="_blank">Chris Hemsworth</a> to be in that movie though... </li>
</ol>
<br />
<h3>
Facets of a Resilient Treatment System</h3>
OK, so we've thought about potential mishaps that might hit our plant. What features do we want in order to be able to handle them? When I initially thought about this I came up with a list of 7 that included things like simplicity and criticality, but I then boiled it down to just 4, particularly as I thought about the definition of resilience as being able to "recover from or adjust easily to" and in trying to apply the ideas to a wastewater treatment system. So here they are:<br />
<ol>
<li><i><b>Autonomous</b></i> - a system that needs little or no attention. It just works on its own.</li>
<li><i><b>Dormancy capabilities</b></i> - if the system is shut down, there are no problems when it starts up again.</li>
<li><i><b>Rugged</b></i> - can the process handle extreme conditions outside its normal operation? It may only give partial treatment, but it does not fail completely.</li>
<li><i><b>Flexible (multipurpose)</b></i> - When
the proverbial does hit the fan, can the system be used for other helpful
things other than what it was designed to do? In an emergency situation it
could be good to have something that has the flexibility to be re-purposed.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<h3>
Bringing the Ideas Together - Technology Assessment</h3>
So, I've thrown out a few ideas and defined some terms. In order to test the usefulness of the ideas, I decided to try scoring different technologies in terms of the the 4 features versus their ability to withstand the 5 potential hazards. The list I chose and the scoring are pretty subjective, but it was a fun exercise. The table below shows my scoring of the features for 16 different treatment technology types on the left side of the table (I used a simple 1 to 5 scale with 5 being good), and then scoring their ability to withstand the various hazard categories on the right side of the table (also scoring from 1 to 5, for bad to best). For the features I combine the scores for each technology into an overall "Resiliency Feature Index" where an index of 1.0 would be perfect; then I created a similar index in combining the scores that I called "Overall Resiliency Index". The result is a pretty color map that doesn't show a whole lot yet (but be patient, there's more...).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0cnq8pZJwHTweESkYuCE6MjFQwtXqJM-pcUrQBAUu7UxKK5Ykntep2QYNHFKFhHH_RhZKlm1YB4Z8u3F3SZ8DfD9Oep0Hay8tZJDk6rwKedKIsqnizZkFESbZFDYroNUKwLFrNVZyoe4/s1600/Matrix.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="605" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0cnq8pZJwHTweESkYuCE6MjFQwtXqJM-pcUrQBAUu7UxKK5Ykntep2QYNHFKFhHH_RhZKlm1YB4Z8u3F3SZ8DfD9Oep0Hay8tZJDk6rwKedKIsqnizZkFESbZFDYroNUKwLFrNVZyoe4/s400/Matrix.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">WWTP Resilience Matrix</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Next I took the indices and plotted them against each other to produce the far more intriguing graph below.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_6ZCjD-BslTF8PYy9hjE3OKlBvMtgsfrOsh_2n7YGv3IQIXQgmChB4Ihtl9LZ4ktl4K3PrrQpSFRMcXiLKFipztiJwGC-U7Zz-UTcxTbb3CU56b_0SiozPLDpmyGx2gl3tudTxUOvdE/s1600/Graph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="969" data-original-width="1562" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_6ZCjD-BslTF8PYy9hjE3OKlBvMtgsfrOsh_2n7YGv3IQIXQgmChB4Ihtl9LZ4ktl4K3PrrQpSFRMcXiLKFipztiJwGC-U7Zz-UTcxTbb3CU56b_0SiozPLDpmyGx2gl3tudTxUOvdE/s640/Graph.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Now what do we see? A few things:<br />
<ul>
<li>Simpler processes, particularly those that don't use biological treatment, sit in the top right hand corner with a high Resiliency Feature Index and consequently high Overall Resiliency Index (high resiliency zone)</li>
<li>Biological systems that are the most mechanically complex sit in the bottom left hand corner (low resiliency zone).</li>
<li>The majority of the processes I selected sit somewhere in the middle of the graph (mid-range resiliency)</li>
</ul>
None of this is particularly surprising, I don't think, given the way I've defined resilience and in thinking through how each technology might respond to each of the 5 hazard types. It's hard to picture a simple screen or primary clarifier being susceptible to a Cyber attack or chemical attack. And even an excessive flow will get some treatment even if you overload the hydraulics to spilling point. Conversely if you hack into the control system of a BAF or MBR, that's not pretty. Throw some toxic substance into them or push the flows to the extreme and they don't like it!<br />
<br />
One last comment from this very rough and ready assessment - mostly just a way for me to think through the ideas and concepts - is in trying to tease out the differences in the mid-range zone which encompasses most of the technologies we use. Something that did stand out to me was that I scored biofilm-based technologies higher, particularly when I think about the impact of excessive flows and power outages. Getting back to my preamble about Harvey and the definition of resilience in Texas shifting to how we deal with extreme wet weather, this makes me think that perhaps treatment technologies such as MBBR and MABR might be a better fit than processes based on suspended growth.<br />
<br />
OK, I'm done. I'm happy to argue about my subjective scores over a beer or two, but you're buying!<br />
Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com59tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-70178144446775498012018-03-31T14:25:00.001-07:002018-03-31T14:25:17.999-07:00Work-life balance or blend?<div style="font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOEs34TrYuFxmSVUIMFr7C7zcZk-ohJ_xjd4ZvP6g-XehBhV9BUu45QajhRBbSb-UYX3fa0aJNbUaA1dtJ8TZHiKFC5t1C-PtRVMQpg_46mg17fZvzlf6vqus-OAUtRdCBxAS-U7M-ZBM/s1600/IMG_0806.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOEs34TrYuFxmSVUIMFr7C7zcZk-ohJ_xjd4ZvP6g-XehBhV9BUu45QajhRBbSb-UYX3fa0aJNbUaA1dtJ8TZHiKFC5t1C-PtRVMQpg_46mg17fZvzlf6vqus-OAUtRdCBxAS-U7M-ZBM/s320/IMG_0806.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">In my job I travel a lot. I work on projects across different time zones. I like coffee.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.1px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><img src="webkit-fake-url://7effdd95-692f-41d3-a075-15555f0bda06/imagejpeg" /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">About a year ago we moved to Houston and, although I’m officially based in our Houston office, I often work from home. It’s a habit I picked up in Kansas but now I’m in Houston with a reasonably long commute when the traffic is bad - as it often is in Houston - it’s tough for me to drag my butt to the office. Add to that the fact that my wife set me up with a nice office at home and bought a <a href="https://www.nespresso.com/us/en/order/machines/vertuo/vertuo-black-matt-coffee-machine" target="_blank">fancy Nespresso machine</a> and the commute really loses it’s appeal. Did I mention I like coffee?</span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.1px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">I could write a blog on the pros and cons of working from home versus the office but it’s pretty clear where I stand on the issue... I thought instead it would be worthwhile discussing the thorny issue of managing your time when you’re a remote worker.</span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<h2>
Balancing Act</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1499674122085-f827842482ff?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=85&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=srgb&dl=leio-mclaren-307277-unsplash.jpg&s=d5e166b57b51b35e17198ae53751b801" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="533" height="320" src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1499674122085-f827842482ff?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=85&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=srgb&dl=leio-mclaren-307277-unsplash.jpg&s=d5e166b57b51b35e17198ae53751b801" title="Photo by Leio McLaren on Unsplash" width="213" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One approach to managing your time when working from home is to “clock in” and “clock out” at the same time you would if you were heading into the office. This takes some discipline but hey, you already saved the hour commute into work and the hour back, so it’s worth the effort. There are two major benefits to this approach</span>: </span></span>
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 11pt;">You’re in sync with the office</span></li>
<li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 11pt;">You get to balance work time with home time better. </span></li>
</ol>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I think the first benefit is self-evident but perhaps the latter needs a little unpacking.</span> One of the big dangers with working from home is that you never stop working. Your 9 to 5 becomes an 8 to 8 (am to pm that is) and your work to life balance gets way out of whack. The stress from commuting is replaced by plain old over-working stress. I've been there, done that, got the T-shirt, when I was based in an office, so I certainly don't want to repeat that mistake when working from home.</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Now I should back up and mention that I've never been one for watching the clock. One of my early bosses once said that if you're the kind of employee that's always watching the clock then you're not the kind of employee he wanted. I appreciate some flexibility in the hours I'm working. Poop engineers generally work on multiple projects, billing their time to several each week using the beloved <a href="https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/500x/62713098/do-your-timesheets-you-must.jpg" target="_blank">timesheet</a> (ah, second only to <a href="http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/expense-reports.jpg" target="_blank">expense forms</a> as the most hated business tool in existence), and the mystical project numbers. As long as I do 40 hours of useful work in the week it doesn't really matter how that was completed, within reason. </span></div>
<h2>
<a href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1473923377535-0002805f57e8?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=85&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=srgb&dl=wu-yi-137010-unsplash.jpg&s=061d9a313a8064a49edbcad1de4325a3" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="800" height="184" src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1473923377535-0002805f57e8?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=85&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=srgb&dl=wu-yi-137010-unsplash.jpg&s=061d9a313a8064a49edbcad1de4325a3" title="Photo by wu yi on Unsplash" width="320" /></a>House Blend</h2>
I think it was my current boss that I first heard use the expression "work-life blend" and it resonated with me. As I mentioned previously in this post, poop engineers work on multiple projects. This means my workload varies quite widely. There are days where I have deadlines to meet but still someone needs a piece of advice or help that was unscheduled. On those days it's not unusual to have to work into the evenings. As someone who works with colleagues around the world, it's also common for me to have a conference call in the evenings. In parallel with this I may have obligations with family and friends or my church. My wife takes it pretty easy on me with "honey-do's" but still I have a few. How do you manage that with a fixed, evenly balanced work day? The answer is, you don't. So you have the option of just being a workaholic, e-mail junkie - been there and still don't like the T-shirt - or seek a different approach.<br />
<br />
Enter the "work-life blend." The gist of this approach is that you don't compartmentalize your life into work time and private time, but you blend the two. I found a nice article on Forbes by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronashkenas/" target="_blank">Ron Ashkenas</a> titled "<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronashkenas/2012/10/19/forget-work-life-balance-its-time-for-work-life-blend/" target="_blank">Forget Work-Life Balance: It's Time for Work-Life Blend</a>" which is about perfect for this blog!!! He discusses how we should acknowledge how work intrudes into our personal lives in the connected world in which we now live and rather than fighting it, look for ways to integrate the two and manage it. The two implications he highlights are (1) less guilt for working outside of traditional hours and (2) the need for greater flexibility in how and when we work.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Bringing it Home</h2>
So what do I do? To be honest it's a bit of both... the work-life balanced-blend!! The backbone of what I try to do is to balance the time I spend in work so that I don't slip back into my bad workaholic habits. I make a conscious effort to disconnect from work at the weekends. If I have an evening or late night call overseas I'll sleep in the next morning, or take some downtime at some other time. But there are times when I have to let the work and private stuff blend and then I appreciate the flexibility my firm gives me to be able to do that. It's give and take. It works.<br />
<br />
Oh, and I drink plenty of coffee. Did I mention I like coffee? ;)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlN26v3SDnkSXvXF7RuQxNUpa22BgZXcai97Ej0XcEQri6VIDmn-RwE7Y0PcldzPyS5ObvlMKe7LqYIEKpBZ-0W6cPdriCHBDrZMBX1ACr_6EF5SnM5sD8WuIsPokuhYcWJfu1RTscxyA/s1600/quincy-alivio-28668-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1061" data-original-width="1600" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlN26v3SDnkSXvXF7RuQxNUpa22BgZXcai97Ej0XcEQri6VIDmn-RwE7Y0PcldzPyS5ObvlMKe7LqYIEKpBZ-0W6cPdriCHBDrZMBX1ACr_6EF5SnM5sD8WuIsPokuhYcWJfu1RTscxyA/s320/quincy-alivio-28668-unsplash.jpg" title="Photo by Quincy Alivio on Unsplash" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-4922958417944759382017-12-13T18:25:00.001-08:002017-12-13T18:29:21.541-08:00A legacy of disruptive innovationIn Australia last month, I picked up a copy of the magazine "<a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/" target="_blank">The Monthly</a>." I confess I'd never heard of it before, but one article in particular caught my eye: <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/november/1509454800/james-boyce/tablet-or-toilet" target="_blank">Tablet or Toilet?</a>. In the essay, historian <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/authors/james-boyce" target="_blank">James Boyce</a> makes the case that maybe the current revolutions based on computer technology aren't as transformative as we think, but more mundane inventions (e.g. the toilet!) have had a much bigger impact on human life over the past 150 years. I recommend you read his article. It's pretty compelling!<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In my world of civil and environmental engineering design there is a lot going on now with new ideas, tools and automation to make our designs quicker, cheaper and hopefully better. I thought it would be fun to think about some of the innovations that have shaped engineering over the past 150 years. I'm not an expert on engineering history, so I'll be leaning heavily on my old buddies <a href="https://www.google.com/" target="_blank">Google</a> and <a href="https://www.wikipedia.org/" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> for help (hey, maybe I should use the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/" target="_blank">Encyclopedia Britannica</a> for nostalia!). Here goes...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
Surveying</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/SovietTheodolite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/SovietTheodolite.jpg" width="242" /></a></div>
<div>
OK, so I thought I'd look back in history and find that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodolite" target="_blank">theodolite</a> - mainstay of surveyors throughout the 20th Century - would have been a relatively new invention, but according to Wikipedia it was invented by a fella called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Digges_(scientist)" target="_blank">Leonard Digges</a> in the 1500's! Now according to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/theodolite" target="_blank">Encyclopedia Britannica</a> their use for surveying didn't really take off until the invention of <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/lKu6x.jpg" target="_blank">log tables</a> in 1620, but what the heck! I guess these disruptive inventions are WAY older than I thought. Maybe it's time for a new disrupter...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle" target="_blank">Unmanned Aerial Vehicles</a> (UAV) aka "drones" are in the news a lot these days. In my own firm, we actually have a <a href="https://www.bv.com/news/integrated-drone-solution-enhances-utility-asset-data" target="_blank">group focused on inspections</a> using drones. Pretty cool stuff. Their application for surveying is a no-brainer. They can produce accurate surveys in a fraction of the time. Here's <a href="http://www.landpoint.net/services/aerial-data-collection-uav-uas-drones/" target="_blank">one example</a>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The other cool innovation is <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/lidar.html" target="_blank">LIDAR/laser</a> scanning which enables existing structures to be captured in digital format and translated straight into models and drawings. Now couple this with UAVs and we're in <a href="http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/3d-mapping-technology-in-prometheus/view" target="_blank">Sci-Fi </a>land already!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
Drawings</h2>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.victorianplaces.com.au/sites/default/files/styles/watermarked/public/exhibits/JYB0244.jpg?itok=xdYI5_Nr" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.victorianplaces.com.au/sites/default/files/styles/watermarked/public/exhibits/JYB0244.jpg?itok=xdYI5_Nr" data-original-height="609" data-original-width="800" height="151" width="200" /></a></div>
Aha, now this time I am in the 150-year window. Back in the 19th Century the advent of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueprint" target="_blank">blueprints</a> enabled engineers and architects to make copies of drawings more easily and with greater accuracy. To make these drawings, though, required massive teams of draftsmen in their <a href="http://www.victorianplaces.com.au/node/64318" target="_blank">drawing offices</a>.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to the end of the 20th Century and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_design" target="_blank">Computer Aided Design</a> (CAD) emerges on the scene to make the production and reproduction of drawings simpler (bye-bye drawing office, hello CAD-Tech). The next step was to produce <a href="https://www.autodesk.com/solutions/cad-software" target="_blank">3-D "models</a>" instead of simple drawings, from which drawings and other information can be pulled.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="https://damassets.autodesk.net/content/dam/autodesk/www/products/bim-360-team/fy18/features/images/access-anywhere-thumb-600x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="600" height="100" src="https://damassets.autodesk.net/content/dam/autodesk/www/products/bim-360-team/fy18/features/images/access-anywhere-thumb-600x300.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Finally, we can now link these models to all sorts of engineering, costing and other design information in "<a href="https://www.bentley.com/en/solutions/multi-discipline-building-design-and-analysis" target="_blank">Building Information Modeling</a>" (BIM). Bippty-boppity, BIM! One model to rule them all!<br />
<span id="goog_1270616400"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1270616401"></span><br /></div>
<h2>
Process Design</h2>
<div>
<a href="https://www.engineeringexcelspreadsheets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Screenshot-DAF-Design-Calculations.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="583" data-original-width="679" height="171" src="https://www.engineeringexcelspreadsheets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Screenshot-DAF-Design-Calculations.jpg" width="200" /></a>And now to my fun area of design: selecting and sizing wastewater treatment processes. Wastewater treatment technologies are roughly 150 years old, so it's interesting to think about how process design has changed over the years. Even up until recently, hand-calculations to size major process units were not uncommon. Certainly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet" target="_blank">spreadsheets</a> enabled these calculations to be done more efficiently and effectively through the 80's and 90's. There are many examples and even <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Biological-Wastewater-Treatment-Process-Calculations-ebook/dp/B01MU7NEWU" target="_blank">books written on the topic</a>!<br />
<br />
One of the major limitations of spreadsheet calculations for poop plants (sorry, I mean <a href="http://news.wef.org/changing-the-terms/" target="_blank">water resource recovery facilities</a> - tough to break old habits), is that treatment facilities are quite dynamic, with fluctuations in flows and waste constituents over daily, weekly and seasonal patterns. It's tough to do spreadsheet calculations on dynamic systems.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1895065970"><img border="0" src="http://www.dynamita.com/wp-content/uploads/sumoscreenshot.png" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="800" height="215" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New kid on the block: <a href="http://www.dynamita.com/the-sumo/">http://www.dynamita.com/the-sumo/</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A major breakthrough in the tools used to design these dynamic facilities is process simulation. I could go on for pages and pages about process simulators because they're one of my specialties. Instead, maybe I should put in a plug for <a href="https://www.iwapublishing.com/books/9781843391746/guidelines-using-activated-sludge-models" target="_blank">one</a> or <a href="https://www.e-wef.org/Default.aspx?TabID=251&productId=28631992" target="_blank">other</a> of the books I helped to pull together on the topic (no royalties for me though, bah!). From innovative tools in the 1990's <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2016/03/model-ing-citizens.html" target="_blank">process simulators</a> such as <a href="http://www.hydromantis.com/GPS-X.html" target="_blank">GPS-X</a>, <a href="https://envirosim.com/products/biowin" target="_blank">BioWin</a> and <a href="http://www.inctrl.ca/software/simba/" target="_blank">SIMBA</a> have now become the mainstay for all our design work.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Future Disruption</h2>
OK, no self-respecting blog on innovation and disruption can resist taking <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqwgcb" target="_blank">a wild stab in the dark</a> on future trends, so here goes!<br />
<br />
Big data? Hmm, not sure: we have a lot of <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2016/01/bad-data-versus-big-data-or-big-bad-data.html" target="_blank">bad data</a>. <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2016/09/get-mad-to-be-smart.html" target="_blank">Analytics</a>? For design...not really. Artificial intelligence? Ooh, now you're talking. So, starting from a UAV scanning an area, or existing treatment plant, to producing a BIM model seems like a pretty short couple of steps. The pieces and parts are there already; we just need the smarts and rules to link them up. But wait, we need super-smart process engineers to run the simulations, right? For now, yes. But even this piece can be automated (we're not as smart as we seem). To see the future, check out <a href="https://www.organicawater.com/ocs-express/" target="_blank">this cool tool</a> developed by Organica. My understanding is that it's not fully automated yet, but not far off. The day may come when I can hang up my slide rule, burn my log tables and let <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzuIh5B7xdE" target="_blank">robo-engineer</a> do all the hard work!<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-82130698943779177522017-12-03T17:06:00.003-08:002017-12-03T17:15:46.317-08:00Patent paralysis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/US_Patent_cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="539" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/US_Patent_cover.jpg" width="134" /></a></div>
OK, so I may have a different perspective on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent" target="_blank">patents</a> than others. This is due largely to the fact that a couple of the professionals that had the most influence on my growth as a poop engineer had a less than positive view of patents. To protect the innocent and to avoid accusations of slander I’m not going to name names, but one individual had his idea stolen by a large firm who then patented it and tried to stop him using his own idea. Thankfully it mostly failed and time has healed most of the wounds. The other individual was an innovator beyond compare and his ethos was to keep developing new ideas and applications to stay ahead of the game. He didn’t have the time or inclination to “waste” money on patents.<br />
<br />
At this point I should also give the background that my little world is mostly the design and upgrading of publicly-owned poop plants.<br />
<br />
So, with this background, let me set out why I think patents can be a bad thing.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Why I don't like patents...</h2>
<h3>
1. They stifle innovation</h3>
The very purpose of a patent is not to <i>enable </i>someone to produce something, but to <i>prevent</i> anyone else from doing it except you in order to have an advantage. If you patent an idea, no-one else is going to do it, and in our little poop-plant world that stifles acceptance and further development. In other realms where you’re mass-producing consumer goods or medicines I can see this is OK and fair, but in my space it’s really tough to get anyone to innovate, so patenting an idea can kill it pretty fast. I don’t think many equipment vendors get this.<br />
<br />
<h3>
2. POTWs can’t specify “one-of-a-kind” technology</h3>
Hand-in-hand with stifling innovation, or partly the cause, are the rules that prevent most public utilities from specifying unique technologies. This makes it VERY difficult to do anything new. On the other hand, having just 2 or 3 vendors competing in the same space can be a major boost. I actually spend quite some time comparing technologies and my job is made a whole lot easier if there is more than one of a type.<br />
<br />
<h3>
3. No-one likes lawyers</h3>
<div>
Now don't get me wrong, there are many fine and upstanding lawyers in the world, many of whom have been good friends of mine over the years. And we definitely need lawyers to help us uphold the law. BUT in the litigious culture of the Western World (sorry, I mean where the "rule of law" prevails, yawn), as soon as you threaten to bring in lawyers, we all get a bit weird. Engineers in particular get very uneasy around lawyers and their word games. Heck, we're straightforward thinking, problem solvers. Please don't try to trip us up with what we mean when use certain words or opinions. I've read a couple of patents and the language in them is awful lawyer-speak, seemingly preventing anyone from doing anything anywhere, ever. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
Overcoming Patent Paralysis</h2>
<div>
OK, so I've bad-mouthed one of the main mechanisms for en<a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/patents-of-invention/" target="_blank">couraging and protecting inventions since the 16th Century</a>, so do I have any suggestions for a better way forward? I'm not a lawyer (phew, you say), so perhaps I'm not qualified to comment, but here are a few ideas for alternative ways of driving innovation through new ideas and inventions without using patents to stop it...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
A. Stay ahead of the game</h3>
<div>
I mentioned this already, but early in my career I worked for a company that developed some amazing online instrumentation including <a href="http://wst.iwaponline.com/content/28/11-12/389" target="_blank">online respirometry</a> which, to this day, no-one has ever come close to matching. I didn't appreciate it at the time but the ideas produced in that small firm were way ahead of their time and I believe that they only patented one mechanical item out of all the ideas and innovations they produced. The ethos of my boss was to just keep ahead of the game. It turns out he's still 20 years ahead of the game!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
B. Go open source</h3>
<div>
This is a radical idea, but one used by <a href="https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you" target="_blank">Elon Musk</a>. Don't prevent others from using your ideas, but let them have a go too, then compete to win. Particularly if your ideas are radical and maybe in a whole new domain of their own. Opening up your ideas to others will help spur research and more ideas from which you and the others will all benefit. Isn't this how research is supposed to be done? Rather than hiding your ideas or locking them down so no-one else can develop them further, consider opening the black box and learning from your competitors.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
C. Copyright, don't patent</h3>
<div>
Did I mention I'm no lawyer, so I probably can't comment fully on this, but there are protections under law for published materials and ideas that are covered by copyright. I think there are some weird loopholes in US patent law that allow you to pinch ideas for the <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/patents-getting-started/general-information-concerning-patents#heading-5" target="_blank">1st year</a> after they're published if you have good lawyers (the experience of my other colleague I mentioned earlier), but still, if you have an idea and publish it, then you have some protections, I think. Doing this, plus considering the "open source" approach is really what research should be about, I think. But only if you want to encourage innovation!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
OK, so equipment vendors and those of you who've patented a gazillion inventions, let me know why I'm off base as usual!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-78394052846893347822017-11-12T17:24:00.000-08:002017-11-13T12:11:06.107-08:00A Value-based Approach to Innovation<div class="vkc_np _BYs" data-hveid="1" style="margin-left: -16px; margin-right: -16px;">
<div class="_vYs" style="padding: 0px 16px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Innovation is a very popular topic these days. A quick Google search on the word "<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Dictionary#dobs=innovation" target="_blank">innovation</a>" shows that the use of the word over time has gone through the roof in the back half of the 20th Century until now:</span><br />
<span style="color: #878787; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-weight: lighter;">Use over time for: innovation</span></div>
</div>
<div class="xpdxpnd vkc_np vk_pl _Wi" data-mh="-1" style="color: #222222; margin-left: -16px; margin-right: -16px; max-height: none; overflow: hidden; padding-left: 16px; padding-right: 16px; transition: 0.3s;">
<div data-hveid="27">
<div style="font-family: roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<g-img aria-hidden="true" style="display: inline-block;"><img alt="" class="_WCg" id="lr_dct_img_use" src="https://www.gstatic.com/onebox/dictionary/ngram/en/desktop/806d69e5a4f8bc74e3e014c78ce3922d5b5fe570.png" style="border: 0px; display: block; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-top: 10px; position: relative;" /></g-img></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've read in many places (such as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/innovation-the-history-of-a-buzzword/277067/" target="_blank">here</a>) that the word innovation hasn't always had the positive connotation it has today, but in previous centuries was a derogatory term akin to the idea of "<a href="https://www.betteratenglish.com/english-idioms-to-wing-it-to-improvise" target="_blank">winging it</a>" where you had to improvise because you hadn't planned properly or hadn't thought things through.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the modern use of the term it's really supplanted the word "invention" to simply mean "coming up with something new." To be honest I prefer the word "invention" in the engineering world because it carries the idea of actually planning something, but hey, we don't always get to choose the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_buzzwords" target="_blank">buzzwords</a> doing the rounds these days!</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguqG4MvSjRD2SM3Hc-nJGdDXAiD4AIPcrHMQ8DZlb_Hjx4kJAzq8bvaUGFwnVV5Fzo4oS2zn45YA5OSJ7WkTGlQpVhNeoMgeMSeneymis_QAolFMjTqZcTzwS9evTxf7GloGPwUOS1v0M/s1600/board.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguqG4MvSjRD2SM3Hc-nJGdDXAiD4AIPcrHMQ8DZlb_Hjx4kJAzq8bvaUGFwnVV5Fzo4oS2zn45YA5OSJ7WkTGlQpVhNeoMgeMSeneymis_QAolFMjTqZcTzwS9evTxf7GloGPwUOS1v0M/s400/board.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h2>
Innovation = Risk?</h2>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I love new ideas and new technologies, and, in my own poop-treatment world, I'm bowled over by the number of <a href="http://www.werf.org/lift" target="_blank">initiatives</a>, <a href="https://www.bluetechforum.com/news/nvp-energy-and-realtech-win-water-technology-awards/" target="_blank">businesses</a> and <a href="https://www.dcwater.com/person/sudhir-murthy-phd" target="_blank">people</a> driving innovation. However, what I don't see is a lot of discussion on handling the risks associated with innovation, or - more specifically - a way of gauging whether the risk of the innovation is worth it in the long run. I don't want to be a party-pooper when it comes to innovation, but I also hate to see us innovating just for the sake of innovation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h2>
The Concept of Value</h2>
<div>
I've been through a number of "<a href="https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/200045JP.TXT?ZyActionD=ZyDocument&Client=EPA&Index=1981+Thru+1985&Docs=&Query=&Time=&EndTime=&SearchMethod=1&TocRestrict=n&Toc=&TocEntry=&QField=&QFieldYear=&QFieldMonth=&QFieldDay=&IntQFieldOp=0&ExtQFieldOp=0&XmlQuery=&File=D%3A%5Czyfiles%5CIndex%20Data%5C81thru85%5CTxt%5C00000002%5C200045JP.txt&User=ANONYMOUS&Password=anonymous&SortMethod=h%7C-&MaximumDocuments=1&FuzzyDegree=0&ImageQuality=r75g8/r75g8/x150y150g16/i425&Display=hpfr&DefSeekPage=x&SearchBack=ZyActionL&Back=ZyActionS&BackDesc=Results%20page&MaximumPages=1&ZyEntry=1&SeekPage=x&ZyPURL#" target="_blank">value engineering</a>" (VE) exercises, both as the evaluator and also as the recipient of the evaluation. It can be a frustrating process but I think it's a worthwhile exercise.<br />
<br />
A fundamental concept in VE, is that value is quality over cost, or benefit over cost. So in principle you can improve the top line of quality or benefit and increase value with the same cost, or marginal cost increase, or simply look to reduce costs whilst trying to maintain the desired quality. In the equation, we can use actual currency for each of the parameters if the quality can be quantified in monetary terms to give value in actual dollars, euros etc. More often though, quality is a non-currency improvement (e.g. more flow can be treated) or even a non-numerical benefit (e.g. more reliable, or more flexible).<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcb8w9pTmLjYGgpT-LX4zlZ58rve0uVWD5LM7_lV0FgGJ7aeA0jmfzpnksUVNG0zrjxggbi6d8c2KBo2OXu3K-7q-FEqJP1aVJEhaZ4D5B7Rv9dtocO8Nn2w17JTmd3FH0TP-rvlGvtzw/s1600/daum_equation_1510531597915.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="208" data-original-width="555" height="73" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcb8w9pTmLjYGgpT-LX4zlZ58rve0uVWD5LM7_lV0FgGJ7aeA0jmfzpnksUVNG0zrjxggbi6d8c2KBo2OXu3K-7q-FEqJP1aVJEhaZ4D5B7Rv9dtocO8Nn2w17JTmd3FH0TP-rvlGvtzw/s200/daum_equation_1510531597915.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So this equation can be used to assess value quantitatively or qualitatively.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<h2>
Innovation Value</h2>
So, how about extending the concept of value to innovation i.e. an "Innovation Value" in which we see the value we get from innovation in terms of improved quality and/or lower cost, but include a term that takes account of risk too? The equation would be something like:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXOn3j6VG0hCSNDDaZgOOHUTm7v49SSN4EbS4rTgB4yJ7gQ9Rex5gJGGmCBEyN0-yeTwSSUZsoW_6UDkfp5YMHcYE1oEzNqTAhU7DIHafHq6cLqxxWQJmFp3ZN-Xih7VnB0UI3JIES8ok/s1600/daum_equation_1510531436627.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="1106" height="61" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXOn3j6VG0hCSNDDaZgOOHUTm7v49SSN4EbS4rTgB4yJ7gQ9Rex5gJGGmCBEyN0-yeTwSSUZsoW_6UDkfp5YMHcYE1oEzNqTAhU7DIHafHq6cLqxxWQJmFp3ZN-Xih7VnB0UI3JIES8ok/s320/daum_equation_1510531436627.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This gives us now a way to conceptualize the extra value we get from innovating whilst also acknowledging and maybe even quantifying risk factors.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
If the innovative idea has low or no risk, then <i>Risk = 1.0</i> and we assess the idea the same way as any VE idea.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
If the innovative idea has a high risk, then <i>Risk > 1.0</i> and we can crank that factor up according to some scale that takes into account the risk profile.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I guess we can also think about innovation as a way to reduce risk, in which case <i>Risk < 1.0</i> i.e. the innovative idea is less risky than the status quo.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h2 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Quantifying Risk - Conventional Approach</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Risk is commonly assessed using a matrix of severity (or consequence) versus likelihood:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.skybrary.aero/images/FAA_RA_Sample.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="455" height="173" src="https://www.skybrary.aero/images/FAA_RA_Sample.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
In this matrix, items in the "Acceptable" range can be scored with the <i>Risk</i> at or near 1.0, then items in the yellow range have increasingly larger Risk values from, say, 1.1 up to 1.5, and then items in the red zone can have larger multipliers of 2 or 3, or perhaps are simply designated "not acceptable," depending on the appetite for risk? </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It might look something like this...</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsY_aW_HAHb0U3sSw6YGaFQzTS00d7R5JwaqWiL4qgf7kNYk5VaX7CamMhUt4Q7TAXkGlkxxreNAX9_Wt3Ixtoz51fK_u5QtM3dAR7DGdblNQoCRjbMv8bIPwxvEi_8o6XgQ6AQnbIYR4/s1600/Matrix.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsY_aW_HAHb0U3sSw6YGaFQzTS00d7R5JwaqWiL4qgf7kNYk5VaX7CamMhUt4Q7TAXkGlkxxreNAX9_Wt3Ixtoz51fK_u5QtM3dAR7DGdblNQoCRjbMv8bIPwxvEi_8o6XgQ6AQnbIYR4/s400/Matrix.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h2 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Quantifying Technology Innovation Risk</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Now the conventional approach to quantifying risk is subjective but very flexible. In thinking about poop treatment and technology innovations, I can think of three factors that might influence how we score risk: Deviation from the Norm; Development Level; and Complexity.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
1. Deviation from the Norm</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
How far does the innovation deviate from the "norm"? If the technology is simply an adaptation of an established technology or a simple add-on to something existing, then perhaps the risk is pretty low (Say a 1.0 - 1.2 in our matrix). However if this is a very different approach, using fundamentally different ideas and perhaps very different technologies that haven't been used in this particular application before, then it might be pertinent to use a higher risk factor (1.5 - 2.0).</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
2. Development Level</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
At what stage of development is the technology? The US government and others commonly use the "<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/engineering/technology/txt_accordion1.html" target="_blank">Technology Readiness Level"</a> (TRL) to define how ready a technology is to full-scale application. Here's the version used by NASA:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/trl.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="725" height="320" src="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/trl.png" width="290" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So, if we have a technology that's already at TRL 9, we give it a risk factor near 1.0, but lower TRL values have increasing risk factors.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
3. Complexity</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Finally, is the innovation more or less complex (more to go wrong) than the conventional solution? If it has more parts and pieces that can go wrong, or relies on something more complex in order to make it work, then it should have a higher risk factor. Conversely, if the innovation is inherently less complex than the conventional system, then it wouldn't be crazy to apply a factor of less than 1.0!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h2 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Pulling it all together</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So, like a good engineer, let's take that simple equation, add in all my factors and come up with something way more complicated... well, maybe not too much more complicated (score me down on my innovation!) to give something like...</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCS6WXMwzqTEcNvgniD0Jc1wN_TNvxfmfedJbBPs8ntYsLmWgsmaTD8z0DRCnCH-G3e8fvFhCMGrQrUmGOOw0ku2iZrpnYv-_PhoGD9FYmYvZ_e22S6pLyVAREx0gkzGq7s1JRihqYSHM/s1600/daum_equation_1510536522636.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="172" data-original-width="1600" height="41" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCS6WXMwzqTEcNvgniD0Jc1wN_TNvxfmfedJbBPs8ntYsLmWgsmaTD8z0DRCnCH-G3e8fvFhCMGrQrUmGOOw0ku2iZrpnYv-_PhoGD9FYmYvZ_e22S6pLyVAREx0gkzGq7s1JRihqYSHM/s400/daum_equation_1510536522636.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Hmm, I dunno, perhaps it needs a few exponents added to each factor to make it needlessly more complicated?!</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-85807323092971138212017-08-19T13:47:00.000-07:002017-08-19T13:53:03.643-07:00Pondering on Corporate Growth vs Growing an Extended Family BusinessI should start with the disclaimer that I do not have an <a href="https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/33625/mba/fedex" target="_blank">MBA</a>, and I'm no expert on business development. However I have worked in several different offices around the world and have my ears open to what goes on in the business side of what I do for a living.<br />
<br />
I've been reflecting upon the <a href="http://borgcollective.wikia.com/wiki/Assimilation" target="_blank">assimilation</a> of engineering firms by larger firms, especially the takeover of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/07/29/ch2m-snapped-rival-jacobs-deal-set-earn-huge-windfalls-executives/" target="_blank">CH2M by Jacobs</a> that happened this past couple of weeks. In our growth-driven economy firms seek increased profits for shareholders, private or public, which drives certain behaviors. One way to grow your stock price is through <a href="http://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/business/blog/best-and-worst-corporate-mergers/" target="_blank">mergers and acquisitions</a>. If done right, it benefits the stock holders in a big way. However there will undoubtedly be some collateral damage as the now merged firm seeks to reduce overhead costs and keep the stock price up. I've heard it said that a good merger is where 1+1 = 3 through synergies between the two original firms. I think that's unrealistic and you actually get 1+1 = 1.5 which is still better for either of the original "1" but less value than the sum of the two. Then from that position of 1.5, you can continue to build your firm (with the added bonus of having removed one of your opponents!) Elementary math tells you 1+1 = 2, at best, so I think it's wishful thinking or downright dishonest to claim otherwise! In these mergers there will be financial winners for sure but there will necessarily be losers in terms of <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-human-side-of-mergers-those-laid-off-and-those-left-aboard/" target="_blank">people losing their jobs and increased uncertainty for those remaining</a>.<br />
<br />
But I'm losing the train of my thought and the intent of this blog...<br />
<br />
Something I've observed in many smaller businesses, particularly those that engage multiple family members, is that driving profits up is important but it is the means to an end and not an end in itself. The ultimate goal seems to be to create a better life for the owners, employees and their families. Now, you still have to work hard and make profits, but that's not the end goal. Somewhere along the line, as they get bigger, these "<a href="https://nationaltoday.com/us/national-mom-pop-business-owners-day/" target="_blank">mom and pop</a>" firms lose their way and the means (profits) to the end (family health) becomes the end in itself and often the original end, suffers. I wonder if there's a way to grow a firm but keep the attitude and focus on the health and vitality of the employees and the families it supports? Or perhaps the growth-driven economy doesn't allow that?<br />
<br />
I love working for Black & Veatch. Most of all I love working with the people in the firm. It does feel like an extended family in many ways. Whenever we hire someone new, or we do surveys of why it's a great place to work, the most common comment is that we have great people. I'm not saying that as a means to inspire greater investment or growth of our stock prices. I'm saying that in and of itself. Let's value people first, with an eye to keeping the money rolling in as a vibrant and financially profitable firm. Do I need to make a legal disclaimer that these thoughts are my own and not those of my firm...? Or maybe the shift in business away from a trust-based model to a litigious one, could be my next topic for blogging! Did I mention I don't have an MBA? And yes, I know I'm naive!<br />
<br />
Anyone else as naive as me?!<br />
<br />Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-22436309785796816672016-10-08T14:54:00.001-07:002016-10-08T15:00:49.202-07:00Reflections on WEFTEC 2016I've just returned from the latest <a href="http://www.weftec.org/" target="_blank" title="WEFTEC">WEFTEC</a> held in New Orleans. It was a great opportunity for me to catch up with colleagues and friends that I've gotten to know over the years. I went to my first WEFTEC in 1999 and except for one year when I was stuck on assignment in Singapore I'm pretty sure I've been to every WEFTEC since then. So I could blog about catching up with old friends, but instead I thought it would be interesting to reflect on what was NEW for me this year. So here goes... <br />
<h2>
New Perspectives</h2>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thefreshwatertrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Joe-Picture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://www.thefreshwatertrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Joe-Picture.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joe Whitworth</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The opening session included an interesting presentation from <a href="https://www.thefreshwatertrust.org/bio/joe-whitworth/" target="_blank">Joe Whitworth</a> of <a href="https://www.thefreshwatertrust.org/" target="_blank">The Freshwater Trust</a>. It was refreshing to see someone who identifies themselves as an environmentalist wanting to work collaboratively rather than the typical obstructionist approach of well-meaning but naive and short-sighted groups. The majority of the people I work with want to protect and improve the environment and so you'd think that the likes of the <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a> and other environmental NGO's would be our advocates in improving treatment, but my own observation is that they're sue-happy and prevent real progress by pushing everything into the interminably slow US legal system. When I was a kid doing environmental studies, the US EPA was held up as a great example of how to improve the environment through science-based investigation and laws. Unfortunately the good things started in the 1980's now seem to be stagnating in the courts where the "process" is more important than actually doing what's best for the environment.<br />
<br />
My good friend and visionary in the field of water, <a href="https://www.dcwater.com/about/management/sudhir.cfm" target="_blank">Dr Sudhir Murthy</a> gave <a href="http://app.core-apps.com/weftec2016/abstract/feafbe71be489af65272accb70bc3790" target="_blank">an excellent presentation on research and innovation for water utilities</a>, though I have to say that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bernhard_Wett" target="_blank">Bernhard Wett</a> stole the show in his introduction to Sudhir by describing him as "non-linear"! Not sure why that tickled me so much, but maybe it's because he's such an intriguing and interesting fella that's impossible to label him. Nice one Bernie!<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPl6tyMbEI2Ob_aIaGS5Ib8QJ62XjTwFaWsw5i7L-Oh95FwbXfjm2nzrhzwFnnGvB0uv8HXcnFDC3Cz0payVjIleYhVaOwzQaNfKQQxV_OHnqPlIVgODYwCqxnqY1z8PT_6DQW1prZhGU/s1600/Radio_Andy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPl6tyMbEI2Ob_aIaGS5Ib8QJ62XjTwFaWsw5i7L-Oh95FwbXfjm2nzrhzwFnnGvB0uv8HXcnFDC3Cz0payVjIleYhVaOwzQaNfKQQxV_OHnqPlIVgODYwCqxnqY1z8PT_6DQW1prZhGU/s200/Radio_Andy.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poop-talk radio!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2>
New Experience</h2>
Thanks to <a href="http://wateronline.com/">WaterOnline.com</a> I had the opportunity to do a <a href="http://www.wateronline.com/wateronlineradio/" target="_blank">radio interview</a> on the topic of Big Data. I wasn't quite sure what to expect going in to the interview but it actually good fun. Big Data, the Internet of Things, Smart Utilities and the like, are hot topics that are gaining a lot of interest with a whole bunch of people. See my <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2016/09/get-mad-to-be-smart.html" target="_blank">previous blog</a> for more info...
<br />
<br />
<h2>
New Responsibilities</h2>
This year I took over the reins of the <a href="http://www.wef.org/MRRDC/" target="_blank">Municipal Resource Recovery Design Committee (MRRDC)</a>. This is one of the largest committees of WEF and is tasked with upholding the quality of design for treatment facilities. Amongst many things, we are heavy involved in the iconic "Manual of Practice #8" or <a href="https://www.e-wef.org/Home/ProductDetails/tabid/251/productid/5306/Default.aspx" target="_blank">MOP8</a>, which is used extensively in North America for treatment plant design. We also help develop other technical documents and workshops for WEFTEC. My predecessor, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/art-umble-a802a830" target="_blank">Dr Art Umble</a>, did an excellent job as the previous chair, ending up being recognized as a <a href="http://news.wef.org/recognizing-the-2016-wef-fellows-contributions-to-water-quality/" target="_blank">Fellow of WEF</a>. I jokingly said that my main job was to not screw up the good things he started! Hopefully I'll do a little better than that.<br />
<br />
<h2>
New Technologies</h2>
No self-respecting poop engineer could blog without mentioning the cool technologies in the exhibit hall. Aerobic Granular Sludge (AGS) is causing quite a buzz in the poop-treatment industry and my firm is in the mix <a href="http://bv.com/home/news/news-releases/black-veatch-and-royal-haskoningdhv-partner-to-deliver-sustainable-water-solutions" target="_blank">teaming with Royal HaskoningDHV</a>, the developers of the Nereda process. Another technology causing a stir is GE's new "<a href="https://www.gewater.com/products/zeelung" target="_blank">Zeelung</a>" membrane aerated biofilm reactor (MABR) process which, on paper, can give up to 100% oxygen transfer efficiency (OTE) and in practice is giving at least 50%. This is a game-changing technology in my book as it at least doubles the energy efficiency. Watch this space for more (or check out the video below)!<br />
<div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pPTLYhCrtg4/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pPTLYhCrtg4?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<h2>
New Cullinary Delights!</h2>
Oh boy, if you're ever in New Orleans, you must try the <a href="http://www.trinityrestaurantneworleans.com/" target="_blank">Trinity restaurant</a>. In a city known for good food, this has to be one that's near the top of the pile. (Which reminds me, I must go to <a href="https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g60864-d10325426-Reviews-Trinity-New_Orleans_Louisiana.html" target="_blank">TripAdvisor</a> and leave a review - 6 stars out of 5, I'm thinking). We had a dinner with a client group on Monday evening at which I had a crab-filled beignet for starter, a fabulous pork shank for main and possibly the best desert I've ever had to finish (some kind of macadamia nut desert with a subtle caramel sauce and mango - I can't even begin to describe it adequately!). On Wednesday night I was invited out by the good folks at <a href="http://www.s-can.at/index.php?langcode=" target="_blank">S::CAN</a> for a dinner and to my delight, they picked the same restaurant! This time I was able to try their lamb chops which I swear had chocolate in the sauce (some kind of molé perhaps?) - it was equally awesome!<br />
<br />
So another WEFTEC is done. I think it was one of the best for me personally and hopefully for the 20,000 others who attended. Let's see if <a href="http://weftec.org/abstracts/" target="_blank">WEFTEC 2017</a> in Chicago can top it!
</div>
Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-76065052378899689592016-09-09T20:52:00.001-07:002016-09-09T20:52:14.745-07:00Get M.A.D. to be smart!In a couple of weeks I'm heading off to <a href="http://weftec.org/" target="_blank">WEFTEC</a>, the major annual North American conference for poop engineers like myself. This year I'll be participating in a breakfast meeting where we'll discuss my firm's offerings for smart analytics which sits under the umbrella of our <a href="http://bv.com/home/capabilities/service/Smart-Integrated-Infrastructure" target="_blank">Smart Integrated Infrastructure</a> group.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41D5lSgt4GL._SX384_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41D5lSgt4GL._SX384_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" width="154" /></a></div>
<br />
For the breakfast meeting I persuaded my colleagues to take their lead from a recent book produced by <a href="https://dk.linkedin.com/in/pernilleingildsen" target="_blank">Pernille Ingildsen</a> and <a href="https://se.linkedin.com/in/gustaf-olsson-00444319" target="_blank">Gustaf Olsson</a>, called "<a href="http://www.iwapublishing.com/books/9781780407579/smart-water-utilities-complexity-made-simple" target="_blank">Smart Utilities: Complexity Made Simple</a>". Their excellent book uses a very simple but useful <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mnemonic" target="_blank">mnemonic</a> to help us get our minds our the most important aspects of instrumentation and control in the water industry. Quite simply it is M.A.D.!<br />
<br />
<h3>
M is for Measure</h3>
<div>
Firstly, and perhaps most importantly we need to focus on the measurements. What do we need to measure (and where)? How do we measure it? And what confidence do we have in that measurement? It might seem simple to say we need to be measuring the right parameters in the right place but in my experience this is the place where we've fallen down over the years, particularly when it comes to measurements in the extremely fouling environment of wastewater. All too often people have taken standard environmental monitors for water, streams or rivers or - worse still - lab instruments, and plonked them into poop water hoping they'll work. Unfortunately wastewater is not forgiving. In the late 1980's and early 1990's my old boss Dr John Watts did some great work in looking at the need for good calibration and validation in order to trust your data. Unfortunately he didn't publish much internationally, but here is <a href="http://wst.iwaponline.com/content/28/11-12/447" target="_blank">one paper </a>on the topic. More recently Oliver Grievson in his <a href="http://www.wateronline.com/doc/instrumentation-in-activated-sludge-past-present-and-future-0001" target="_blank">review of activated sludge instrumentation</a> to celebrate 100 years of AS gave a nod to John's work in producing an online respirometer (and I'm still waiting for someone to produce something nearly as good - maybe the <a href="http://www.strathkelvin.com/asp-con/" target="_blank">ASP-CON</a>?)<br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
A is for Analyze</h3>
<div>
The focus of a lot of the buzz right now is on "smart analytics" and the ability of software developed in the Internet age to handle "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data" target="_blank">big data</a>." That's all pretty cool. I always joke about wastewater having a problem with "crap data" rather than big data, but assuming we can figure out the "M" of measure, then there are now plenty of sophisticated tools to help us manage and analyze our data. All the big guys in IT are getting into this space, including the now famous <a href="http://www.ibm.com/analytics/us/en/" target="_blank">Watson at IBM</a> and now Microsoft with their <a href="https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/" target="_blank">PowerBI</a> (I need to find time to play with that sometime as it looks pretty cool).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cHkMfPtmfyE/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cHkMfPtmfyE?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
D is for Decide</h3>
<div>
OK, we have lovely measurements, producing pretty graphical representations of our big data... now what? This will be the fun part. Right now, most systems I've seen, leave the decide step to the operator or plant engineer. They have the expert knowledge which, coupled with insights from the advanced data analytics, are a powerful combination to help optimize a plant. The step beyond this is to add in automated control actions based on the input from the smart analytics. This is sort of like the jump to an autonomous vehicle which makes many people nervous but ultimately will give us the best performance overall.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Further Reading</h3>
<div>
I heartily recommend <a href="http://www.iwapublishing.com/books/9781780407579/smart-water-utilities-complexity-made-simple" target="_blank">Pernille and Gustaf's book</a> for anyone considering smart analytics. As an introduction to it, you might also read Pernille's blog, "<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-smart-water-utilities-already-here-pernille-ingildsen" target="_blank">Why are "Smart Water Utilities" not already here?</a>"</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, if you want to be smart... get MAD!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com62tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-84862804190998433092016-03-09T18:26:00.000-08:002016-03-09T18:47:05.645-08:00Model-ing CitizensAt the end of this month I'll be heading off to Europe for the latest wastewater process modeling conference - <a href="https://wwtmod2016.irstea.fr/" target="_blank">wwtmod2016</a> - which I'm sure will be as interesting as previous seminars in the series. It's a pretty cool gathering of process engineers and/or modelers to dig into the process models that are a big part of what I do as a poop engineer.<br />
<br />
In thinking about the seminar, I started to reflect on the fact that there are a lot of good wastewater process simulators on the market right now, 4 of which I'll talk about in this blog. Before I get to them though, I have to comment on the fact that there are so many simulators in what is a pretty niche market. If I think back to spreadsheets in the 1980s' there were several on the market - <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/so-farewell-then-lotus-1-2-3-spreadsheet-extraordinaire/" target="_blank">Lotus 123</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel" target="_blank">Excel</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quattro_Pro" target="_blank">Quattro Pro</a> (the last being my fave for some time), but today the market is dominated by Excel alone (OK, there are a few diehards using <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/why/index.html" target="_blank">OpenOffice</a>, <a href="http://www.apple.com/mac/numbers/" target="_blank">Numbers</a> on the Mac or <a href="https://www.google.com/sheets/about/" target="_blank">Google Sheets</a> for simple collaborative tasks). So how come there are so many good wastewater process simulators on the market right now? I'd like to suggest a few possible reasons:<br />
<ol>
<li>Wastewater treatment is complex (and fascinating!) and so we need models to help us figure it out.</li>
<li>Wastewater modeling has strong "champions" who have really driven the ideas and industry in a positive direction. In another blog I might list out several of these individuals, but from my own personal experience and because he's turning 60 soon I'll just mention <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/imre-takacs-97535228" target="_blank">Imre Takacs</a> here. Super nice fella with a real passion for modeling, including his latest venture with SUMO.</li>
<li>Wastewater modeling is cool. Let's face it, producing diurnal graphs and "playing" with a virtual plant is way cool. That's why I like it, right?</li>
</ol>
<h2>
Simulators</h2>
<div>
OK, so here is a list of my personal favorite simulators. They each have their particular strengths but I resist the temptation to say which is "best" despite being asked many times. They're all good and useful tools. Some do some things better than others and it's always a moving target as they each add new features. There are other simulators on the market too, but my exposure to them is limited, so the fact that I've not listed them is in no way a slight on their capabilities. So here are, in order of my exposure to them and not in order of preference, my fave four!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<a href="http://www.hydromantis.com/GPS-X.html" target="_blank">GPS-X</a></h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCUyj_Fo8hsNYiF7HKIvqnt12AEz5MElk-vFLJv8lHJrgXy-Ruo21EoEQBrOluz7b38zhAcnEj-pdgT98vtMhNld5RH5q0SGLZXgeO6J1krWtEzVa-LYDzMit73vjw7V7HzoKwkiIzFnE/s1600/gpsx.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="47" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCUyj_Fo8hsNYiF7HKIvqnt12AEz5MElk-vFLJv8lHJrgXy-Ruo21EoEQBrOluz7b38zhAcnEj-pdgT98vtMhNld5RH5q0SGLZXgeO6J1krWtEzVa-LYDzMit73vjw7V7HzoKwkiIzFnE/s200/gpsx.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
For me, it all started with GPS-X 2.0 running on Unix on a HP computer. That's real modeling! They and everyone else shifted over to Windows which was more convenient, for sure, but our models slowed considerably until recent years as a result. I still wonder if GPS-X running on modern machine with Linux wouldn't be the way to go!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The big plus for GPS-X is the user interface. Maybe it's because I started with this simulator, but I still love the ability to use sliders for control, set up graphs and have scenarios all in one interface. It has it's quirks you need to learn like all the simulators, but in terms of being easy to <b>run </b>and adjust models, it's great.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoZHF5UqX3G2xUk6FteBihPX72U1xPAVkpXa1NeuKC1w0TifCRL-JzfroC_5RTQg0VwI4qOkFiWDltyX_N2bKbA40qIEl5DBC2ZVs-1TZxFvUgn9C74B2OUAzu3KYVL3qJZZkrOmiXoNk/s1600/GPSX_6.0_layout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoZHF5UqX3G2xUk6FteBihPX72U1xPAVkpXa1NeuKC1w0TifCRL-JzfroC_5RTQg0VwI4qOkFiWDltyX_N2bKbA40qIEl5DBC2ZVs-1TZxFvUgn9C74B2OUAzu3KYVL3qJZZkrOmiXoNk/s400/GPSX_6.0_layout.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<a href="http://envirosim.com/products/biowin" target="_blank">BioWin</a></h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbAwr4mrjOtn11-npBwB1ZD4t-m1sSkdwsrVigfOaRD4PUUKRQX3r3DEkpBvLizZ_Dkychx_-qSyPeHlqtjaNSY7xNV_mqpcySPG5_ZrT5LXKAToOE83pEx53cj3VzgL1ox0VaQkCs9do/s1600/websitelogo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="60" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbAwr4mrjOtn11-npBwB1ZD4t-m1sSkdwsrVigfOaRD4PUUKRQX3r3DEkpBvLizZ_Dkychx_-qSyPeHlqtjaNSY7xNV_mqpcySPG5_ZrT5LXKAToOE83pEx53cj3VzgL1ox0VaQkCs9do/s200/websitelogo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
So, I find GPS-X one of the easiest simulators to run, but BioWin has deservedly won the reputation amongst design engineers for being the easiest to <b>set up</b>. There are many engineer-friendly features in the model that make it the goto for many process engineers. Another strength of the model is the biokinetic model (ASDM), which has been termed a "super model", because it carries all variables and all rate equations around all process units which makes it easier to ensure the mass balance holds. They also pride themselves on having decent defaults for most parameters under most conditions. You should never use any model "out of the box" without knowing what you're doing but with BioWin you maybe don't have to move too far out of the box!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW1_EowxyP6pO8fcwa9phFlh2xBLoboHOqOe8SvgkgVV-8VLIwSceYnmw319HHfblg1pfDr5TehGS2TZfJpzesQDdKUyiV1PpvQF9g0Y2FlOX9P3N2b-p_Shahk4dVg9eGv0FttV-ZHlo/s1600/bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW1_EowxyP6pO8fcwa9phFlh2xBLoboHOqOe8SvgkgVV-8VLIwSceYnmw319HHfblg1pfDr5TehGS2TZfJpzesQDdKUyiV1PpvQF9g0Y2FlOX9P3N2b-p_Shahk4dVg9eGv0FttV-ZHlo/s400/bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<a href="http://www.dynamita.com/the-sumo/" target="_blank">SUMO</a> </h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVupdpZfyVuMjP1ZoZAEj0-qVKyM-eF0bCLOvabdpp5R5XnZvvM9KAxSsRjY82KWJaE0g9dUPZ5xj71pDalOxnNq9zppC4RxCiogEv-LX8XulVpUJ1aJ1Sy9tDgXy5BCP1Rg9QxLv6Jcg/s1600/sumologo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVupdpZfyVuMjP1ZoZAEj0-qVKyM-eF0bCLOvabdpp5R5XnZvvM9KAxSsRjY82KWJaE0g9dUPZ5xj71pDalOxnNq9zppC4RxCiogEv-LX8XulVpUJ1aJ1Sy9tDgXy5BCP1Rg9QxLv6Jcg/s200/sumologo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
Here's the new kid on the block. Having done his time with Hydromantis (producers of GPS-X) and Envirosim (BioWin folks), Imre struck out on his own to develop a whole new modeling platform from the bottom up. It's pretty exciting to see the development. What I've seen so far there are two main tenets guiding it's development: (1) modern user interface (pretty cool); and (2) ease of access to the biokinetic models. The latter is the most exciting piece for me as it's allowing us to do a lot of investigations for WERF projects and other applications. For those at WWTmod2016, you'll get to see some of this when my colleague Patrick Dunlap presents some initial modeling for <a href="https://www.werf.org/a/ka/Search/ResearchProfile.aspx?ReportId=U1R13" target="_blank">one of those projects</a>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNGkkcpmGAijqkiRHnJf6YqUz89uia1HgXR3uL36v7qEeVaqByvic_XIK-apSK_Fgjbw5VOV4Gzj2-CRjRZS3ig0Z4ghr2taUi75MC94trKc3vMUqZwS2qbFdv_TUP_sclmAyFS2CSsdY/s1600/Sumo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNGkkcpmGAijqkiRHnJf6YqUz89uia1HgXR3uL36v7qEeVaqByvic_XIK-apSK_Fgjbw5VOV4Gzj2-CRjRZS3ig0Z4ghr2taUi75MC94trKc3vMUqZwS2qbFdv_TUP_sclmAyFS2CSsdY/s400/Sumo.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<a href="http://www.inctrl.ca/software/simba/" target="_blank">SIMBA#</a></h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD3pqMvWk0KTM4JWUm6i2oP-4Qmu0czQEmoLUZkkcDeEysBx0A-n8cIqXZy4wa8wR_V9MIFaiRRXDZGiRpFtE6LCVuX1v9pLz8yruUMVv0D4niacMRWwu-AhUystAQPT1s4bl2umKykxc/s1600/simbaw_web.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="28" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD3pqMvWk0KTM4JWUm6i2oP-4Qmu0czQEmoLUZkkcDeEysBx0A-n8cIqXZy4wa8wR_V9MIFaiRRXDZGiRpFtE6LCVuX1v9pLz8yruUMVv0D4niacMRWwu-AhUystAQPT1s4bl2umKykxc/s200/simbaw_web.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
Lastly but only in my own chronology as it's been around for years in Europe, is SIMBA#. This simulator is very strong for anyone wanting to look at control. It also has some nice energy features which they're continuing to develop and refine. I'm thinking this "old kid on the block" may start to get some traction in North America in the next year or so.</div>
<div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3dcoFjqQ8tUbspW4CmkfPZmrMn2Dk_ci8GL7dlp-pXFtqv6cC2eosY6KHu86yWE_TGr3Q__3OLirCPP30oWpnTH9NC1PtRFALaAcJm-GBrE64kY6shBeVGef3tnMrJmy-kGy4h60S3PE/s1600/SIMBA_demo_control_1400_500px.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3dcoFjqQ8tUbspW4CmkfPZmrMn2Dk_ci8GL7dlp-pXFtqv6cC2eosY6KHu86yWE_TGr3Q__3OLirCPP30oWpnTH9NC1PtRFALaAcJm-GBrE64kY6shBeVGef3tnMrJmy-kGy4h60S3PE/s400/SIMBA_demo_control_1400_500px.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
So... what's your favorite wastewater process simulator (assuming you have one), and why?<br />
<br />
(Copyright disclaimer... all graphics on this blog were taken from the software supplier's websites. Please check out their sites for the original graphics and further info)</div>
Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-84833742424171066292016-01-04T01:40:00.000-08:002016-01-05T09:41:55.012-08:00Bad data versus big data (or big bad data!!)There's currently quite a buzz about "big data" and how water utilities might dig into all the data they collect in order to be "smarter." Several of my colleagues are investigating ways to do this under the banner of <a href="http://bv.com/home/capabilities/service/Smart-Integrated-Infrastructure" target="_blank">Smart Integrated Infrastructure (SII</a>) and <a href="http://bv.com/docs/energy-brochures/black-amp-veatch-smart-water-analytics" target="_blank">Smart Water Analytics</a>. Pretty cool stuff. In a couple of conversations on the topic I half-jokingly said that wastewater doesn't have big data, it has crap data! To avoid misunderstanding, I should clarify that by "crap" I'm referring to it being bad data and not just data describing the fecal material we treat!<br />
<br />
Over the years I've been involved with various projects and discussions on generating and handling data in wastewater treatment. A few years ago I was involved in a couple of WERF Projects focused on developing <a href="http://www.werf.org/c/Laterals/2009/December/Decision_Support_Sys.aspx" target="_blank">Decision Support Systems (DSS)</a> to prevent plant upsets, along with <a href="http://envbiotech.engin.umich.edu/love/" target="_blank">Dr Nancy Love</a> and <a href="http://www.advdmi.com/" target="_blank">Advanced Data Mining</a> (ADMi). The folks at ADMi did some nice data analytics to pick out anomalies that might indicate toxins in the plant influent, but one of the major hurdles we ran into was distinguishing anomalies due to toxins and anomalies due to measurement problems. This reminded me of what my ex-boss and mentor, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-watts-a0a77237" target="_blank">Dr John Watts</a>, used to drill into me which is you need to focus on good primary measurements in order to have confidence in your data. Wastewater is a tough place to try to do that! As I said, a lot of our data is bad.<br />
<br />
So, here is my brain dump on some of the keys to making big data work in wastewater, and avoiding the pitfalls of bad big data (there's a tongue-twister there somewhere...)!<br />
<br />
<h3>
5 keys to making big data work</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
1. Focus on data quality rather than quantity</h4>
<div>
Starting from Dr Watt's sage advice to me years ago, and written up in one of his rare papers <a href="http://wst.iwaponline.com/content/28/11-12/447" target="_blank">here</a>, no amount of fancy analytics can overcome measurement errors, whether that's noise, drift or interferences. You need to have confident in your primary sensors and analyzers otherwise your big data analytics will be crunching numbers that are meaningless and therefore any results you'll get will be useless. Crap data = crap analytics!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In order to gain confidence in your data, you need to do 3 things with your sensors/analyzers:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1PwYcdLCDwwFLmPho0jj98jrVC5Rt-X2DZ-jODpBISyIsse0qrldbVjC2PAbhDaIPqFUVt64zilmzSqU5d0hYhKvj1eTXV2jnvUV5r3QN9vCURC8F_E2uuC5ppA7wQ_1vcITe82W77Fc/s1600/P8160001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1PwYcdLCDwwFLmPho0jj98jrVC5Rt-X2DZ-jODpBISyIsse0qrldbVjC2PAbhDaIPqFUVt64zilmzSqU5d0hYhKvj1eTXV2jnvUV5r3QN9vCURC8F_E2uuC5ppA7wQ_1vcITe82W77Fc/s200/P8160001.JPG" width="200" /></a>
<li><b><i>Clean them</i></b> - wastewater is an extremely fouling environment an not the best place to put scientific equipment. My experience has been that everyone underestimates how quickly sensors become fouled. Go for auto-cleaning whenever possible and avoid installing anything in raw sewage or primary effluent unless you really need the measurement (see Key #2!) as these areas are particularly prone to fouling. Mixed liquor is actually an easier place to take measurements and final effluent the easiest of all!</li>
<li><b><i>Calibrate them</i></b> - this is generally understood, though the frequency of calibration, particularly for sensors that tend to drift, is generally shorter than ideal.</li>
<li><b><i>Validate them</i></b> - this is the piece that's overlooked by most instrumentation suppliers, I think. Analytics to validate the measurements, particularly during calibration is an area that needs much more attention.</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
Much of the work that Dr Watts did at Minworth Systems was focused on automating these 3 things and I've seen very few instruments come close to what he did 20 years ago!<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
2. Measure what matters most</h4>
<div>
I could probably make this blog an ode to John Watts and fill it with his anecdotes. One of my favorites was one where a customer asked him to install a dissolved oxygen (DO) probe in an anoxic zone. He suggested it would be cheaper to install a wooden probe and write 0 mg/L on a fake display! Maybe that's a little harsh, but the point is that we should only measure things that are useful to help us to run the plant and that we're actually going to use to make some decision. Generally we're lacking many important and basic measurements in our treatment plants (e.g. dissolved oxygen in the aerated basins, airflow to each aeration zone and electricity use by blowers), but we need to be careful in our enthusiasm not to swing to the other extreme and start measuring stuff that's interesting but not useful. You can spend some serious money measuring ammonia and nitrate all over a treatment plant, but unless you're actually using it for control, the measurements will eventually be ignored and the instrument neglected. It's much better to have a handful of good instruments, positioned in locations where you're actually measuring something you can control, then there's motivation to keep those sensors running well (see Key#1!)<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
3. Think dynamics, not steady state</h4>
<div>
A lot of the design and operational guidance in text books and training materials have simple equations into which you plug a single number to get your answer (e.g. sludge age calculation or removal efficiency). Similarly, influent and effluent samples are usually flow-weighted or time-averaged composites (worse-still, grab samples!). All this means that we're used to thinking and talking about average daily conditions.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBCWQxQCUh0KyDv1Wec3CRQQeLEs8cxgjb1XLa0SYj9cIEmkr0At_0vhbqsBjtdbAaBWop2A8dU053LqlxZwRwA5BOz_E495U3QCPOx8f9xxgoflvx6_90AIQ8-9J5mFShJsJ3iABWrrE/s1600/WEF+Modeling+101_Compiled+Slides.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBCWQxQCUh0KyDv1Wec3CRQQeLEs8cxgjb1XLa0SYj9cIEmkr0At_0vhbqsBjtdbAaBWop2A8dU053LqlxZwRwA5BOz_E495U3QCPOx8f9xxgoflvx6_90AIQ8-9J5mFShJsJ3iABWrrE/s320/WEF+Modeling+101_Compiled+Slides.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graphic showing difference between composite<br />
sample and continuous measurement <br />
(Courtesy Dr. Leiv Rieger/WEF, <br />
taken from <a href="http://www.wef.org/Modeling101/" target="_blank">WEF Modeling 101 Webcast</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
However, the reality is that our treatment plants see significant daily variations in flows and concentrations and therefore we need to look at them as a dynamic system. This was first brought home to me when I was working on a plant in the UK doing biological phosphorus removal back in the late 1990's. We had an online phosphate analyzer taking measurements at the end of the aeration basin just prior to the clarifiers and we would see daily phosphate peaks of 1 or 2 mg/L every afternoon for just an hour or so, but the effluent composite sample measurements would be pretty consistently below 0.2 mg/L. To understand our wastewater treatment systems we need to measure their dynamics and then analyze that good data (having adhered to Keys #1 and #2, of course!!) <br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
4. Recognize different timescales</h4>
<div>
Hand-in-hand with dynamics is the need to think about different timescales:</div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZ1-89zTRahdf3rOJZp3-v2BM5496Xho3rh2B5yFyfbj1J7-DJbwOCHl6YZn9ynacr1L4DAadXHMGnPTmjO8ltXmO9F3W60bS0t2xFanC4XOVx6AebtnW5XF-JfeLnXMAjN2wiyziNKM/s1600/Untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZ1-89zTRahdf3rOJZp3-v2BM5496Xho3rh2B5yFyfbj1J7-DJbwOCHl6YZn9ynacr1L4DAadXHMGnPTmjO8ltXmO9F3W60bS0t2xFanC4XOVx6AebtnW5XF-JfeLnXMAjN2wiyziNKM/s200/Untitled.png" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a><br />
<ul>
<li>Diurnal (daily) variations</li>
<li>Weekly trends (especially weekend versus weekday differences)</li>
<li>Seasonal shifts</li>
</ul>
<div>
<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
</div>
For each of these, the data analytics needs are quite different and need to be thought through properly. For diurnal variations, it's useful to compare one day to the next by maybe overlaying the dynamic data; for weekly trends we can do something similar over a 7-day horizon; for seasonal shifts we need to plot out long-term trends and compare them to temperature and maybe rainfall shifts.<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<h4>
5. Consider how to handle outliers and extraordinary events</h4>
<div>
This blog is getting long, so I'll try to wrap up this 5th key quickly! In data analytics it's common practice to identify and eliminate outliers, assuming they're either "bad" measurements or not typical and therefore we can ignore them. However, thinking back to my involvement in the WERF projects on <a href="http://www.werf.org/c/Laterals/2009/December/Decision_Support_Sys.aspx" target="_blank">DSS</a>, a lot of what is done at wastewater treatment plants is trying to keep the process stable in response to abnormal events such as upsets from shock loads or toxins, or more typically responding to wet weather. This means we need to identify these "outliers" but rather than throw them away, we need to decide how to respond. Maybe this is a topic for another blog?!!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-84624011381239896842015-09-16T18:06:00.001-07:002015-09-16T18:17:14.258-07:00A Blog on Vlogs!A colleague and I are thinking of doing a video blog on poop engineering. For those in the know the technical term is a "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_blog" target="_blank">vlog</a>." Now you know! So, in preparation for setting up a vlog, I thought I should check out the competition and see what's out there already! Here is a sample of my favourites...<br />
<br />
<h3>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/WaterWorldOnline/featured" target="_blank">WaterWorldTV</a></h3>
In terms of water/wastewater news and professional interviews, <a href="http://www.waterworld.com/authors/angela-godwin.html" target="_blank">Angela Godwin</a> at Water World does a great job. She goes to the major conferences like WEFTEC and ACE in addition to doing a regular video segment for their website. In fact here are a couple of interviews of a couple of my colleagues:<br />
My boss, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2o3S3UoKlM" target="_blank">Cindy Wallis-Lage</a>, being interviewed at the recent ACE conference this year...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xkaQywm-1Kw/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xkaQywm-1Kw?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://bv.com/Home/news/solutions/water/father-of-bnr-continues-his-pursuit-of-improved-water-treatment" target="_blank">James Barnard</a> being interviewed about the beginnings of BNR...</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eVdB9N-dcqI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eVdB9N-dcqI?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<h3>
<a href="http://www.thewatersifu.com/youtube/" target="_blank">Water Sifu</a></h3>
OK this is a water vlog, not poop treatment, but I love this for <a href="http://www.thewatersifu.com/about-3/" target="_blank">Ty Whitman's</a> style and it is worth watching for the theme music alone! Very cool. Here's a vlog on breakpoint chlorination (hey, that's relevant for wastewater treatment!)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Auz0cpObjI8/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Auz0cpObjI8?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />
<h3>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/RCAPnetwork/feed" target="_blank">The Rural Community Assistance Partnership</a></h3>
This You Tube channel has a bunch of useful educational-type videos on various aspects of water and wastewater treatment (other things too, maybe???). I'm not sure it's strictly speaking a "vlog" but I like their informal style so it's close enough! Here's one on energy efficiency at a poop plant...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WpBgb9mO2B8/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WpBgb9mO2B8?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />
<h3>
<a href="http://www.wef.org/webcasts/" target="_blank">WEF Webcasts</a></h3>
Hmmm, now I'm really stretching it by claiming that a webcast, webinar or webinamathingy (what is the proper name?) is some kind of vlog, but hey, WEF has some cool information in their webcasts. OK it's not a vlog, but here is one I was involved in on modeling.<br />
<a href="http://www.wef.org/Modeling201/" target="_blank">http://www.wef.org/Modeling201/ </a>oh wait, it seems you have to be a WEF member now to view it. Ah well. OK so here are some other WEF videos, mostly of things from the annual conference WEFTEC but there are some other interesting videos too:<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/WaterEnvironmentFed">https://www.youtube.com/user/WaterEnvironmentFed</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eVbfnqXERyk/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eVbfnqXERyk?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />
<h3>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/WERF635" target="_blank">WERF</a></h3>
OK, now I may be stretching it to say WERF has vlogs but they do have some neat videos on various topics. I like this recent one on their<a href="http://www.werf.org/lift" target="_blank"> LIFT program</a> (along with WEF), focused on Mango Materials. It feels like a vlog even if it isn't one!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yP6lZgEML4I/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yP6lZgEML4I?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
So, there are some pretty neat videos out there but no a whole lot of poop-focused vlogs, <i>per se</i>. So maybe there is room for the Poop Engineer to try moving pictures!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-52276202553826975652015-07-25T18:24:00.001-07:002015-07-25T19:15:41.288-07:00My Journey Into Sustainability<h2>
A Personal Journey into Sustainability</h2>
A few days ago I was asked to speak at a local APWA luncheon on the topic of <a href="http://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/rating/" target="_blank">Envision</a>. I usually do pretty technical talks but on this occasion I thought I'd try something different and make it a little more personal by describing my own journey into sustainability as a lead-in to giving an update on Envision itself. The Prezi below shows the gist of the talk - so go ahead and click through it - but without my narrative it's not really informative, so I thought I'd add some notes below that map out my journey!<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="400" id="iframe_container" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://prezi.com/embed/a_mk0vtwl-qp/?bgcolor=ffffff&lock_to_path=0&autoplay=0&autohide_ctrls=0&landing_data=bHVZZmNaNDBIWmlSa1k1MmNRK3VoaXFhTktOYzU5Ynl1eWtiVVRLK2V4VnZadXlZbjZxOHVPelBVclJDYlRBQzNJRT0&landing_sign=deX35d4c0yQzsPTh4L3q37BHiIm7FCEh994964A612w#" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="550"></iframe>
<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Loughborough</h3>
I did my bachelor's degree at Loughborough University of Technology (if you need help pronouncing it click here: <a href="http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/Loughborough" target="_blank">Loughborough</a> !). At the time I was an idealist who wanted to change the world to make it a better place. I decided to do chemical engineering because I was good at maths, chemistry and physics, but I selected a degree with the long title of "<a href="http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/chemical/undergraduate/courses/chemicalengineeringbeng/" target="_blank">Chemical Engineering with Environmental Protection</a>" because I thought I would be able to somehow stop all those nasty chemical factories from hurting the environment! As it happened, I ended up doing a year's internship with <a href="http://www.stwater.co.uk/" target="_blank">Severn Trent Water</a> running pilot poop plants for their R&D group and so my glorious love for poop plants and wastewater engineering began!<br />
<br />
<h3>
Western Australia</h3>
Fast forward 15 years and I was by then working for <a href="http://bv.com/" target="_blank">Black & Veatch</a>, based in our Kansas City office. (Actually we were stuck in the basement of our Overland Park HQ at the time, but that's another story!) Then I got the opportunity to move to <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Perth+WA,+Australia/@-27.6986678,123.4834679,4.79z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x2a32bad5293bd573:0x504f0b535df4ee0" target="_blank">Perth, Western Australia</a> for 18 months working on their 3 largest wastewater treatment plants. It was an excellent experience all round but in particular I got to experience 3 things: wonderful espresso coffee (I know! who'd have thought?), awesome food (but generally crappy service!), and... sustainability. The last one was taught to me by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pub/susanne-cooper/60/99b/7b6" target="_blank">Susanne Cooper</a>, who is a senior manager for Sustainability at SKM, the firm we teamed with on the program in Perth. She has such a passion for sustainability that it's infectious and it really resonated with me. I'm still very thankful for the way she opened my eyes and passed on that passion to me.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Back in the USA</h3>
<div>
When I left the US for Australia in 2006, the topic of sustainability was barely on the radar. When I returned in 2008 it was EVERYWHERE! There was a real buzz about sustainability wherever you looked. When Costco has Sustainability on the front of its magazine, you know it's going mainstream! So, that was the good. The not-so-good was the confusion and misinformation about what sustainability actually means. I heard a couple of examples of "greenwashing" where unscrupulous folks just tagged their project with the word "sustainable" to somehow magically make it so when in fact it was a very un-sustainable project on several counts!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, what is a sustainable design? Is it low energy? Is it recycling of resources? Is it neighbor-friendly design? It can be some or all of these. The "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line" target="_blank">Triple Bottom Line</a>" concept is a useful approach to figuring this out. Gauging how sustainable a project is can be a no brainer in many cases using common sense (e.g. reuse something instead of throwing it out or reducing waste materials), but in other cases taking a very narrow view of something you think is sustainable can actually cause environmental damage if you take a broader perspective. Some <a href="http://www.shalegas.international/2015/07/01/surprising-fact-water-use-declining-as-fracking-takes-over-usa/" target="_blank">recent articles talking about fracking</a> actually show it may be having a positive impact on water resources, for example. That is counter-intuitive, but shows how we need to take a broader perspective. In one of my early blogs I talked about how <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2012/08/in-praise-of-lca-thinking.html" target="_blank">LCA is a useful tool</a> in this regard.<br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzFP2bozyyoVby5NkFEJPLZPjFiwhtJUo0CMYuw76Y1OJ80aY0KgX0HPW8VWDwjhKR-x66k60ZWtONXT12W6sr35QJD5926aFzvE4nulyKJdKWJ9RPsDIPTtkyLZETgPCXAU-BzKwo_C0/s1600/EnvisionLogo354.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzFP2bozyyoVby5NkFEJPLZPjFiwhtJUo0CMYuw76Y1OJ80aY0KgX0HPW8VWDwjhKR-x66k60ZWtONXT12W6sr35QJD5926aFzvE4nulyKJdKWJ9RPsDIPTtkyLZETgPCXAU-BzKwo_C0/s200/EnvisionLogo354.jpg" width="200" /></a>
Envision</h3>
And so, recognizing that it's tricky to come up with a simple way to measure sustainability, the clever folks at the <a href="https://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/" target="_blank">Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure</a> came up with a great assessment tool called Envision. What is Envision? Check out this <a href="https://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/downloads/Envision_factsheet.pdf" target="_blank">factsheet</a>. Why use Envision? Here's my list of reasons:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>It's a real "standard" endorsed by three major national organizations: <a href="http://www.apwa.net/" target="_blank">APWA</a>, <a href="http://www.asce.org/" target="_blank">ASCE</a> and <a href="http://www.acec.org/" target="_blank">ACEC</a>.</li>
<li>If everyone uses the same approach it facilitates clarity in communication. Some requests for proposals (RFP) that I've seen for infrastructure projects have been vague on their requirements for sustainability or prescribe you use their specific approach which others may not know. Picking a standard tool like Envision makes it easier to specify and respond to sustainability requirements in proposals.</li>
<li>It's open and transparent. The guidelines are well written and honest. There's also a genuine openness at ISI for feedback to make this a system that will work. The ultimate goal of ISI is truly to drive sustainability into our designs. I give credit for this to <a href="https://youtu.be/hVzZTqhDNRc" target="_blank">Bill Bertera</a>, who's doing an excellent job guiding ISI.</li>
<li>Its web-based, so it's easy to access</li>
<li>The tools are user-friendly</li>
<li>And finally, for all Apple product users... it's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXUIQyOsTVY" target="_blank">cool</a> (or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-aInwhZBo8" target="_blank">great</a>!) So use it!</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
To wrap up my APWA talk, I gave some recent news and stats for the adoption of Envision. It's still relatively new, but I feel we're starting to build up steam. Denise Nelson at ISI kindly provided the following info:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>We have over 3,400 credentialed users and another 1,000 enrolled.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>We also have 54 trainers who have provide 25 in-person training workshops that trained over 400 people. There are several more scheduled. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>As far as projects go, we have 6 awarded projects, 11 additional projects registered for verification, and several more on path for registration. One project just completed the verification process, so any day now we’ll announce the 7<sup>th</sup> award!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>The updates in June were big news:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span>new online training<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span>revised guidance manual<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span>revised exam<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>We recently posted a new fact sheet focused on public sector use of Envision. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>We recently started an ISI Envision monthly email newsletter<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>There were also two great magazine articles recently: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span>Rubin, Debra. “Envision Tool Moves Project Sustainability Beyond Buildings,” ENR (June 2015).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 1in;">
<a href="http://enr.construction.com/infrastructure/environment/2015/0622-Envision-Tool-Moves-Sustainability-Measure-Beyond-Buildings.asp" style="color: #954f72;">http://enr.construction.com/infrastructure/environment/2015/0622-Envision-Tool-Moves-Sustainability-Measure-Beyond-Buildings.asp</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span>Nelson, Denise. “Advancing Sustainable Infrastructure with Envision®,” CE News (June 2015).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 1in;">
<a href="http://cenews.com/article/10098/advancing-sustainable-infrastructure-with-envision" style="color: #954f72;">http://cenews.com/article/10098/advancing-sustainable-infrastructure-with-envision</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
There are several exciting things coming up soon:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>more magazine articles, including one in Mexico<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>conference presentations and sessions<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>posting a revised Checklist<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>an ISI YouTube channel<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>restarting the committees<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>outreach at 5 upcoming public sector conferences</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
So, at the end of my presentation I can honestly say that 20 years on the idealistic young engineer from Loughborough University who wanted to change the world is more optimistic than ever that maybe we can change the world for the better and Envision is a great tool to help us do that. Will you do the same?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-38706218755169669192015-04-17T17:33:00.001-07:002015-04-17T17:33:35.714-07:00Leading Edge or Bleeding Edge? (Reflecting on Innovation)
<p> Over the next few weeks I'll be working on an article focused on innovation in wastewater treatment. It really is an exciting time to be a poop engineer as there are several potentially game-changing processes and technologies emerging on the scene: <a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anammox">anammox</a>, <a href="http://www.tnw.tudelft.nl/en/research/health-energy-and-environment/highlights/nereda-efficient-waste-water-treatment/">granular activated sludge</a>, <a href="http://www.evoqua.com/en/products/biological_treatment/integrated_advanced_wastewater_systems/Pages/captivator-system.aspx">primary DAF</a>, <a href="http://www.cambi.no/wip4/">thermal hydrolysis</a>, <a href="http://www.ostara.com/">struvite recovery</a>, to name but a few. Add to this initiatives like <a href="http://www.werf.org/lift">LIFT</a> and <a href="http://www.isleutilities.com/services/technology-approval-group">Isle Utilities TAGs</a> that are pushing these new ideas to the fore. Finally there is <a href="https://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/rating/index.cfm">Envision</a> that enables us to evaluate the sustainability of these new ideas. As I said, it is an exciting time to be a poop engineer, indeed!</p>
<p>But that's not the focus of this blog; well not exactly. A few years ago I was involved in evaluating, piloting and designing what was then a pretty innovative process called the "integrated fixed-film activated sludge" or <a href="http://www.environmental-expert.com/Files%5C5306%5Carticles%5C8486%5C018.pdf">IFAS</a>. At that time one of my colleagues said something that has stuck with me ever since: </p>
<blockquote><p>"<strong><em>we want to be leading edge, but not bleeding edge</em></strong>" (I wish I could remember who said it first so I can give them credit, but I've heard several of my colleagues use it since and I overuse it!). </p></blockquote>
<p>What is meant by that expression is reasonably self-event. We want to be using new ideas and pushing the envelope of improvement, but not just for the sake of doing new stuff. We want to be innovating but not just for the sake of innovation. Some ideas are ready for implementation but some need the kinks working out still and yet others may be cool but really don't offer tangible benefits over established technologies.</p>
<p>Another thought I want to bring to the discussion in this blog (hoping to make it a conversation!) is the "<a href="https://markabouzeid.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/technology-adoption-lifecycle-revisited/">S-curve of technology implementation.</a>" This curve has been discussed widely of late amongst wastewater professionals and indeed I'll probably include it in my journal article. The discussion has mostly been focused on how can we accelerate technology adoption up the curve and/or help folks to jump across the "chasm of risk" between the pilot and full-scale. Getting the first installation of a technology or process idea is key in this. That's the main focus of LIFT and a noble one too. Let's go for it! Woo-hoo!</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://markabouzeid.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/talc_s_curve_abouzeid.png" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://markabouzeid.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/talc_s_curve_abouzeid.png" id="blogsy-1429317192113.6619" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="410"></a></div>
<p>But... wait a minute. Take a breath. In our exhuberance for new technology I want to discuss another curve for just a moment. <a href="http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hype-cycle.jsp">The technology hype cycle</a>. I think it's a relatively new concept and is applicable to the drive to push new technologies to sell to consumers - think Video2000, think Bluetooth, think 3D TV, think the internet of everything (oooh, risky) - there are all sorts of technolgical ideas that are pushed out and hyped up that in the end don't amount to what was originally promised.<br></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/94/Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg/320px-Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg.png" id="blogsy-1429317192061.6177" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="320" height="208"></a></div>
<p> </p>
<p>In our enthusiasm to advance innovation, are we in danger of just innovating for the sake of innovating? Are we pushing for bleeding edge and shifting from the S-curve to a hype curve? What do you think? I'm purposely putting this in a blog for open discussion so I can be accused of being a <a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite">luddite</a> or worse in the relatively quiet and safe setting of blogger (really, does anyone actually read my blogs?!). If we can discuss it here, then I'm hoping to bring some of those thoughts to the journal article in a less provocative way! </p>
<p>The last thing I want to do is stifle enthusiam for innovation, but equally I've seen a couple of ideas in wastewater treatment "oversold" in the past few years and then die on the vine. There was a sludge reduction technology called "<a href="http://www.evoqua.com/en/products/sludge_biosolids_processing/solids_reduction_process/Pages/envirex_products_cannibal.aspx">Cannibal</a>" that seemed promising and almost too good to be true. Turns out it was too good to be true for many applications, but still it's a good fit if the wastewater characteristics are right and the plant constraints dictate. Unfortunately the hype killed the idea for a lot of people... but, look at the hype curve, after the hype bump there's a drop and then a steady improvement in technology. I see a similar thing as a result of Cannibal. It certainly didn't live up to the hype, but now people are looking more closely at the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043135412006112">cellulose material</a> in wastewater and thinking about how we handle it (think toilet paper!). Some good came out of the hype as it drove <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043135409008495">further investigations</a> and discussion. That's great for the industry, but maybe not so good for those bleeding out because of the hype.</p>
<p>My concern is that we may be doing similar things with other great ideas. <a href="http://www.werf.org/c/industry/2012/12302012_Making_Wastewater.aspx">Mainstream deammonification</a> is a great concept, but in many instances it doesn't make sense. <a href="http://www.iwaponline.com/wst/05804/wst058040781.htm">Granular AS</a> is very cool, but again it probably won't fit all situations. I'm an advocate for struvite recovery, but it doesn't fit all faciities. Let's not hype these ideas, but let's evaluate where they fit best to play to their strengths... </p>
<p>Alternatively, maybe we do push on to the hype curve, bleed a little and then learn something for the next technological advancement?<br></p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/cloudmanic.com/blog/the-technology-bleeding-edge.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/cloudmanic.com/blog/the-technology-bleeding-edge.jpg" id="blogsy-1429317192128.28" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="420" height="309"></a></div>
<div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-1955632064453441132014-10-25T03:05:00.001-07:002014-10-25T03:05:41.871-07:00Reflecting on SIWW2014 and Nepal2014
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: none;"><a href="http://www.siww.com.sg/" target="_blank" style=""><img src="http://www.siww.com.sg/sites/default/files/siww-2014-logo.jpg" id="blogsy-1414231384434.5122" class="alignnone" alt="" width="300" height="85"></a></div>
<p>This summer I went to my first <a href="http://www.siww.com.sg/">Singapore International Water Week</a> (SIWW for those in the know). It was an excellent experience and thought I'd reflect on what I'd seen.</p>
<p>If I had to sum up what SIWW is all about, I'd say it was a truly global center for water professionals to network. I've been to other international conferences that do a decent job of connecting utilities, and/or consultants; others do a great job of connecting researchers and academics; still others connect regulators and policy makers... now SIWW somehow manages to bring <em>all of them</em> together. That's quite an acheivement. I'm a process engineer, which means I appreciate technologies and how we apply them to solve water issues. Until recently I've not really appreciated the value of networking with diverse water experts from around the world, but more and more I understand the axiom "it's <em>who</em> you know, not <em>what</em> you know." Of course it's nice to know a bit too and by rubbing shoulders with smart international experts you get to add to your own knowledge.</p>
<p><a href="http://iwa2014nepal.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Front-Page.jpg" target="_blank" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000"><img src="http://iwa2014nepal.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Front-Page-1024x331.jpg" id="blogsy-1414231384452.1729" class="alignnone" width="500" height="161" alt=""></font></a><br></p>
<p> Fast forward to October 2014 and I'm about to head off to the IWA Specialist Conference "<a href="http://iwa2014nepal.org/">Sustainable Wastewater Treatment and Resource Recovery</a>" in Nepal. I'm intrigued to see the diversity of water professionals at this conference in comparison to SIWW. In addition to diversity across the various roles in the water industry, I'll be interested to see a greater diversity across geopolitical boundaries which will help us to see the differences and commonalities across our profession. I've only worked in already-developed nations and seen wastewater treatment through the narrow lense of technologically intensive and centralized approaches. It will be good to take a step back and out to see how different nations are tackling wastewater treatment. There's a distinct possibility that other nations, still developing their infrastructure, can by-pass some of the mistakes we've taken in the West and jump ahead to more sustainable solutions directly. That's what I'm hoping for in the discussion segments of a workshop I'm helping to lead: "<a href="http://iwa2014nepal.org/program/workshop/">Workshop D: Leapfrogging to off- the- grid biological nutrient removal (October 27, 2014)</a>". We'll see. Should be interesting...</p>
<p> </p>
<div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-47495825615037954822014-04-04T11:39:00.001-07:002014-04-04T11:39:52.713-07:00WWTmod2014 - The Process Design and Optimization Seminar<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Times;"><tbody><tr><td><img src="http://www.biomath.ugent.be/WWTmod2014/images/header_home.jpg" id="blogsy-1396635463035.2695" class="alignleft" alt="" width="358" height="102"></td></tr><tr></tr></tbody></table><br><p>I'm sitting in Brussels airport the day after the last day of the latest in a series of seminars focused on process modeling under the moniker "wwtmod" for "waste-water treatment modeling." The previous 3 biannual wwtmod's were held at Mont-Sainte-Anne, just outside Quebec City in Canada, but the latest in the series - <a href="http://www.biomath.ugent.be/WWTmod2014/">WWTmod2014</a> - was held in the lovely European town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spa,_Belgium">Spa, Belgium</a>. In this blog I'd like to summarise a few of the many highlights of WWTmod2014, but first I'd like to digress a little to ponder the name and the focus of this seminar series.</p><p>WWTmod2008 was first concieved to be a follow-up to a series of modeling-focused seminars called "Kolle-kolle" which I'm told were an excellent set of seminars in the 1990's to discuss wastewater treatment models, from which the IWA's "ASM" activated sludge models were developed. Process models have come a long way since the 1990's, shifting from the realm of academia to mainstream design and operations also. Any consultancy worth it's salt will use process models to develop or refine their designs. In fact, it's all but impossible to design a good nutrient removal facility doing nitrogen and phosphorus removal without the use of models. A few stalwart old-scholers might argue differently but they're a fading voice. This has meant that the WWTmod seminars, from the very start, have pulled together academia and practitioners to discuss process models and these models are now at the heart of process design. Despite the name including "mod" in the title, the seminars very quickly shifted into discussions about the mechanisms and processes that go into the models and so I'd argue that it is now the premiere seminar for process designers and those wanting optimize their waste water plant operations (maybe using models to help!) I can't think of another conference that draws together the top researchers from universities with experts from practice, the way that it's done at WWTmod. If you're a university researcher wanting to understand the challenges of practice, come to a WWTmod seminar. If you're a practitioner wanting to discover the latest tools and techniques to overcome your challenges, come to a WWTmod seminar!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyuzrq_iqvrMmSwHYlbCeiwrra0h3YdQolNLQd_b9pa4lMiFInN8xdhlJGLfDzTFwqLSJqAS2i5xNivSu40xjV951qTL77_k5ELO98ix6DRfaBNqMt5S6Sx0Eu8V6jjgbetCH96aJi4q0/s2048/Photo%25252020140404185020.jpg" target="_blank" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyuzrq_iqvrMmSwHYlbCeiwrra0h3YdQolNLQd_b9pa4lMiFInN8xdhlJGLfDzTFwqLSJqAS2i5xNivSu40xjV951qTL77_k5ELO98ix6DRfaBNqMt5S6Sx0Eu8V6jjgbetCH96aJi4q0/s300/Photo%25252020140404185020.jpg" id="blogsy-1396635462979.0164" class="alignright" alt="" width="300" height="224"></a></div><p>So, what were the highlights of the latest, WWTmod2014? The program covered a broad range of topics in wastewater treatment, from screenings and grit to model extensions for trace organics; the latest in nitrogen reaction pathways and current thinking on phosphorus removal; primary settler and secondary settler performance; integrated modeling and LCA. At the closing session, the chairman of the scientific committee, Ingmar Nopens, had a slide with a few "Useful Quotes and Concepts", so maybe I'll focus on those:</p><p>"Wipers versus Washers" - there's nothing like the topic of bum wiping to get a partly humorous and partly serious discussion going on wastewater treatment. It's not pleasant to discuss the fate of toilet paper but there are serious considerations when it comes to understanding the biodegradability of the material when it gets to the treatment plant. If it's not biodegradable, it uses up treatment capacity and increases the mass of residuals that have to be handled. If it is biodegradable, it's a valuable source of material for biogas generation. Ultimately there wasn't a consensus on its biodegradability, but on the whole it was thought that it wasn't too degradable within the wastewater treatment plant (despite what it says on roll!)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzv9le6kGSv9i8sq1RG1zJbKdI5NkY83WY0_lovX4Kxp2wFKGsWU9yTQfcSV5ydIkPaT0ZVGz4qYiTRAQwv7QLgRZc_GuuIFLr3nK2ZjpmvZ-ngPgZGIUwBgo0i0GU-I8-eMSbjwrZq5Q/s2048/Photo%25252020140404190329.jpg" target="_blank" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzv9le6kGSv9i8sq1RG1zJbKdI5NkY83WY0_lovX4Kxp2wFKGsWU9yTQfcSV5ydIkPaT0ZVGz4qYiTRAQwv7QLgRZc_GuuIFLr3nK2ZjpmvZ-ngPgZGIUwBgo0i0GU-I8-eMSbjwrZq5Q/s300/Photo%25252020140404190329.jpg" id="blogsy-1396635463033.2405" class="alignleft" alt="" width="300" height="225"></a></div><p>The "Drinker-Barman Concept" - trying to be a little radical, I suggested that the Monod equation, near and dear to the hearts of all who model biological processes, may be past its sell-by date and that consideration of diffusion may be key to shifting to simpler kinetics where the "intrinsic" half-saturation coefficient can be ignored. I'm already getting too much into the details here but needless to say I had to use a nice analogy involving beer to make my point and hopefully make it more palitable!</p><p>"Communism/socialism versus capitalism in biological processes" - Dr Zhiguo Yuan discussed how the models we use assume that substrate is shared evenly amongst the different organisms that use it (like socialism shares out everything) but in fact there is competition for the substrate that is akin to biological capitalism.</p><p>"Being within the law is not always the good thing" - Dr George Ekama has produced many of the most memorable quotes at these seminars. A few years back he said (I'll get it wrong, but hopefully close enough): "The main problem is to keep the main problem the main problem" and he's also the source of the wipers quote above. His latest quote may sound revolutionary but it's really meant to highlight that some of regulations that govern treatment standards don't always result in the best overall environmental solution. In particular we discussed the focus on carbon emissions at wastewater treatment facilities and legislation pushing them to reduce energy use and carbon footprint when in fact the carbon emissions per person served by a treatment plant is peanuts - maybe less than 1% of their overall emissions - and they'd be better driving less or using less hot water.</p><p>Beyond these highlights another fun part of the conference was the use of twitter to post comments. I confess I was a twittering fool but it was fun! Check out the hashtag <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/wwtmod2014">#wwtmod2014</a> to see!</p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-39786247686215737732014-01-10T22:33:00.001-08:002014-01-10T22:36:22.945-08:00Trends for 2014 and Beyond...<p> It's the turn of the year and the TV is full of "specials" recounting the events of 2013 - new births, famous people passing away, sports triumphs and tragedies, conflicts, other newsworthy events - and then there will be folks pondering what 2014 might hold for us all that's different from 2013. If we're honest, nobody can predict what 2014 will be like. Perhaps it will be a quiet and uneventful year, or perhaps there will be some major new conflict or natural disaster that will throw us all for a loop. Maybe aliens will contact us. OK, I'd better stop now as I'm stretching the speculation a little too far! Probably because I've watched one sci-fi movie too many.</p>
<p>I thought it would be interesting to ponder some possible trends in wastewater in North America for 2014. I'll likely be way off on some of these but hopefully one or two will hit the mark, so here goes with my predictions for 2014 and beyond!</p>
<h2>1. Increased use of Envision for truly sustainable design</h2>
<p>Released last year, the <a href="http://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/rating/index.cfm?utm_source=NHC+Master+List&utm_campaign=e85c0b18fc-DR_589&utm_medium=email">Envision</a> evaluation scheme from the <a href="http://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/index.cfm">Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure</a> (ISI), has the potential to radically shift the way we look at wastewater treatment design. In the same way that LEED caught the imagination of the building industry, I can see this really taking off over the next few years. I might be a bit biased because I'm helping to keep track of the roll out of Envision within Black & Veatch, but I really do think it will take off and most folks who know anything about it seem to hold a similar opinion.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/index.cfm" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/images/m-logo.jpg" id="blogsy-1389422169299.6516" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="253" height="105"></a></div>
<h2>2. Nutrient Removal becomes the norm for everyone</h2>
<p>A couple of years ago there was a push by an environmental group to have nutrient removal included as part of the definition for "secondary treatment." Within our industry there was a strong push back and it never got anywhere. At the time I remember thinking that the main reason it failed is that they were advocating for extremely low nutrient limits near the limit of technology (like 0.1 mg/L phosphorus and 3 mg/L nitrogen or something like that - I forget the exact numbers). If, however, they'd proposed a more reasonable set of limits for basic nutrient removal, say 2 mg/L of phosphorus and 15 mg/L nitrogen, then they may have had more traction within wastewater treatment professionals in general. In 2013, WEF and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) started discussions on a <a href="http://www.johnsonfdn.org/conference/crafting-vision-nutrient-management-wastewater-treatment?r=1">Nutrient Roadmap</a>, which may start to pave the way for more folks doing nutrient removal and maybe one day everyone doing it? Until then, there are plenty of regulations that will push utilities into doing it anyway, so nutrient removal will become the norm rather than the exception.</p>
<h2>3. Increased focus on EDCs,PPPs, ECs, MCs, AC/DCs (whatever you want to call them!)</h2>
<p> When I started work in the wastewater industry back in the early 1990's, the new hot topic was endocrine disrupting compounds (EDC). Fast forward 20 years and the new hot topic is still EDCs, though they've added some other trace organic compounds to the list and the name keeps changing! (Micro-pollutants this week maybe?). But recent <a href="http://www.bafu.admin.ch/gewaesserschutz/03716/11218/11223/index.html?lang=en" target="_self" title="">pilot trials</a> at Swiss wastewater treatment plants to put in advanced equipment to remove these nasties makes me think the focus and action on these trace contaminants will only increase.</p>
<h2>4. Life-Cycle Thinking comes of age</h2>
<p> I've written on life cycle assessments (LCA) in a <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2012/08/in-praise-of-lca-thinking.html">previous blog</a>, so I probably shouldn't keep banging on about it, but I do think that we'll see more and more use of Life-cycle thinking in our business. In fact the Envision method I mentioned already advocates LCA for assessing potential environmental benefits.</p>
<h2>5. More resources online</h2>
<p> Where do I start? <a href="http://wefcom.wef.org/home">Wefcom</a>, <a href="http://www.iwawaterwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome">WaterWiki</a>, <a href="http://www.waterworld.com/index.html">Waterworld</a>, <a href="http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/">Engineers Toolbox</a>... there's so much information on the internet focused on water and wastewater, I hardly know where to start. Maybe that's a good topic for a future blog? But for sure we'll see more and more useful information online and in electronic format. </p>
<p>OK, so those are my predictions for 2014. What are your predictions for 2014? How about other parts of the world?</p>
<p> </p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-17954789891301266622013-11-02T11:05:00.001-07:002013-11-02T11:05:42.181-07:00WEFTEC 2013 Debrief (aka the post-WEFTEC blues!)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSFFe4gVB_7qr5IWmwrpboHYcyZfhfQa-umUpTnCkVVdTGFhMUM_QILh4tqpYXXe0DQ43X2l__bC6fC96fB2wQNFxKICoTw2pHhI508uqW7VhHOE913vdb5InhSwGXSdZZQW3S9fosMtDj/s1936/Photo%252520Oct%2525207%25252C%2525202013%25252C%25252011%25253A02%252520AM.jpg" target="_blank" style=" "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSFFe4gVB_7qr5IWmwrpboHYcyZfhfQa-umUpTnCkVVdTGFhMUM_QILh4tqpYXXe0DQ43X2l__bC6fC96fB2wQNFxKICoTw2pHhI508uqW7VhHOE913vdb5InhSwGXSdZZQW3S9fosMtDj/s300/Photo%252520Oct%2525207%25252C%2525202013%25252C%25252011%25253A02%252520AM.jpg" id="blogsy-1383413250864.852" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="300" height="300"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opening Sessions</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p> <span style="line-height: 1.3em;"><a href="http://www.wef.org/about/page.aspx?id=12884903636">WEFTEC 2013</a> came and went several weeks ago, busting all sorts of records over previous years, so I'm a little tardy in giving my impression of this year's event, but here goes anyway...</span></p>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtrE-yBQBy6RRd1P37VuYTBuCwn14u_Brged9i99AD2l6WcMOTKPBS9J1N9ifqfYzMp-Kaknn3E4VFO4HBamR0hciQ6T5dMEyWLvmBXCTjlP44Q2hNRz4dlX2arda4B-v3kAqZ4YH1PhVZ/s1936/Photo%252520Oct%2525208%25252C%2525202013%25252C%25252011%25253A26%252520AM.jpg" target="_blank" style="clear: left; float: left; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtrE-yBQBy6RRd1P37VuYTBuCwn14u_Brged9i99AD2l6WcMOTKPBS9J1N9ifqfYzMp-Kaknn3E4VFO4HBamR0hciQ6T5dMEyWLvmBXCTjlP44Q2hNRz4dlX2arda4B-v3kAqZ4YH1PhVZ/s180/Photo%252520Oct%2525208%25252C%2525202013%25252C%25252011%25253A26%252520AM.jpg" id="blogsy-1383413250836.2903" class="alignleft" alt="" width="180" height="180"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Innovation Showcase</td></tr></tbody></table>
<h2>The Good</h2>
<p>So, what were some of the highlights for me? Here in no particular order are the things that impressed me this year:</p>
<ol>
<li><em>The Venue:</em> the layout of the bookstore and global meeting center right outside the entrance; the exhibition floor right underneath the rooms for the technical sessions; posters right outside the session rooms and electronic versions showing on flat-screen TVs... even a screen for tweets! The conference center was very-nicely laid out.</li>
<li><em>People:</em> I love being able to catch up with colleagues I've not seen for some time. Though I'm a technologist at heart, as I get older (cue cheezy violin music) I appreciate reconnecting with colleagues I've not seen for a while and getting to know new colleagues. You can transfer knowledge and ideas via web-based seminars, conference calls and the like, but nothing beats meeting people face to face.</li>
<li><em>Innovation Showcase:</em> One of the few sessions I did get to attend was held at the Innovation Showcase where <span style="font-size: large; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><a href="http://micromachine.stanford.edu/~yaniv/Site_4/yaniv%40stanford.edu.html">Yaniv Scherson</a> presented on his <a href="http://spase.stanford.edu/Energy_Recovery_from_Waste_Nitrogen_via_N2O_Decomposition.html">CANDO</a> process and several others presented some great and innovative ideas. There was also a session here to discuss the development of a <a href="http://wp.cwea.org/?p=8231">Nutrient Roadmap</a>, which should be pretty interesting.</span></li>
<li><em>Workshops:</em> I have to say I really enjoy the interactive nature of workshops versus the somewhat formal and stuffy format of technical session presentations. This year I somehow managed to help out with 3 different workshops over 2 days - sustainability, modeling and energy. I don't recommend that to anyone, but I do recommend anyone to attend workshops in the future. You learn a heck of a lot more than just watching a paper presentation.</li>
<li><em><a href="http://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLcIZ_Qi40I1Gl4rpb0b4wfoVwSMKmZ1dy&v=qBNPJdfGopI&index=2&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DqBNPJdfGopI%26list%3DPLcIZ_Qi40I1Gl4rpb0b4wfoVwSMKmZ1dy%26index%3D2">Opening sessions</a>:</em> I used to skip the opening sessions because I presumed they were too high level or not relevant for the kinds of things I focus on, but a couple of years back a good friend and colleague, Sudhir Murthy, encouraged me to attend an opening session and I have to say I was pretty impressed. This year's opening session and the following session by water leaders from around the world were pretty inspirational and very well done (photo at the top was the Water Leaders session).</li>
<li>The Inaugural Bookshop Quiz! And not just because<span style="line-height: 1.3em;"> my colleagues from B&V and our client from St Cloud were the winners (see photo below). This was a bit of an experiment for WEF and by my reckoning it was an outstanding success and hope we do it again next year. </span></li>
</ol>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjFje7M-DMRr8OT4HAyQfvyqfDMRQOi1ec_3w2d5vtOt8QSjWhR9EjI8bewlc-dHiZmAOUD1-WQZKnAYxTvCJwwFAqlDclYCmydHs2y843bAkoqx9qWQfWpA6cSzoLi_hvuoR_pVq4bjo/s1936/Photo%252520Oct%2525207%25252C%2525202013%25252C%2525205%25253A22%252520PM.jpg" target="_blank" style=" "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjFje7M-DMRr8OT4HAyQfvyqfDMRQOi1ec_3w2d5vtOt8QSjWhR9EjI8bewlc-dHiZmAOUD1-WQZKnAYxTvCJwwFAqlDclYCmydHs2y843bAkoqx9qWQfWpA6cSzoLi_hvuoR_pVq4bjo/s300/Photo%252520Oct%2525207%25252C%2525202013%25252C%2525205%25253A22%252520PM.jpg" id="blogsy-1383413250843.3044" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="300" height="300"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bookshop Quiz 2014 Winners</td></tr></tbody></table>
<h2>The Not-so-good (PC term for Bad, I guess?!)</h2>
<p>Overall WEFTEC in Chicago surpassed itself this year (are you listening New Orleans?!). So I only have a couple of nit-picky negatives that you can skip right over if you're a glass half-full kind of person (I think I'm a glass at 50% capacity person myself - figure that one out!). Here they are:</p>
<ol>
<li><em>Location:</em> OK the venue is awesome, but it's too bloody far from the awesome hotels, restaurants and other delights of downtown Chicago. I hear rumours that the City has plans to build up the area around the conference center which would be great. Maybe they can add a light rail link or tram too? We stayed at the Sheraton on the north side of downtown and it was pretty cool to take the shuttle bus down some secret road under the city and down to the convention center, but I'm guessing others didn't have quite the same fun with their long queues and rush-hour bus rides back into the city. </li>
<li><em>Too much to see:</em> Maybe it's just because I'm a "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1068680/">Yes Man</a>" and involved in too many things, but this year, with all the committee activities and what-not (including doing a mid-term exam - don't ask) I barely saw a handful of presentations. At some point I need to go through the <a href="http://weftec2013.conferencespot.org/" target="_blank" title="">proceedings</a> and see what I missed.</li>
<li><em>The submission process:</em> This is probably a contentious one and may come across stronger than I intend, but I have issues with both the workshop submission process and the abstract submission process. The workshop submission process starts too soon (less than a month after WEFTEC), has too many steps and is contrained by an inflexible rubric that has only one format in mind. The paper abstract submission format and process used to be OK i.e. develop a 3 page Word document and a few figures. Now it's a nasty process of developing some text of <span style="line-height: 1.3em;">indeterminate</span><span style="line-height: 1.3em;"> length with figures kept separate in pure graphical form, then you use some weird coding to get your figures and tables (haven't figured out a tidy way to handle tables) into the text, hopefully in the right spot. A little knowledge of html coding is helpful. Maybe this is a little unfair as it's not quite as bad as I make out as long as you know the process ahead of time. And I've never been asked to review any papers for WEFTEC so I'm hoping that maybe the new system makes the review process easier somehow.</span></li>
</ol>
<p> OK, so WEFTEC 2013 is over and I'd say it was probably the best one yet. The bar is pretty high for New Orleans and WEFTEC 2014!</p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-84061569354152179412013-10-04T18:50:00.001-07:002013-10-05T08:43:16.115-07:00Heading to WEFTEC 2013<p> I'm currently sitting on a SouthWest Airlines flight from DC heading to Chicago for <a href="https://twitter.com/i/jot">WEFTEC13</a> (feel like I should hashtag that somehow but I just saw Jimmy Fallon's <a href="http://youtu.be/57dzaMaouXA" target="_self" title="#hashtag">#hashtag skit</a> so maybe I won't!)</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.weftec.org/" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://www.weftec.org/images/weftec_logo.jpg" id="blogsy-1380987784706.7456" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="300" height="90"></a></div>
<p> So what does WEFTEC have in store for us this year? I've been attending WEFTECs since 1999 and every year I'm amazed by the sheer number of papers, exhibits and interactions that go on. Some years it gets a bit overwhelming as it's impossible to see everything and meet everyone you want to catch up with. And I think I have suffered from burn-out from seeing so many conferences year after year, but this year I'm pretty impressed with some of the innovative ideas the WEFTEC organizers have come up with to keep it interesting and a bit different than previous years. Here are a few ways they've done so:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.weftec.org/Innovation/">Innovation Showcase</a> : I'm impressed with WEFTEC embracing innovation with focused events under the umbrella of the innovation showcase. They've been doing this for a few years now, I think, but this year it caught my eye and I plan to attend at least some of the events (too much stuff to see and do!)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.weftec.org/MeetTheExperts-Nutrients/#James_Barnard" target="_self" title="Meet James">Meet the Expert</a>: My good friend and colleague, Dr James Barnard, and other experts will be available to answer your burning questions on nutrients and all sorts of other water topics.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.weftec.org/weftecmobile/">The Mobile App</a>: This is a very cool app, being easy to use and full of all the information you'll need to figure out where you need to be and when. My only criticism is that I can't export the calendar or sync with Outlook (I'm obviously too busy as Outlook rules and governs my every move it seems!).</p>
<p> Last, but by no means least is the <a href="http://www.weftec.org/bookstore/">Bookstore Quiz</a>! And not just because I'm one of the judges. This should be fun so come and show your wastewater know-how with the chance to win $500.</p>
<p>So, I've now arrived in Chicago and I'm ready to see what WEFTEC holds. Workshops over the next couple of days and then the main events and sessions starting Monday. I look forward to seeing some of you there (especially at the quiz, OK?).</p>
<p> </p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-85684292501288699802013-09-21T14:37:00.001-07:002013-09-21T14:37:21.376-07:00W is for water<p> Last, but by no means least in our consideration of <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2013/07/thinking-about-resource-recovery.html">resource recovery</a>, is Water. It seems obvious to say that the most valuable resource we can recover from waste-water is most often the water itself. In arid regions like Israel, Cyprus, Nevada and Southern California, the pressure on water resources is so great that there is little choice but to reuse the "used water" (to borrow a phrase from Singapore). In other regions, <a href="http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/scarcity.shtml">water stress </a>is not yet a concern but it's coming as populations increase and weather patterns shift.</p>
<p>The topic of water reuse is huge and well-established and I don't think I could do it justice in a blog such as this. Instead, I just want to highlight a few interesting articles. The August edition of the IWA Journal, <a href="http://www.iwapublishing.com/template.cfm?name=w21_august_2013">Water 21</a> has a nice article on global water reuse that I highly recommend. Unfortunately you have to be an IWA member to access the article, or you can <a href="http://www.iwapublishing.com/template.cfm?name=isbn9781780400075&type=new">buy the book </a>on which the article was based!</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sandia.gov/energy-water/images/puzzleB.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://www.sandia.gov/energy-water/images/puzzleB.jpg" id="blogsy-1379799366060.499" class="aligncenter" alt="" width="500" height="248"></a></div>
<p> The Energy-Water Nexus is a topic that's courts a lot of attention, and rightly so. Energy is a key element that drives economic development and the modern amenities the western world has come to rely on. Energy production requires a lot of water and water production and wastewater treatment require energy which links the two quite strongly. I should note that the balance in this linkage is pretty skewed toward Energy production needing a huge volume of water whereas water production and wastewater treatment requires a small piece of the energy pie! There are many, many article discussing this topic. <a href="http://www.sandia.gov/energy-water/nexus_overview.htm">Here's one</a> for starters.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: none;"><a href="http://www.ecowest.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Arizona-water-flow.png" target="_blank" style=""><img src="http://www.ecowest.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Arizona-water-flow.png" id="blogsy-1379799366099.3298" class="alignnone" alt="" width="500" height="375"></a></div>
<p>Extending this topic a little further, we need to think about the other activity that uses a huge quantity of water, and that's agriculture. I'm not a water resources guy (poop engineer remember!) so it was really enlightening to see the water source and use diagrams for the US. The amount we use and produce for domestic use is tiny in comparison to irrigation and energy production. Ecowest has an <a href="http://www.ecowest.org/2013/05/21/flow-diagrams-of-u-s-and-western-water-use/">informative presentation</a> that describes some figures produced by the Lawrence Livermore National, in their case focusing on the western states of the US.</p>
<p> So, where does this leave us in thinking about water reclamation and resource recovery? Certainly it's a topic that is region specific. If you have an abundance of water and sources of a high quality, then it makes most sense to treat our wastewater and return it to the natural environment to help preserve our rivers and waterways as we've traditionally done it treatment plants for years. But in regions where there's a shortage of water we need to see our wastewater streams as valuable sources for reclamation and reuse. I like to think of it in a wider context of reduce-reuse-recycle. First of all, let's use whatever measures we can to conserve and not waste the water - in our homes, industries, agriculture and energy prodcution. Then let's look for ways of reusing water within these different arenas. Then finally we look at treating and recycling the used water at our wastewater treatment plants.</p>
<p>As I said, this is a huge topic and way beyond the scope of a little blog like this. But hopefully I've helped you to stop and think about the part that wastewater treatment facilities can play in our regional water cycles and to see the value of our most precious resource of all: water.</p>
<p> </p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-41438710125460221402013-09-01T17:53:00.001-07:002013-09-02T04:14:26.566-07:00Energy Info<p> I thought about giving this blog a corny name like "Sourcing Energy Info" but on seconds thoughts that might be too confusing! Before I turn my attention to the "W" in resorurce recovery, I wanted to wrap up the discussion of Energy by passing on a few of my favorite websites on the topic. Not the most riveting of blogs for sure, but I want my blogs to contain useful information through the links and not just be this crazy limey blathering on about his latest beef or pet project! So here are a few sites I've found in the mass of information on the glorious mess that is the world-wide-web (do we still call it that, or am I showing my age already?).</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.umatillaelectric.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/USEIALogo.jpg" target="_blank" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://www.umatillaelectric.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/USEIALogo.jpg" id="blogsy-1378120448777.0884" class="alignleft" width="129" height="112" alt=""></a></div>
<h2>U.S. Energy Information Administration (<a href="http://www.eia.gov/">www.eia.gov</a>)</h2>
<p>This one has to be the top of the pile for any data junkies like me. They have historical data for every energy source by state, end use and major energy provider. If you want to know the <a href="http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data.cfm#sales">$/kWh for electricity</a> or <a href="http://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/data.cfm#summary">$/btu for natural gas</a>, and heaven knows what other pricing or production stats, this is the place to start. Although focused on US pricing, they have some good <a href="http://www.eia.gov/countries/">International stuff</a> and their <a href="http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/?src=Analysis-f3">Energy Outlook</a> takes a shot at trying to guesstimate future energy costs. A warning to data junkies though, you may find yourselves lost in piles of data for days on end so have a friend feed your cat whilst you're using it!</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://environmentallawblog.greenbergglusker.com/files/2012/11/epa-logo3.jpg" target="_blank" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://environmentallawblog.greenbergglusker.com/files/2012/11/epa-logo3.jpg" id="blogsy-1378120448827.9822" class="alignleft" width="129" height="129" alt=""></a></div>
<h2>U.S. EPA (<a href="http://www.epa.gov/">www.epa.gov</a> or <a href="http://water.epa.gov/">water.epa.gov</a>)</h2>
<p>The EPA website has to be one of the most data-rich but frustrating sites I've used over the years. They have a huge amount of information - data, electronic documents, maps - but it can be tough to dig into it to find any of the useful stuff. Thankfully their search is pretty good and so you can usually find what you're looking for after a while. On the topic of energy in wastewater treatment facilities, I recommend starting with: <a href="http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/sustain/energyefficiency.cfm">http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/sustain/energyefficiency.cfm</a> as the front door to a lot of general information to help folks to be more energy efficient. Another good spot to look is the Energy Star site which includes a section for wastewater treatment (which, ironically, I can no longer find!!!). <a href="http://www.energystar.gov/buildings/facility-owners-and-managers/existing-buildings/use-portfolio-manager?s=mega">Portfolio manager</a> is the closest thing to a national standard for assessing energy efficiency at a treatment facility. I'm not a big fan of their regression analysis for the scoring (maybe a topic for a future blog!) but as a tool for assessing energy performance and planning improvements it's pretty decent.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.ecoinvent.org/" target="_blank" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://www.ecoinvent.org/fileadmin/template/logo.png" id="blogsy-1378120448873.159" class="alignleft" width="129" height="120" alt=""></a></div>
<h2>The Ecoinvent Database (<a href="http://www.ecoinvent.ch/">www.ecoinvent.ch</a>)</h2>
<p>In a <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2012/08/in-praise-of-lca-thinking.html">previous blog</a> I spoke about Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a powerful tool for assessing the environmental impact of processes and products. A huge piece in the LCA puzzle is energy use and so the LCA databases are a great source for understanding how such diverse things as chemical use or driving to/from the treatment plant are tied to global energy use. As noted in that article, I access the databases through the <a href="http://www.pre-sustainability.com/simapro-lca-software">Simapro</a> simulator.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.werf.org/liveablecommunities/images/werf_logo.gif" target="_blank" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://www.werf.org/liveablecommunities/images/werf_logo.gif" id="blogsy-1378120448789.1882" class="alignleft" width="130" height="54" alt=""></a></div>
<h2>Water Environment Research Foundation (<a href="http://www.werf.org/">www.werf.org</a>)</h2>
<p>My <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2013/08/e-is-for-energy.html">last blog</a> focussed heavily on the work being done by WERF, so I won't go on about it agian, except to point you toward their Energy Knowledge Area: <a href="http://www.werf.org/i/ka/Energy/a/ka/Energy.aspx">http://www.werf.org/i/ka/Energy/a/ka/Energy.aspx</a> (hmmm, you'd think we could have a shorter URL...)</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Wikipedia-logo.png" target="_blank" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Wikipedia-logo.png" id="blogsy-1378120448850.3982" class="alignleft" width="120" height="120" alt=""></a></div>
<h2>Wikipedia (<a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/">www.wikipedia.org</a>)</h2>
<p> "Really Andy, you're suggesting Wikipedia as a useful reference? It's not peer reviewed and there's also sorts of mis-information on there." Well, I have to confess to being a big fan of Wikipedia. If you need a basic overview of any topic such as what the heck is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle">Carnot cycle</a> or a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_engine">Rankine Engine</a>, I can't think of a better place to start than Wikipedia. Usually you get a nice and succinct definition in a paragraph or two and a link to sites with more depth and then some reasonable references at the end if you want to chase more information. I've heard the criticism that it's not peer reviewed and may be full of errors, but I've seen errors in books and supposedly peer-reviewed papers. Many text books and most papers have a myopic view of topics that is put to shame by the consensus approach of Wikipedia. If I ever get to the point of being a prof in a University I'll tell my students to use Wikipedia and other web-based resources instead of text books as much as possible. (Come on, tell me I'm crazy!)</p>
<p>So, there are a handful of sites to get you started in your investigations into Energy and wastewater treatment. I'd be interested in hearing from others on useful sites you've found so please comment below!</p>
<p> </p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-54272644561844721182013-08-24T12:57:00.001-07:002013-08-24T12:57:58.873-07:00E is for Energy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Plasma_lamp_touching.jpg/220px-Plasma_lamp_touching.jpg" target="_blank" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Plasma_lamp_touching.jpg/220px-Plasma_lamp_touching.jpg" id="blogsy-1377374280680.8508" class="alignright" alt="" width="220" height="153"></a></div>
<p> In my <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2013/07/recovering-nutrients.html" target="_self" title="N is for Nutrients">past few blogs</a> I discussed nutrients as the "N" in the context of the "<a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2013/07/thinking-about-resource-recovery.html" target="_self" title="Resource Recovery Facilities">N-E-W" paradigm</a> for wastewater treatment (rebranded as "water resource recovery facilities" but it's taking me time to adjust so bear with me, please!). In this blog we turn our attention to <strong>Energy</strong> (that's a capital "E"!)</p>
<p>Energy is currently the hottest topic in our triumvirate of resources that we can recover at water resource recovery facilities (there, I said it) aka poop plants (sorry, couldn't resist!). I think this is due to the fact that we pay our electricity and gas bills and so we're conscious of the cost of energy. Of all resources, we relate to energy the most because we can link it back to the dollars and cents used to pay for it. Another way of saying the same thing is that ecologically minded people can think of energy recovery in terms of reducing carbon footprint and at the same time the more financially motived people can see the possibility for cost savings. In sustainability terms, this is a real "win-win" ( or "win-win-win" if we can rope in social benefits somehow in the triple bottom line) which overcomes the need to consider trade-offs between reducing environmental impacts and the financial cost. I think this is OK, and certainly makes it easier to make the decision to implement an energy project at a facility, but we need to be careful not to expect the "win-win" for all sustainability projects and we need to set expectations that not all energy and sustainability projects will have a short-term financial pay back. If it does, great, but that's not the only reason to do the project.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV4tHmLG5R5LD-YCY3oz64eG1BEfYsLEVAWh7kpKr9cCaHxrZia0AIGyywPfQOQRZsuGcm58rvT2TL1zmwQUnM1VDAPg7BNK3H5bEA8pvSqmdHLXS9Hj5TDyUi94k8n3S_NQsDnFBuYzc/s960/Photo%252520Aug%25252024%25252C%2525202013%25252C%2525202%25253A50%252520PM.jpg" target="_blank" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV4tHmLG5R5LD-YCY3oz64eG1BEfYsLEVAWh7kpKr9cCaHxrZia0AIGyywPfQOQRZsuGcm58rvT2TL1zmwQUnM1VDAPg7BNK3H5bEA8pvSqmdHLXS9Hj5TDyUi94k8n3S_NQsDnFBuYzc/s500/Photo%252520Aug%25252024%25252C%2525202013%25252C%2525202%25253A50%252520PM.jpg" id="blogsy-1377374280684.0713" class="aligncenter" width="500" height="375" alt=""></a></div>
<p>In thinking about <a href="http://www.werf.org/CMDownload.aspx?ContentKey=cf3ed15a-e53b-44a3-ab62-74f2d36a16ed&ContentItemKey=150f42ee-463b-43fc-9597-931d00ff73ff">energy neutralit</a>y, which is a goal for <a href="http://www.werf.org/i/ka/Energy/a/ka/Energy.aspx">WERF</a> and others, we need to think about it from both energy use (the "demand" side) and energy as a resource (the "supply side"). It makes no sense to produce lots of electricity on site and at the same time be running inefficient pumps and blowers. We really do need to think about energy as a whole. That's the focus for a WERF research project I'm helping on right now called "<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(0, 64, 121); font-family: arial; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><a href="http://www.werf.org/a/k/Search/ResearchProfile.aspx?ReportID=ENER1C12">Energy Balance and Reduction Opportunities, Case Studies of Energy-Neutral Wastewater Facilities and Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Research Planning Support</a></span>" (a bit of a mouthful but descriptive).</p>
<p>I encourage everyone to take a look at what WERF is doing in Energy recovery as well as other organizations. Feel free to post a reply to this blog if you know of other noteworthy activities in energy recovery for wastewater treatment plants... I mean water resource recovery facilities!</p>
<p> </p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-17693650634787000362013-08-02T19:01:00.001-07:002013-08-02T19:05:45.459-07:00Nutrients Part 2<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cupc2012.phas.ubc.ca/common/assets/Vancouver/aerial.jpg" target="_blank" style="clear: right; float: right; "><img src="http://cupc2012.phas.ubc.ca/common/assets/Vancouver/aerial.jpg" id="blogsy-1375495538101.2166" class="alignright" alt="Vancouver" width="365" height="243"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vancouver</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p> My original plan was to step from Nutrients to Energy to Water week by week in thinking through resource recovery from wastewater treatment plants, but I want to dwell a little longer on Nutrients as this past week I attended the <a href="http://www.wef.org/conferences/page_details.aspx?id=12884901928">WEF/IWA Nutrient Removal and Recovery 2013: Trends in Resource Recovery and Use</a>It was a very good conference. Just the fact that this annual conference that started out looking at nutrient <em>removal</em> now includes significant space for <em>recovery</em> of said nutrients is an excellent step forward. <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.ca/2013/07/recovering-nutrients.html">Last Blog</a> I listed what I thought were 3 significant hurdles to nutrient recovery, namely Money, Focus and Knowledge. This past week certainly brought Focus to the topic and considerable Knowledge too... to be honest there was so much knowledge shared I need to go back through the proceedings to see what I missed! This is excellent news in our move toward a sustainable future.</p>
<p>So that's the good news, but still there is the significant hurdle of Money. I want to offer the suggestion that we need to broaden our perspectives when it comes to looking at the finances of nutrient recovery projects. One very obvious example is the benefit that comes from removing phosphorus from a treatment facility that is suffering from pipe blockages and equipment failure due to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struvite">struvite</a>. I have heard of a couple of utilities that have decided to do phosphorus recovery in order to remove phosphate from their sludge liquors where struvite was a major problem. There is also evidence that sludges rich in phosphorus (due to enhanced biological phosphorus removal) are more difficult to dewater. Finally, the content of P in most biosolids produced in a treatment facility is much higher than it needs to be for <a href="http://www.wef.org/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=7745">agronomic</a> use. Connect all of these factors together, estimate the cost benefits of them and then add this to the economic analysis for P-recovery and it will significantly shift the balance. </p>
<p>And all this is can be acheived without considering the true value of phosphorus as a non-renewable resource. Throw in this factor, and the fact that it's doing the right thing, then I think the case for nutrient recovery is much stronger than many may realize. I'm excitied to be working on a P-recovery project at Stickney in Chicago over the next several months. I strongly encourage others to consider doing it - the financial aspects are much better than you'd expect if you take an holistic view, and it's just the right thing to do, so do it!</p>
<p> </p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269109909749544620.post-35994006130540504952013-07-14T17:35:00.001-07:002013-07-14T17:35:32.507-07:00Recovering Nutrients<p> <a href="http://poopengineer.blogspot.com/2013/07/thinking-about-resource-recovery.html">Last week</a> I blogged on the N-E-W paradigm that considers wastewater treatment plants as resource recovery facilities instead of waste disposal points (like paper and glass recycling centers instead of taking stuff to "the dump"). This week I'll focus on the "N" and think about what nutrients can be recovered and some of the factors influencing nutrient recovery. I've grouped them into the positive "driving forces" and the negative "hurdles" that prevent us from recovering nutrients.</p>
<h2>Driving Forces</h2>
<h3>1. Non-renewable resources</h3>
<p>Arguably the #1 reason to consider nutrient recovery - specifically focused on phosphorus, I should say - is that it's an opportunity to recover and reuse a valuable non-renewable resource. There is only a finite amount of phosphorus that can be mined and used for fertilizer. The sources of phosphorus rock that we are currently using are relatively cheap and easy to mine. Estimates for <a href="http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/phosphate_rock/" target="_self" title="USGS rock phosphate">global reserves of phosphorus keep shifting and growing</a> as more reserves are found, but the availability of easy-to-access phosphorus rock will eventually dwindle and fade, forcing us to look for less-accessible phosphorus. My good colleague and mentor Dr. James Barnard notes that at some point in the future we may be so short of rock phosphorus that we'll be mining old landfills for the P that's in sludge and other materials dumped there, so maybe we should start landfilling P-rich sludge residues (e.g. incinerator ash) in locations that will be easier to access in the future... put a big P right here sign over that part of the landfill! Way in the future we'll be dredging rivers and sea beds to glean a few grams of phosphorus, so why don't we look more closely at our current phosphorus balance and grab the P at the wastewater treatment facility where it's relatively easy?</p>
<h2>2. Shifting the balance</h2>
<p>The case for P recovery is pretty strong based on it being a non-renewable resource that's essential for growing food. It can also be argued that if we're trying to remove P from wastewater to prevent eutrophication, then we might as well recover that phosphorus and make good use of it. In essence, that's what we're doing when we take the "sludge" from a treatment facility and magically change the name to <a href="http://www.wef.org/biosolids/" target="_self" title="Biosolids">"biosolids</a>" (forgive the thinly veiled sarcasm) and apply it to farm land. Whatever P is captured in the solids, goes back to the land instead of being washed out into the rivers and oceans. So let's shift more of the P into the solids so more of it goes back to the land, right? Unfortunately, the balance of phosphorus to nitrogen in the biosolids from wastewater treatment facilities is non-ideal for most soils and so we end up putting too much P back on the land to get the nitrogen needed. </p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7176/images/nature06592-f1.2.jpg" target="_blank" style=" "><img src="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7176/images/nature06592-f1.2.jpg" id="blogsy-1373841050370.663" class="aligncenter" alt="N Cycle" width="376" height="193"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Global Nitrogen Fluxes</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>Shifting our focus to nitrogen, we can see that the human impact on the natural nitrogen cycle has <a href="http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-nitrogen-cycle-processes-players-and-human-15644632">skewed the nutrient balance considerably</a>. If we can redress some of that through N recovery and reuse in biosolids or by capturing nitrogen directly at the treatment plant then perhaps we're focused on one of the most important <a href="http://www.stockholmresilience.org/21/research/research-programmes/planetary-boundaries.html" target="_self" title="">planetary boundaries</a>?</p>
<h3>3. Setting an example</h3>
<p> If we think about changing attitudes and actions, I think nothing is more powerful than leadership by example. We maybe under-emphasize the need for individuals who will be champions for change. I can think of several people in the wastewater treatment industry that inspire us to look at resource recovery more closely. They have persuaded their organizations to take some bold steps in implementing nutrient recovery. We need more resource recovery champions to help us to see the driving factors more clearly and overcome the hurdles listed below...</p>
<h2>Hurdles</h2>
<h3>1. Money</h3>
<p> During some of the training I received on sustainability when I was in Australia, Susanne Cooper taught me that if something isn't financially sustainable then it's not sustainable. This is certainly true. We need to balance the need to protect the environment and human health with the cost of doing it. Conversely, we also need to see the wider benefits - often non-financial - of doing the right thing with resource recovery. We also need to make sure we use the right approach in our financial calculations. In many cases we fall into the trap of trying to justify resource recovery projects over 1 - 5 years of "pay-back" i.e. we force the project to pay for itself, whereas the other activities at the treatment facilities are costs that do not pay for themselves. If we can get a payback, that's great, but let's look at the non-financial benefits too.</p>
<h3>2. Focus</h3>
<p> There are many other priorities for wastewater treatment facilities: meeting permit, protecting human health, dealing with staffing issues, odour complaints... so its tough to add the new focus of nutrient recovery. That's where the resource recovery champions are key. Almost every professional I know in the wastewater treatment industry wants to "do the right thing" for public health and the environment; in many cases it was the reason why they chose their particular career path (let's face it, there are more glamorous and well-paid jobs!). If we are to make a difference in the global nutrient balance through nutrient recovery, we need our champions to tap into our desire to "do the right thing" for the environment.</p>
<h3>3. Knowledge</h3>
<p> If we're to tap into nutrients and recover them at our wastewater treatment facilities then we need to know how to do it. WERF has a Knowledge area focused on <a href="http://www.werf.org/i/ka/Resource_Recovery/a/ka/Resource_Recovery.aspx">Resource Recovery</a> which is helping facilitate our understanding of the mechanisms and technologies that can be used in nutrient recovery.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, in looking at the Driving Forces compelling us to seriously consider nutrient recovery, how do we overcome the Hurdles? I welcome comments and opinions.</p><div style="text-align: right; font-size: small; clear: both;" id="blogsy_footer"><a href="http://blogsyapp.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://blogsyapp.com/images/blogsy_footer_icon.png" alt="Posted with Blogsy" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-right: 5px;" width="20" height="20" />Posted with Blogsy</a></div>Andy Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02634151021830868814noreply@blogger.com1