A state of the clean-energy art : how is R&D doing ?

The energy market is the fastest-moving and fastest-growing ones in the world.  And concurring predictions indicate that, with the water market, it is where the 21^st century's history will take place. 

The water market is rather easy to analyze, calculate and predict, as the variables involved are few and known (human water consumption, cattle water consumption and farming/industrial water consumption). But energy consumption is harder to assess, as it relies not only on the increase in world population, but in the economic developments which will open access to basic energy-munching equipment for people. But, without knowing the specifics of what the future holds, the world is strained already in its energy consumption, and is trying to find new and cleaner ways to produce it.

Siemens and tidal power

Siemens has made quite an entry in the maritime energy world, by purchasing shares in Marine Current Turbines Ltd. In the race for clean and renewable energies, Siemens is putting its money on tidal power.  Grounds for such a move are several. Tidal energy is just as clean and renewable as wind energy, but it holds a considerable advantage over it : it is perfectly predictable. Tides answer to the moon, which follows a regular cycle, unlike wind, which is hectic in its evolution.  The storage of power being tricky, tidal power has an edge.  And the weight of water is the second competitive advantage : 1 knot of water stream provides 800 times more energy than the equivalent stream of wind.  Currently, marine turbines around the world supply only 3 or 4 % of its power needs. But the energy production mode is picking up, as with the demonstration (though commercially profitable) SeaGen project in Northern Ireland. The 1 500 houses of the Strangford Lough area have been supplied in power with only two turbines, which can put up 1,2 MW/h.  Siemens has considerably invested in ecotech, and can now brag on its website that, with the 30-billion worth of sales last year, it has avoided the equivalent CO² pollution of Berlin, Delhi, Hong-Kong, Istanbul, New York, London, Singapore, and Tokyo.  Combined.

CNIM : from waste recovery to solar and biomass energy

The sun also provides clean and renewable energy, but in ways which, for a long time, were very low on profitability. CNIM, a French engineering firm defining itself as technologically bold, is changing that. For years the company is one of the world leaders in waste recovery into clean energy, converting every metric ton of household waste into the equivalent of 200 liters of oil!

With its engineering experience CNIM has brought recently the solar technology to a new level, by investing in Fresnel mirror.  Instead of simply receiving an amount of energy equivalent to its surface, mirrors concentrate the sunlight and reflect it back onto the panel, which then converts the rays into steam or electrical power. In 2010, CNIM inaugurated an 800-square meter pilot plant in the South of France, to demonstrate the capacities it achieved in solar power production.

The company is also engaged in the upgrading of biomass power production. These plants produce clean energy for cities and burn their organic refuse, but they can also emit an unpleasant smell to the urban areas they are necessarily close to. CNIM, through its LAB S.A. branch, has invested in smoke treatment technology based on its experience in waste burning.  It is now able to « cleanse » the smoke before releasing it, thus making biomass the cleanest, most reliable and least troublesome power-production method for urban areas.

Alstom and wind energy

Alstom has taken the lead on harnessing wind energy. This market is the one that is the most poorly exploited so far, at about 2.5% of its 50 000 TW/h potential (about 1/3 of the current world consumption).  Despite occasional local opposition to wind turbines, the arguments in favor of this renewable energy tapping are numerous. And in a gamble that the production mode would rise dramatically in coming years and decades,  Alstom has developed the most advanced wind-power solutions. The three main Achille's heels of wind turbines are robustness, maintenance and efficiency.  With a hefty initial investment, the last thing a client wants is for the device to collapse or break down (on land or, even worse, at sea). Alstom has designed its towers in such a way as to separate energies, between wanted and unwanted. The wanted energy is funneled to the turbine and rotor, whereas the unwanted stresses are directed to the slim tower, thereby reducing general pressure on the general frame. Second, the youth of wind-power-technology gives little feedback to engineers, who need to calculate as accurately as possible the angles so as to avoid energy loss. Alstom has re-engineered its rotor blades to harness 40% more than the average offshore turbine. And finally, the engineering firm has kept from falling into the over-complexity trap, aware that more moving parts equal more maintenance and more breakdown chances ; so it's kept its machine simple, which clients will surely appreciate.

What comes out of the general overview of renewable energy innovation is that governments and political groups are merely those who make the most noise about renewable energies.  But the ones who actually drive innovation in the field of clean energy are private companies, not governments or political groups. The distance run in the past decade by engineering companies suggests there will be many outstanding shifts in the way the world produces its energy in the years to come.

What traceability for honey in the EU?

Is pollen an “ingredient” or a “component” of honey? Since late 2011, the European institutions have been working on answering that question. Even though the difference may seem small, the decision will actually determine the whole labelling rules regarding GM-honey which the European Commission has been thinking upon throughout March 2013.

“In September 2011 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) made a decision regarding the affair Bablock VS FreiStaat Bayern in which the honey produced on a Bavarian farm was reportedly found to contain genetically modified pollen from a nearby experimental plot growing the EC-authorised genetically modified maize”. Reported by Euractiv, that case actually raised questions about the way we determine GM-honey or natural honey.

In order to label FreiStaat Bayern product a GM-honey, the ECJ choose to consider that the pollen is an ingredient of honey, which means the pollen directly contribute to give the product its final qualities. In late 2012 however, several legal experts questioned the ECJ decision, putting forward that only a very small amount of pollen was found in honey and that it should not be called an “ingredient” but a “component”.

Such a play on words might seem trivial to some of us but it is not. If pollen was to be labelled a component, honey packaging would not have to mention the presence of GMO in the product. But if pollen was to be considered an ingredient, the European Union legislation would require mentioning the proportion of GMO of that ingredient.

In other word, the debate about pollen legally being an ingredient or component for honey is crucial in Europe. It will determine a significant part of European honey brand image and this of course make the producers very concerned. The final decision about GM-honey is also very likely to trigger major regulation shifts in the European honey sector.

Most of the honey that is consumed in Europe is actually imported. The European Union also allowed retailers to sell mixes of different types of honey. Some of those may therefore be produce within the EU borders, whereas some others come from outside. This has of course made traceability fairly difficult to establish in the european honey industry so far.

In March 2013, the discussion in Brussels over the honey industry will therefore have lasting consequences. The Commission will have to choose between promoting a greater transparency for this sector or maintaining the status quo ante. Only a couple of weeks after the horsemeat crisis, there is no doubt that debates will be influence by people’s need for prudence whatever the final regulation will be.

What is modern environmental engineering?

Observing nature in order to master it, is one of the Man’s oldest concern. Recent evolutions in environmental engineering make the idea even more relevant nowadays since technological and scientific improvements made the knowledge of nature useful for many industries.

For a long time, environmental engineering has been referring to the use of engineering principles to protect and preserve the environment. However, recent progress made it much more complex than traditional waste management and water treatment. Finding a new inspiration in its early origins, environmental engineering’s usefulness expands.

An ancient idea

“The roots of the willows do not suffer the banks of the canals to be destroyed; and the branches of the willows, nourished across the thickness of the bank and then cut low, thicken every year and become a single branch, and you have a bank that has life and is of one substance” pointed out Leonardo Da Vinci[1], back in the 16th century. In spite of such early and inspired observations, environmental engineering has preferred to adapt civil engineering solutions to reach its aim.

For a long time, heavy building was preferred over natural solution for stabilizing stream banks for instance. However, “hard” stabilisation techniques are progressively losing their monopoly on such an activity. Just like Da Vinci, other clever observers also found inspiration in nature and developed environmental engineering technics based on natural processes and their knowledge of riparian vegetal. A firm such as Greenbelt Consulting advocates a “Bio-Structural” approach to erosion and slope stability problems”. “Incorporating planned vegetational elements in engineering designs, can be less, more effective, and more adaptable than purely structural solutions” explains Elliott Menashe from Greenbelt’s, “vegetation should also be used in conjunction with geo-textiles and engineered structures whenever appropriate and practical”.

Greenbelt Consulting and shorelines management firms are not the only businesses to put to use modern environmental engineering. In the field of architecture, it was also considered with an early enthusiasm. In the late 1980’s, stainless steel cable started to be used to create vegetal facades. Covered in various plants, such facades has since then been known as green walls.  In 1994, Greenscreen installed the first large-size modern green wall in an entertainment centre in Universal, California. Demonstrating the reliability of its original trellis panel system, the firm revived the Babylonian vertical, hanging garden. Greenscreen updated the concept as well since its green wall was an indoor construction and has proven to be both aesthetic and profitable for the quality of the air inside the building.

Insight of a modern, ecological environmental engineering can be found as early as the 16th century. For the last 40 years, environmental engineering has been developing along with the call for the use of greener technics. Greenscreen and others firms made the very first successes of the profession. Since then, environmental engineering has been spreading to industrial activities.

New applications

After the Earth Summit was held in 1992 in Rio, the need for a greener industry was declared a priority. Industrial companies, especially those who were used to deal with polluting activities soon understood what they could gain from adopting new standards. Being both a source of major pollution as well as highly water consuming, petroleum industry has therefore evolved a lot in the last twenty. That trend culminated in 2011 when Shell started to exploit Pearl GTL in Ras Laffan, Qatar. This plant is the largest of its kind in the world. Not only is it designed to turn natural gas into cleaner fuels, it is also equipped with the most up-to-date water treatment technology.

Veolia Water was appointed by Shell to create the system that would make Pearl GTL the less water-consuming gas-to-liquid petroleum facility in the world.  Veolia water hence created a custom system that retreats a dozen of different effluents. It features some of most efficient filtration equipment, including devices based on the newest reverse osmosis technique. The system implemented in order to enable Pearl GTL to work as a closed circuit. The plant is therefore able to produce petroleum without using a single extra drop of water after it has been started. Pearl GTL is actually perfectly fitted to its Qatari environment, where extreme condition and short water supply require the best engineering skills for water management.

Other highly specific industries also take advantages of environmental engineering. Some technics were discovered or rediscovered by companies just like the use of some microbes and bacteria for soil decontamination purpose. Such a process is called bioremediation and is now regarded as one of the less expensive and most efficient soil decontamination technics. Microbes naturally take part in the process of organic compounds biodegradation.  Hydrocarbons as well as some types of pesticides and solvents can therefore be digested by microflora. Phosphates can be digested by comamonas and hyphomicrobium for instance, whereas cyanide is easily assimilated by thiobacillus.

The ENSR Group made a business of that knowledge of microorganisms. Before it was sold to AECOM Technology Corporation, ENSR used to generate a solid $240 million revenue. The firm is now part of a bigger business but it keeps offering environmental services that have become famous all around the world. With the help of ENSR’s expertise, AECOM therefore took part in soil remediation and site restoration works in Minnesota and Malaysia for instance. In Minnesota, AECOM treated entire networks of water streams with bioremediation. Besides, the Malaysian Government appointed the company a management framework of the countries contaminated land.

In recent years, environmental engineering has accomplished major improvements. Technological achievements in the field of pollution and water treatment testify of those significant steps towards a better use and care of humanity’s natural habitat. Besides, the extension of environmental engineering’s use to a broad variety of purposes, like architecture or the petroleum industry, illustrates that such a science has now reached a new stage of maturity. It can therefore be considered as a multipurpose tool for States, industries and even individuals. This is for the better since environmental engineering first goal is to allow the most efficient use of natural resources and keep them available in the long-run. In this regard it is part of a broader sustainable development effort.

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[1] VINCI (Da), L., “Notes on Military Architecture” in The Literary Works of Leonardo Da Vinci – Vol. 1, PEDRETTI C. (ed), University of California Press, 1977, p. 72.

What the horsemeat scandal tells us about food traceability

Early in 2013, the United Kingdom and then the whole European continent were startled at the discovery of a major food safety scandal. Some beef lasagne manufactured by a major industrial food company was proved to be made up to 100% horsemeat. Not only is this story revealing the risk that has threatened consumers for a while. As a matter of fact, it also suggests how little we know about the processed food we eat.

On the very first week of February 2013, Findus withdrew its beef lasagne from the European market. A few days before that the British Food Standard Agency made out that those products marketed as beef meat actually contained horsemeat. Findus might have been suspected of deceiving consumers at first. But it did not take long before the manufacturer actually apologised for putting those products on the market and started an investigation about them.

In the United Kingdom, the horsemeat scandal made a really clear point in consumers’ mind. People need to know what is inside their plate and incorrect advertisement is not to be tolerated. The story has highlighted how easily the trust between producers and consumers could be sapped. But this is not the only lesson of it. In a way, one might consider Findus a victim among a lot of others, caught in an extremely complex system which makes it almost impossible to control what a business sell before a consumer buys it!

Findus’ investigation established that the incriminated food products were prepared by a French supplier called Comigel based in Metz, in the North of France. Comigel had worked for Findus since 2011 and had prepared the products in Luxemburg. The meat Comigel used was bought from another French society, Spanghero, set in south of the country. As a customer of a French supplier, Comigel expected to buy French-gown meat from Spanghero. But Findus taught Comigel that Spanghero’s meat actually came from Romania.

In Romania, the whole industrial chain of Findus discovered that the slaughterhouses which provided meat to Spanghero processed beef meat as well as horse meat. That discovery allowed Findus to reassure consumers since the slaughterhouses were certified by the European Union and allowed to produced beef and horse meat that was destined to human consumption. However, the investigation showed that no less than five intermediaries, including supermarkets, had taken a part in selling those products to consumers. And none of them really knew what was inside the products until the scandal burst out!

Findus withdrew its contaminated products from the marking. And yet this story still has lessons to teach. The fact is that organisation of the global food industry today makes efficient traceability a very difficult goal to reach. Of course, producers like Findus are not completely blind and are able to control what their products are made of. But the horsemeat scandal illustrates that systemic factors tend to make information about the products uncertain.

Besides, a lot of companies around the world use the long complex industrial food chain to keep some secret. Let us think about Coca-Cola. Do people really know what is inside of their favourite soda? Of course they don’t since Coca-Cola makes a point of keeping its recipe unique. That the structure of food industry be inclined to opaqueness is not necessarily a danger. Nobody has ever died from drinking Coke, neither has anybody from eating Findus’ lasagne. Yet one question remains without an answer: which independent institution today controls that traceability standards are respected in the food industry and prevents major food-related sanitary scandals from happening?

In many regards was the horsemeat scandal an important phenomenon. It both illustrated the fundamental need for transparency on the food market and how difficult traceability was to establish in the food industry. Revealing the flaws of a system, this story might very well be the call for a new start in the food industry.