Covey Consulting News

March 2012

Best Exhibitor 2010

Covey & Appita For 20 continuous years Covey Consulting has exhibited at the

Appita Conference.

We will be at Melbourne in 2012 for our 21st Appita Conference—Check out our stand (number 8)

to see the Covey difference!

Appita Conference Edition

The Covey Notebook

Items of interest from

Covey Consulting

As usual Covey Consulting Staff will be presenting papers at the 2012 Appita Conference to be held at Melbourne Park 15—18 April 2012. Biorefineries – what are they at? Bruce Allender

Tuesday April 17, Industry Innovations

Pre-Commissioning Geoff Covey

Wednesday April 18, Session A: Pro-ject Management Is the Australian Pulp and Paper In-dustry still at the crossroads? John Kettle, Goran Roos, Nafty Van-derhoek, Ali Harlin & Bruce Allender

Wednesday April 18, Session A: Man-agement

Please contact John Trewick to learn more about our

authoritative publication —Radiata Bulletin

Engineer with Union Carbide.

Schoolteacher in Tanzania and Australia.

Brian has led a very varied life and in addition to his BSc and PhD in chemical engineering he also earned a Dip Ed and a Bachelor of Divinity from the University of Lon-don.

His previous work has given him experience in fly ash management, boiler erosion, incinerator design, pyrolysis, coal liquefaction and many other areas. His work has led to over 140 peer-reviewed publica-tions and various awards.

Brian is based in Bendigo and you can take advantage of his extensive experience by contacting Covey Consulting.

In the meantime please read the following very comprehensive article provided by Brian.

PRODUCTION OF ELECTRICAL POWER FROM MUNICIPAL WASTE A survey by SKM in 2003 for EcoRe-cycle Victoria calculated that over 8.4 million tonnes of solid waste was generated in Victoria in 2000/1 (including both landfilled and re-covered materials). About three quarters of this material was solid industrial waste (SIW), of which more than half was recycled. The remaining 2.75 million tonnes of SIW represented two thirds of all landfilled waste. Municipal solid waste or MSW contributed about 2.2 million tonnes to the total Vic-torian solid waste stream, & over 70% of this was landfilled. Thus in Australia each person produces over 1 kg of solid waste per day, & while some is recycled, the major portion is sent to landfill. [Ctd p. 7]

Introducing Brian Stanmore We should like you to meet our newest Associate, Brian Stanmore.

Brian is a chemical engineer with many years of experience in indus-try and academia – among other achievements he supervised Geoff Covey’s PhD!

His recent areas of specialisation have included generation of electric power from municipal waste, pre-dictive modelling of formation of dioxins and furans in various proc-esses, and many aspects of coal and bagasse processing and combustion.

Brian’s previous work experience has included:

Professeur, Ecole des Mines d’Albi-Carmaux, France.

Consultant with Air Noise Environment P/L

Senior Lecturer at Depart ments of Chemical Engineer - ing at Universities of Mel -bourne and Queensland.

Energy Alternatives Engineer for Queensland Electricity Commission.

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Covey Consulting News

Ross Paterson again turns his engi-neering skills to the analysis of some-thing not normally the subject of such analysis.

Bumble bees I remember a TV cricket commenta-tor declaring to the world: "Of course scientists say that cricket balls can't swing. But they also say that Bumble bees can't fly". This narked me. First, because if science doesn't agree with reality then any scientist will feel obliged to modify the science as soon as possible.

Next, because no aerodynamicist would want to be confused with a common scientist.

And finally because no aerodynami-cist would ever say that a bumble bee couldn't fly. Insect flight is a fas-cinating field. If ever you get an in-vite to a seminar on butterfly and bug flight, seize the opportunity. It's all about low Renolds numbers. Fly-ing for a butterfly is like swimming in treacle.

Of course if a bumble bee were the size of a 737, it would need a fair bit of C4 to leave the ground.

Well do they? Maybe, but the field is littered with black magic, wishful thinking, and just plain lies.

"You wally Fred. How come you got bowled first ball?"

"Reverse swing mate. Ripped in like a rocket. It’s the cloud cover that does it, don’t you know."

Rough side, shiny side, trouser rub-bing, drift, English weather, Bryl-cream, humidity, eagle eye, reverse swing. Frogs legs, eye of toad.

D o b a s e b a l l s c u r v e ? There is no doubt about that. The forces on spinning objects are pretty well understood. Mythbusters (that fount of wisdom) ran a segment where they showed a wind tunnel test of a spinning baseball with ap-propriate transducers.

But the subsequent shots of a real life NBL pitcher in action were not very convincing. The alleged curved trajectory was not obvious on my TV screen, despite their specialist pho-tography, and the enthusiastic voice-over.

I happen to believe that this is highly significant. The "curve" is quite mi-nor in comparison with gravitational deflections, and only the guy with the bat can really comment with au-thority. And let's face it; "curve" is an excellent excuse for poor batting!

The lateral force on a spinning ball is caused by the "circulation" it gener-ates in the local airstream, and is more or less predictable. I recall reading about a sailing boat con-structed with rotating cylinders rather than sails. The idea never really took off, but it did demon-strate that rotating cylinders pro-duce lots of lift.

Is this the same as the leg spinners "drift" that Richie burbles on about? Maybe, but it would be "curve" rather than "swing".

Some basics. I ran some simple sums to sus this issue out. I assumed a speed of 125 kph leaving the hand, a travel dis-tance of 18 yards, and saturated air at 10°C. Swing bowling allegedly works best at medium pace, full length, and English conditions. With an average drag coefficient of 0.4 (close enough) the ball arrives at 113 kph and the mid path Renolds number is 162,000. This is a most illuminating result, being in the zone called "drag crisis".

Have a look at graph G1 be-low,taken gratefully from Blevins [Applied Fluid Dynamics Handbook: Van Nostrand:-. Fig 10-2

Turbulent Boundary Layers A stable turbulent boundary layer is a good thing for reducing drag. It's like a layer of gaseous grease, al-lowing the air flow to follow the curvature for an extended distance. This results in a smaller wake and hence less drag.

Some aircraft aerofoils have used a trip wire to generate a stable turbu-lent boundary layer on the upper surface. This helps maintain the at-tached air flow and thus excellent lift, and reduced drag. But it only works over a limited speed range, so is not often seen in practice.

Trip wire = cricket ball seam. That’s the point.

G1 shows that if the Renolds num-ber is in-the-zone, & then this trip wire effect can cause a major differ-ence in drag co-efficient for the two sides of the ball. This should result

in circulation and hence a lateral force.

How do you swing a cricket ball? You first need to get the air tem-perature and humidity right. You then need a new shiny ball with a prominent seam. Then you need to bowl full length balls less than flat out. This of course can make the bowling easy meat if it does not de-viate. Good luck! [Ctd page 6]

Covey Consulting News

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Appita Conference Edition

Covey Consulting News

Waste management and treatment

Minimising waste from manufacturing & human activities is a prior-ity, driven by economic & environmental necessity. Some solid waste can be diverted to other uses, or used as an energy source. It is likely there will always be a need for some solid waste to be dis-posed in landfill.

Covey has provided advisory services in the areas of reuse and dis-posal, as well as in rehabilitation of land fill sites. The identification of reuse options, & the economic opportunities are an important part of the Covey advice, as well as ensuring compliance with the regulations which are applied by state and federal environmental authorities.

Similarly, wastewater emissions to the environment are tightly regulated, & in-house recycling & treatment of water is standard practise in modern manufacturing operations. But wastewater dis-charges from industry as well as the general community still need to be treated & improved before the water can be safely released into the environment.

Again Covey has provided advisory & operational advice to waste water treatment facilities (both industrial & municipal). Covey Con-sulting also works in association with Clean Technology Solutions Pty Ltd for computer modelling of water streams across many dif-ferent types of unit operations & processes. This allows a better understanding of the operations, as well as low cost & low risk trials of alternatives & improvements before they are implemented in the operations.

Australian Government Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act The Energy Efficiency Opportunities (EEO) program encourages businesses to improve energy efficiency by improving identification, evaluation & resulting implementation of cost effective energy savings op-portunities. Participation is mandatory for corporations using more than 0.5 petajoules (PJ) of energy annually.

The program’s Assessment Framework takes a whole of business approach, involving the many factors influencing energy use, including leadership; management & policy; accuracy & quality of data and analysis; skills & perspectives of a wide range of people; decision-making; & communicating outcomes.

Participants must report publicly on results of their energy efficiency assessments & opportunities that exist for projects with a financial payback of up to four years. The focus is on energy savings opportuni-ties identified in the assessment & the business response to those opportunities. Decisions on energy efficiency opportunities remain at the discretion of the business.

This is a complex & time-consuming program & companies may not have the in-house expertise or may wish to use an independent assessment process. To do this successfully requires a multidisciplinary team and Covey Consulting in collaboration with Procex Pty Ltd can provide that service, backed up by the practical expertise in running these EEO programs at several major companies.

Odour Monitoring

Covey has unique expertise in monitoring odours & fumes. Gaseous emissions from any source give rise to environmental concerns when they have an odour impact on the community or workers at the site. Individuals may have an opinion as to the source but actually proving it can be a different matter. To pinpoint odour sources requires so-phisticated sampling & analytical equipment, taking into considera-tion that humans notice odours at very low levels (ppm or less), & an odour may come from more than one source.

Covey has developed a unique portable Odour Measurement Station (OMS). This allows sampling of odour gas on-site & at multiple loca-tions, followed by laboratory analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

Using this process, odour-causing compounds can be identified & an “odour profile” established. This is then matched against the profile of likely sources, & can differentiate between emission sources & other local sources of odour.

Follow-up monitoring can demonstrate changes & improvement after odour mitigation work. The OMS approach has been used by Covey in many situations including odours from manufacturing sites; traffic fumes, burning of forest waste & wastewater treatment plants.

Chemical Safety, Food Contact Regulations

All manufactures & importers of chemicals are subject to State & Federal Regulations. First to determine if the chemicals are hazard-ous to humans or the environment, & if so the handling & use has to comply with specific requirements & registration.

Covey can assist companies to understand & negotiate regulatory requirements that may apply to their products & processes. In par-ticular, all imported chemicals are subject to the Australian Govern-ment National Industrial Chemical Notification & Assessment Scheme. Covey has worked chemicals through the scheme & is fa-miliar with the requirements and the necessary contacts.

Food Chemicals are necessarily closely monitored in all countries, and each has their own regulations. In addition to Australian regu-lations, the food contact regulations of the European Union & the United States of America are relevant to local suppliers. With the Covey access to the appropriate databases & information services, we can provide topical information on current standards & regula-tions and their interpretation.

Environmental impact and assessment

The effect of any discharges from any industrial operation on the environment is of concern to commu-nity & local environmental regulators. Nowadays this needs to be measured using methodology ap-proved by the regulators & agreed by the local community. Community action groups are an essential part of the process. These discharges maybe into the air (gaseous or particulate), ground (solid waste) or water (waste water). The wastewater is often of particular concern because discharge is usually into existing waterways, & the potential impact can be widespread on native aquatic ecosystems.

Covey has expert independent consultant experience to advise companies & community groups on likely impact of discharges & what needs to be done to reduce or eliminate impacts. Covey also has experi-ence in facilitating workshops & meetings between interested groups (both in-house & the broader community), to allow exchange of information & views in a constructive environment aimed at out-comes that benefit all parties.

Environmental control equipment

Covey has an excellent track record in custom designing process equipment both for new projects & for modifications & upgrades. Several of these projects in the pulp & paper industry & other chemi-cal processing have involved scrubbers & other process waste treat-ments.

From an environmental perspective, effective treatment of particu-late & chemical vapours is usually required under operating permits & discharge licences. But equally operational losses of materials in processing can be a financial cost (waste) as well as a potential occu-pational health & safety issue.

For example, Covey designed & built an orifice scrubber for a fabrica-tor to control dust losses and scrub out toxic & nuisance airborne dusts. A feature of the Covey approach is to use proven methodology at a scale appropriate to the client’s needs. This may well involve sig-nificant modifications from standard size & design off-the-shelf units, or even fabrication of a best-fit solution.

Covey can provide a full end-to-end service from design, fabrication, (pilot phase as necessary), installation & commissioning through to follow-up service and maintenance.

As a boutique provider of Engineering and associated services to Industry, Covey Consulting capabilities go way beyond traditional process and project services. Covey Consulting has expertise in key areas of Environmental and sustainability Services which complement the staff capabilities and the requirements of our clients. Some of these particular areas of expertise are outlined below:

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Covey Consulting News H O W T O W R I T E G O O D As is well known, Covey Consulting through its information sourcing capa-bilities is always looking out for useful educational material. The following rules for prose generated by a Mr. Frank L. Visco (obviously from the USA) can be used as suitable guidance for preparing technical presentations …. Or not!

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

3. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.)

4. Employ the vernacular.

5. Eschew ampersands & abbrevia-tions, etc.

6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

7. It is wrong to ever split an infini-tive

8. Contradictions aren't necessary.

9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

10. One should never generalize.

11. Comparisons are as bad as cli-chés.

12. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; its highly superfluous.

13. Profanity sucks.

14. Be more or less specific.

15. Understatement is always best.

16. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

17. One word sentences. Eliminate!

18. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

19. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

20. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

21. Who needs rhetorical ques-tions?

Do Cricket Balls Swing? [Continued from page 3] What about reverse swing? If swing bowling is black magic, then reverse swing bowling is Voodoo.

To get the ball to swing left it needs to have the seam angled slightly to the left throughout its path. If one side is a bit rougher than the other, then this needs to be on the left side. Keeping the ball locked in this orientation throughout its path takes lots of skill.

The saving grace is that if the ball does not swing, but hits some nice green turf with the seam angled to the left, there is a good chance it will be deflected this way. In which case some retired cricketer will explain over the TV: "My word, Fred does have his outswinger firing well to-day." And so it goes; so it flows. Check out Sketch 1.

In this case "TBL" indicates the Tur-

bulent Boundary Layer generated by

the angled seam. I have attempted

to show how this layer allows the

free stream air to get further around

the ball before separating. So this is

the "low drag" side, rather like the

upper lifting surface of an aerofoil.

With luck the ball should swing to

the left, which is an outswinger for a

right hand batsman.

The idea is that, when the seam has been flattened out, but a degree of shine has been maintained on one side of the ball, then the ball will swing towards the shiny side.

This is the reverse of "normal swing". The angle of the seam is ir-relevant because it has vanished.

Does it happen, and if so why? Lots of experienced people say it does happen, but there is no convincing evidence other than a list of disgrun-tled batsmen.

So if there is truth in this myth, then there must be circulation generated somehow. And this can only be caused by the rough/smooth asym-metry. There needs to be signifi-cantly less drag on the smooth side. And the effect needs to be predict-able and repeatable.

G1 shows that at higher Renolds numbers the situation changes com-pletely. Is this what's causing reverse swing?. Who knows, but I doubt it Conclusions. The "drag crisis" effect can produce a significant skewing of drag forces under the right conditions. This will certainly generate lift but it's not possible to quantify this from the data that I have to hand.

However my simple sums showed a lateral movement of 40mm with an assumed lift co-efficient of 0.02. And this sounds to me to be quite achiev-able, if not "proven".

I would like to see the TV channels put forward a research grant, to be awarded to an Australian mechanical Engineering school with a good sub-sonic wind tunnel. A couple of en-thusiastic post grad students could put the whole issue to bed quite quickly.

But would this really be a good idea? Why spoil all the fun?

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Covey Consulting News electricity per tonne of MSW, and a large one 700 kWh t-1.

In the current economic climate, WtE is only economically viable in systems handling more than 40,000 tpa, or 4.5 tonnes per hour. At 50% recycling, this represents a popula-tion of about 150,000, or less if some industrial or agricultural waste is also available. In the EU, the electricity generated is counted as green for the biomass compo-nent of the waste, which is gener-ally around 50% by mass.

The furnaces in the majority of WtE plants are of the moving grate type, which are able to handle a wide range of particle sizes and shapes. The combustion process produces bottom or grate ash, flyash which is collected in the gas cleaning sys-tem, and flue gas. A high propor-tion of the metals report to the bot-tom ash e.g. values of 89 – 99% of the arsenic in the feed, 85 – 97% of the chromium, 80 – 93% of the cop-per and 83 – 95% of the nickel were measured in 4 modern plants. In most cases bottom ash can be used as roadfill. The flyash, which repre-sents about 2% of the mass of the feed, has a significant leachable metal content and must be dis-posed of in a secure landfill.

Most opposition to WtE centres around the emission of gaseous pollutants from the process,

particularly fine particles, volatile metals such as mercury, & dioxins. In

modern installations, gas cleaning equipment typi-cally represents up to 40% of capital investment. In older plants, wet scrub-bers were used, but have now been replaced by semi-dry systems. A com-bination of additives in conjunction with a fabric filter is able to remove all three contaminants to levels well below the legal emission limits.

Heavy metals remain with the ash, either from the grate or the gas-cleaning system, so that the efficient control of particulates ensures the removal of these metals. The com-monly-used additives are lime to re-move acid gases (SO2, HCl, HF) and activated carbon to remove dioxins and mercury. Modern systems incor-porate these treatments in the one unit. If NOx control is required, a standard deNOx system will suffice.

The income stream from a WtE plant includes the avoided landfill charge, and the sale of green electricity and recovered metals. In cold climates the waste heat can be used for district heating. The EcoRecycle report esti-mates that for a WtE plant to be vi-able in 2013, the average landfill charge needed to achieve economic viability would be $69 per tonne. This should be compared to $48 for the cheapest and preferred option, viz a regime combining open composting or anaerobic digestion of the green stream, with landfill of the residuals. This option relies on assertive diver-sion of specific waste streams away from landfill. This would also benefit WtE, but was not included in the WtE analysis. The comparison serves to emphasize the environmental and economic advantage of WtE.

Page 7

Production of Electrical Power from Municipal Waste [Continued from page 2]

This activity represents a significant loss of resources, & threatens the en-vironment in the form of gaseous emissions & contaminated groundwa-ter. The above study of MSW disposal was conducted on a triple bottom line basis – evaluating economic, environ-mental and social impacts. It found that of the 13 options included, a com-bination of recycling and combustion of the residue was among the top three in economic terms and best in environmental terms. However this option was last in social impact i.e. people didn’t want it. This strange result, that a process which is superior in both economic & environmental terms is strongly rejected, indicates a general ignorance of what is involved.

Across the world, from Scandinavia to Seattle to Canberra, it is becoming ap-parent from experience that the maxi-mum amount of MSW recycle which can be achieved is 70%. The disposal of the residual 30% is occupying the minds of the authorities involved. Thermal treatment is the obvious op-tion, with pyrolysis, gasification & combustion systems being evaluated. The number of the first two processes worldwide is small (< 10 and < 100 re-spectively) & decreasing, while the number of combustion systems is over 1000, and increasing.

The combustion of MSW to generate power is known as waste-to-energy (WtE). Residual MSW has a specific energy of around 10 MJ kg-1, which is similar to brown coal. It will burn without a support fuel at 1000oC, suffi-cient to destroy organics, including pathogens. Figure 1 shows the SE of a range of wastes in relation to their moisture content. The point marked NY MSW represents a typical MSW from the city of New York before recy-cling. The efficiency of a WtE plant depends on the steam conditions - a small unit will give 350 kWh of

Let Covey Consulting connect all the pieces for you

The Covey team Dr. Geoff Covey Chairman & chemical Engineer Mr. Gerke Faber Engineering Manager Mr. Reg Harvey Process Manager

Mr. Dennis Shore General Manager (Projects/Strategies/Markets) Dr. Dennis Creasy Chemical Engineer (Emeritus) Mr. Roger Canty Chemical Engineer Dr. Ajit Ghosh Chemical Engineer Dr. Brian Stanmore Chemical Engineer Dr. Bruce Allender Environmental, Microscopy & Procurement Dr. Nafty Vanderhoek Paper Technologist Mr. Alan Eagle Pulping, Bleaching & Environment Ms. Jo-Ann Moore Process Engineer Mr. Steve Grist Chemical Analyst Mr. Ross Werne Chemical Analyst Mr. Ross Patterson Mechanical Engineer Mr. Murray Orchard Mechanical Engineer Dr. Alan Harvey Image Processing/Computing, Electronics & Control Systems Mr. David Wood SCADA, PLC & Telemetry Systems Mr. Peter Brett Electrical Engineer Mr. Kam (Charlie) Chan Commercial, Marketing & Logistics Mr. John Trewick Information Consultant Mrs. Dianne Jones Information Consultant Dr. Alan Farrington Chemist/Fibre Technologist Mr. Robin Johnson Consultant Process Chemist Mr. David Allan Sustainable Strategist Mr. Norm Lasslett Process & Control Engineer Mr. Koh Hoo Beng Malaysia Country Representative

1st Floor, 660 High Street, Kew East, Victoria Telephone: (03) 9859 4290 Fax: (03) 9859 4630 Mail: PO Box 99 Kew East, VIC 3102 Australia Email: enquiries@coveyconsulting.com.au Web: www.coveyconsulting.com.au

Australian-based, Australian-owned Intimate knowledge of Australian process industry 25 professionals, over 600 years total

experience Broad range of professional disciplines Daily interaction with major manufacturing sites Access to global information Ready-access to other specialist knowledge

Professional Links: Covey Consulting has a close working relationship with a network of associ-ates who can provide specialist knowl-edge outside our direct area of exper-tise. These include Civil and Structural Engineers, Chemical Analytical Labo-ratories and Technical Information Services.

Covey Consulting regularly uses the scientific resources and equipment located at the universities of Mel-bourne, Monash and RMIT as well as the CSIRO.

Covey Consulting Your industry partner for more than 20 years