Potentail for a new and cheaper desalination process from Siemens

Chemical engineering magazine in their August issue  is running a story that has high importance to many people worldwide. Siemens has been running a  demonstration unit for water desalination for the last 3 years based on a relatively niche technology called electro dialysis (ED).  Apparently using this system reduces the costs of desalination as compared to reverse osmosis by half. 

This is big news. First reverse osmosis membranes has a hefty market value of $9 billion and most of this comes from desalination. Being able to capitalize on that market, expand it and dominate it with a new technology would be very profitable for Siemens and its baseline. Secondly reverse osmosis usage is only going to increase so the market will tend to grow naturally even without a large step improvement in the technology.  Obviously countries like Australia, Singapore  and Israel have RO. Water scarcity in these countries rivals energy and environmental concerns with pressure on existing reservoirs and on reusing water.  However large desalination plants exist in wetter countries such as the UK and other Northern European plants due to the pressure on the natural reservoirs.

Taking the UK as an example (I use it as I happen to have the data saved) we can look into more detail. Current water costs taken for the existing system in the UK are approximately €1/L though it varies widely on the authority. Using current electricity prices, RO water would cost approximately 0.80€/L before markup. This would suggest that either RO can be directly put into the water grid there or that the market is significantly larger than 0.20€/L (which is why we don’t see a lot of RO in the UK). The advent of the new technology would mean that desalination could actually compete as a standard technology (and not just because of scarcity) in the UK and countries with similar situations. 

Indeed in drier countries, we may start to see RO being used for agricultural water which would certainly help reduce the depletions of various aquifers worldwide to supply farms. Water scarcity is going to be a major problem in the future with many countires already having a high water stress.

About three years ago I moved to The Netherlands and was subsequently using my summer bonus to buy a Trek 1.5; a standard entry level raving bike (the frame is fantastic BTW). Currently I also have a 30 year old Peugot bike as my go to for socialising and shipping. This was brought about by the fantastic cycling infastructure in The Netherlands. While the weather is not always the best, it is easily possible to cycle from one side of the country to the other without ever joining a road that contains cars. Essentially The Netherlands has a bike road network with its own traffic lights and sign posts. Cycling is not only segregrated, it is revered in this country with the right of ways always in favour of the cyclist (except on major roads where bikes are not allowed) when cars and bikes should meet. Since nearly everyone cycles, there is a good respect between cyclists and other road users. The use of the bicycle does many things for me and this article got me think about it again. I will discuss some of these things below.

Carbon footprint

My daily commute to work and back is approximately 50 km. I work on average 220 days a year assuming I take no overtime and an 8 hour day. My annual commute is approximately 11,000km. I have three main modes of transport to get to work. I can get the company provided bus, I can get a lift from my house mate who works on the same site sometimes and I can cycle. The breakdown is as follows

• Company bus: 6,800km
• Lift from friend: 2,000km
• Cycle 1 day a week: 2,200km

Using the carbon footprint calculator for driving a car, I can come up with a figure that is specific for the make and model of the car. Using the data from the slate article allows me to calculate the carbon footprint for the overall lifetime. By cycling that amount and not going by car I am saving around 300kg of CO2. The average CO2 emissions per person for the UK is around 10,000kg. One thing to note is that it is difficult to get CO2 emissions data for cycling.

Cost for fuel

Obviously I would have to purchase a car, have insurance etc. But in terms of fuel, the cost is easy to calculate. The car I chose for the carbon test does approximately 6.6L/km and fuel costs in The Netherlands is around €1.65 per liter. I save €550 from the exercise.

Freedom and exercise

The feeling of freedom on a bicycle is hard to convey. Hitting the road and exploring the surroundings is always interested. Not only that but it leads me into a bicycle trip that I will be doing in the future where I currently plan to go down the Rhine. Obviously I do not need to go to the gym (though I do for rugby) to keep in shape.

Food for thought: Cars

I do not own or drive a car. I use a bus, other public transport, bicycle and my two feet to get around. That can cause problems especially when I might be on call for work but there is always a work around. I am not against a car or more particularly the ICE as a mode of transport. If I consider a city such as London, then I come to the conclusion that that city would not be able to feed itself were it not for the ICE. Our society is based on the access and affordability of cheap transport fuel and that is why large cities and megalopoli are able to exist without the need for large areas of the city being devoted to farmland. The food can be transported easily from where it is produced, e.g. New Zeeland lamb, Israeli oranges etc.  Our society would not exist as it is without the Ice and I think that the current version is preferable to what came before. 

The main reason why I do not drive is necessity. I do not need the use of a car. This has the added benefit of reducing my costs drastically. However if approach the car from a purely mathematical point of view there could be another reason why I would not drive; efficiency. Is the ICE necessary? Yes. Is it efficient? No.

Efficiency 1

The first measure for efficiency that people know can be miles per gallon or liters per kilometer. However I want to look towards the energy inputs and outputs of the car and see what are used. The input is the energy contained in let’s say gasoline/petrol. The outputs are in the energy used in moving the car forward which are (but not limited to) overcoming rolling resistance, drive train losses (friction, heat), engine losses (heat, noise etc) and so on. According to the link, if I assume that there is 100 units of energy in my petrol tank, driving my car will only use 15 of these units. The rest is wasted energy and my efficiency based on the car alone is 15%. The biggest loses is from the engine mainly as a function of Carnot. 

Efficiency 2

There is another measure of efficiency; payload efficiency. Payload efficiency is a measure of how efficient it is to take a package and transport it in a vehicle to its destination. It is also a pseudo measure of the amount of resources needed to support said activity. A high efficiency would suggest that less resources are needed (i.e. less roads due to smaller cars). So if I go back to my car. Myself with my computer and lunch will weigh circa 100 kg. Assuming I use a 730kg Smart car then my efficiency based on mass only is 100/(100+730) which is around 12%. Combining the two results in a rather cringe worthy number of 1.8% efficiency, *&+?. In other words when considering both the vehicle (car) and the activity (transporting me from A to B), the useful amount of fuel used is 1.8 units. Once my car arrives at work, it sits there for 8 or so hours and does nothing. 

So how can we improve on these results. For the energy lost in the car itself (efficiency 1), there is not a whole lot that can be done with the ICE. Sure titanium could be used in the engine block but that is hardly cheap or easily workable and the same can be said for more improvements (except maybe heat recovery). The best way to gain efficiency would seem to be with mass saving. The Peel P50 30 years ago could achieve 100 mpg and the Edison2 car can achieve a bit more but with the ability to carry 4 people. However we get a payload efficiency of 63% for the Peel and (based on 4 people in the car) 32.5% for the Edison.  

In short if I decide that I need a form of ICE transport for personal use, I will be using a small or very small car or moped.

Fear

Fear. It is certainly an abstract title for an engineering blog. However in many respects it is inherent in many items of engineering and is a problem that must be overcome. It can dictate how people act and how they respond to critics. However first a personal insight.

There are a few things I am afraid of most of which are somewhat abstract in reference to daily life (i.e. death). However one thing that is coming up is heights; I have a fear of heights. My fear stems from when there is a sheer drop (cliff or steep decline) and no preventive measures in place to keep me from falling off. To counteract this I do a fair bit of hiking when I can have the opportunity.  To be sure I do certainly get afraid when hiking/scrambling 60° gradients. However my first serious hikes were over three years ago in Slovenia and since then, things are definitely getting easier (at the time I was unaware of my fear). To that end I did a u-shaped route around the Galtee mountains when I was back in Ireland recently. I hit four peaks and reached 919m and hit some very steep climbs and walls (I consider the mountains to be relatively easy; a fit person can do the route I choose in 6-8hours; an experienced person can do it in 5).

In that activity, I challenge my fear and eventually I will overcome it or be able to accept it as an additional risk. However in my work I see many other fears which are not easy for people to deal with. As an engineer, I do not really invent anything. Indeed my job is to take inventions and test them on small to large scales. Thus I have no emotional attachment to the product(s) that my group has invented. Essentially I am more like a customer as I do not want a failure to happen while at the clients site and then have to deal with few thousand cubic meters of unused and flammable organics. Thus in the laboratory I am very critical of results and demand a high level of scrutiny and insight into said results.

This can come across very caustic initially with several people but usually once I explain my position (and also that I will be taking all the risk for their failure though I do say it more diplomatically), they come around to my point of view. However some do not and these are the ones who are most attached to the product and essentially the most invested in the product. The problem here is that they cannot see past their fear of failure. They prefer to propagate the myth that a product can do what it cannot or they do not test the product in a stressful enough environment. The hope can have many facets, some or  all of which can apply. 

They might be looking for some else to take responsibility for the failure and believe that deflecting that failure to other people or to process will not reflect badly on them. They might also believe that change is bad and the stand procedures are correct and need not be modified. This can extend to the persons experience and someone can certainly feel undermined when a junior is advocating a more extensive work package, one that was not envisaged. Et Cetera.

This leads to a problem. Ultimately if anyone harbors that attitude, then a poor way of working can develop to be the norm for that person and problems are avoided rather than confronted. When ultimately a failure does happen, that kind of attitude will lead to a bad reaction or dismissal of the failure as either an outlier for example and thus it can be dismissed. 

A fear of failure can be hubris, it can also be a hallmark of bad engineering. What that means for the individual. Not only must one confront their own fears, they must challenge them. That means challenging their own opinions and sometimes, challenging their core belief. One must never be afraid to challenge.

A sustainable energy company?

I take this story from Gernot Wagner. He goes into the reasons behind why the energy company in a free market is adapting what would seem to be bad tactics. While this analysis is valid in my opinion, a deeper message can be wrought from the story.
When a person decides to purchase a car, one of the main considerations in Europe is the mpg or L/km. That is the amount of the fuel needed to drive a certain distance; an efficiency rating if you will. This think has been around for many years due to the high taxes exerted on the gasoline price. In recent times, the idea has extended to other electrical goods like washing machines etc. 
The reason for this is to help the consumer make a choice, a choice that can save them money. By using less electricity the consumer can reduce their electricity bill. They are also making another choice that they probably do not realize. They are reducing their energy consumption by moving away from inefficient machines thereby reducing the burden on the resources available to them. This is the ultimate goal of the energy efficiency scheme as launched by the EU. This scheme aims to reduce primary energy usage without reducing the quality of life. However it is not working and the EU admits that it will miss its 2020 target achieving only a 10% saving instead of 20%.
Here is where the message from Gernot's post arrives. The EU should not only be focusing on efficiency with new appliances but also focusing on using less electricity. Simple examples include street lights which could be reduced. At the home, leaving items on standby or even on when not used (e.g. t.v./radio) can also be eliminated. It’s all about developing a habit of turning things off when not in use.
Typically this is not the goal of an energy company. The company will want people to continue using more energy so that their profits can increase. That is why we see many companies advertising their great 'advances' in alternative energy so that the amount of energy we use does not need to be reduced (a story I do not believe). Instead the first message that any energy company with a real view to sustainability should have is for people to reduce their consumption. People should drive smaller cars, increase efficiency in their homes etc. When a company does not put this message to the fore and still considers themselves sustainable or aiming for sustainablity, ask yourself is that a truly sustainable message?

Update

All

I was on holidays in my hone country in Ireland for two weeks and so I did not post anything. I will post a topic by the end of the week.

In the meantime I have added a link list and a blog list. This list will no doubt expand over time. The site I use most is Consumer Energy Report; a site dealing with a wide of energy issues in the context of the American market. As a European I use this as there is no analog in this vein focusing on the European market.

In any case energy issues are the main concern of our time in my opinion. In the future I will be posting on the issue. But next something a little bit more abstract.

A comment on managing an engineering lab

For the past number of years I have been working in a laboratory involved with energy research (before that I worked in another laboratory). Primarily the goal of my part of the laboratory is to test inventions that are made to see how well they perform especially after one year of continuous use. To that end I use a lot of different types of equipment and invariably end up both on a lab scale and on a pilot scale (demo scale is performed off site). Invariable troubleshooting of equipment due to it breaking down is a part of the weekly if not daily routine. Essentially it is an engineering or experimental laboratory where complex interactions between multiple pieces of equipment exist. Unfortunately my boss is not an engineer but a material scientist. Many items like equipment maintenance and lifetime have been overlooked in the past.

Troubleshooting equipment is essentially wasted time or time lost. Consider my job; I am trying to ascertain when the inventions fail, under what conditions do they fail and how suitable they are for a particular application. If I cannot test, time pressure can start to play a part and potentially (you can only do so much with what you have), gaps in the analysis appear. Nothing or less than what might be is learned. Typically the type of gaps that appear relates to the lifetime. If an equipment failure occurs then the invention must be stopped. However this additional stress may cause it to deteriorate and fail when restarted. Also if an experiment is stopped prematurely, then a failure that was due to happen next week may not be caught until the experiment is expanded to a larger scale*.

Ultimately it is up to the people on the lab to attempt to solve these issues. However more importantly, once the issue is solved and closed, there should be information there for future improvement of the equipment to reduce or even prevent the failure from occurring. This requires on the job assessment and multi-tasking. It is quite difficult to achieve. The outcome should be a memo or concept design which lists the options for improvement and this should be include in the equipment file. 

This file should also be sent to the equipment manager and the project leader. A discussion should be held and the merits and demerits discussed. What is now crucial is that a the people involved have a good technical understanding of the equipment involved and are also willing to discuss the equipment and its problems. In other words they should have used the equipment before and thus can appreciate how costly and frustrating downtime can be. Without this one key point, a good decision on whether or not the improvement is necessary is impossible. Often failures can just become part of the routine of using the equipment and the worker may not appreciate this. Thus a manager sometimes (though rarely) needs to be more aware than the users.

Consider manager that has arrived new to the laboratory. While familiar with certain aspects of laboratory operations, new items will undoubtedly exist with which the manager has no experience. If said manager is called to decide on the equipment, he will either have to rely on other peoples expertise of to ignore the problem and just make to part of the routine. Both avoid the manage having to develop a knowledge and rapport with the processes involved. 

*There is always a risk when scaling up a process due to test duration. It is rare that a pilot will test for the full time required for use in industry as this is very expensive. However realistic time scales should be set before the experiment. So if an invention has to perform for 10 years, your test in the lab should be six months to a year. What I allude to here is when this 10% scale is cut short due to equipment issues.

The problem then arises when the manager has to assign tasks or to acquire work. Not knowing the limitations of the equipment will lead to unrealistic demands being placed on the workers and the equipment. Indeed the toll on the equipment that the new work will introduced will not be known either and thus not accounted or budgeted for. Not only that but safety issues can then creep in and if the operators are not clued in, sever consequences can occur. 

To manage equipment effectively the manager responsible needs to have an understanding of the equipment and its limitations. Without this, the situation can only be saved by the operator. That system I am afraid is rife with potential issues.