Cleaning up the mess

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Symposium on Energy and the Environment

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by Jeffrey Zinsmeister

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EESi's main offices are located on the second floor of the Mechanical Laboratory building, and it is comprised of faculty from the Brown School of Engineering, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and the School of Social Sciences to encourage interdisciplinary research and foster interaction and cooperation between academics and research in industry and government. In more recent years, the program has facilitated the formation of the Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering, the Rice Quantum Institute, the Computer and Information Technology Institute and the National Center for Groundwater Research. The EESi also began an annual symposium in 1995 on issues that bridge the fields of environment, industry and public policy.

The opening morning of this year's conference was titled "Testing and Verification Programs" and featured speakers from both the private and public sectors examining the market for new technologies and the state of current testing and verification programs such as Superfund and the Remediation Technology Development Program.

The first afternoon featured the keynote address by the retired senior vice president of Texaco Inc. and topics on "Technology Transfer and Commercialization." Activities concerned bringing new technology and research into the market and making it profitable, in addition to aspects of environmental insurance and a roundtable discussion.

On the first day, various experts in the field of environmental remediation discussed emerging research and development in new processes and streamlining existing procedures. The afternoon session brought the event to a close by focusing on the future of remediation technologies and businesses.

The talks urged the rethinking of environmental technologies to fit the needs of the current market. In the words of Robert Dunlap of Remediation Technologies Inc., the market is a "mature one" whose focus is shifting from new technology to service and cost-effectiveness. The market, he said, has reached its peak in the United States, and companies would be facing increasing competition for their services.

The speakers emphasized that entrepreneurs can no longer rely on research and development to lure the customer, but must instead provide complete packages of technology and service to yield cost-effective ways to remediate contaminated sites.

Dunlap and Curtis Stanley of Shell Development Co. also stressed the shift in government regulation on contaminant cleanup. No longer will groups such as the Environmental Protection Agency be pushing for cleanup to absolute standards of contaminants. They now will tailor their requirements to each site, conducting "risk assessments" for each area and basing contaminant cleanup goals on "risk-based" standards.

The previous absolute standards often drove cleanup costs to exceedingly high levels without any corresponding benefits to the environment. Consequently, traditional technologies for treating contaminated sites such as pumping contaminated groundwater out of the site and treating it will be replaced by more passive methods currently being developed.

These passive technologies were prominently featured at the conference. One example, called "bio-venting," was detailed by Robert Hinchee of Parsons Engineering Science Inc. Bioventing is a method of facilitating decomposition of hydrocarbons by drilling wells in the site and pumping oxygen into the wells. Such technologies are far more cost-effective than automatic "pump-and-treat" for dealing with sites that have risk-based standards and may require less cleanup.

Therefore, the speakers concluded, the future for those who are considering careers in environmental remediation is not one of developing new and expensive methods, but of streamlining existing methods and providing excellent service and cost-effective solutions to the customer. For students contemplating this career, Ward suggested they should "know the basics of the sciences" -- chemistry, physics and so forth, "because that is what the market is looking for." He also suggested that interested students take advantage of programs such as EESi on campus to get exposure to the market before entering it. A "head start" can mean a rewarding career in an exciting market, he said.

The symposium offered engineering and natural science majors an in-depth, technical look at the inner workings of emerging environmental technologies. For those inclined to the social sciences, the speakers provided an overview of current policy on remediation. The symposium gave an interesting glimpse at the field that was easily understandable to listeners unfamiliar with the topic.

EESi is not only for those interested in engineering and the natural sciences, but for the whole community. As an added incentive, the symposium is free for students who wish to see experts speak on their specialties. EESi's program for the symposium outlined clearly what each speaker was talking about and even provided an abstract of each presentation. As a result, one could easily find which speakers he or she had interest in and schedule a visit around them.

For those with little time, the abstracts were excellent primers for thought. Dropping by between class was encouraged, and students felt comfortable conversing with the speakers between sessions or speaking with those attendees from the various firms and government agencies represented at the conference.

Next year, EESi will again host a symposium featuring experts in the environmental field. The topics are as yet undecided, but the conference is sure to be another exciting and informative session. EESi encourages students from all disciplines to attend. The institute looks forward to providing opportunities for students to broaden their horizons in the environment, engineering and public policy.

This item appeared in the Features section of the October 11, 1996 issue.

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