A couple of weeks back I had the opportunity to visit a pretty large
plant, an old one, a sort of local Industrial landmark, but well past
its prime where even the signs of decay were showing signs of age. The
white wash was peeling off most buildings and most of the metallic
structures were either rusty or thickened by innumerable coats of paint.
Their staff too, either seemed approaching retirement age or were
youngsters who looked as if they had grown up in one of the employee's
colonies and filled up the posts vacated by the previous generation.
Fuel Paradise
Walking the plant's internal roadways below smoking stacks and trying not to gag in air, breathable only if one is used to the smell of ammonia and rotten eggs, we made our way to see a senior engineer whose age made one think that he had not only witnessed the commissioning, but even the laying of the foundation stone of the factory. For a change, he was quite amiable, offered us water, spoke about his 40 years of working experience and even discussed about hydrogen extraction technologies. It was only when he started off talking about fuels, that politeness and respect for age forced us to remain poker faced and stopped us from breaking into an all out guffaw. Leaving aside his insistance that HFO was a distillate and not a residual oil and that its density was .92-.93 and not .96-.98 as attested by the oil companies, he also assured us that in his entire career he had faced fuel adulteration only once and that he never needed to clean his Fuel storage tank because it doesn't contain a drop of sludge or water. To this effect they apparently never even bothered to clean their Fuel filters as they never choked. He concluded on a self satisfied and almost emotional note, that the oil company must be giving them special material because they were an old and large consumer. All this while his assistant sat silently and nodded his head in affirmation. There was hardly a case for us to talk about our sludge-free, homogenized emulsified Fuel, he already had paradise on earth.
Whats your Deal?
The meeting reminded me of another one of almost a decade back when a mentor, himself a pollution equipment supplier took me along to a Steel plant to make a presentation on Fuel Emulsions. The unit belonged to three partners, one a whole-seller of rice, the other of cereals and the third of utensils, all of who were oblivious to the workings of Steel rolling mill and left the task of running the plant to their foreman turned factory manager.
E ntering the plant I performed my first analysis which corresponds to a doctor asking a patient to stick out the tongue; I looked up at the chimney. I saw a column of thick black smoke with high draft, indicating not only very poor combustion, but also high excess air and furnace pressure. Once nearer I could see dull red flames shooting out from every possible orifice of the billet re-heating furnace. In short the entire combustion process and burner adjustment was atrocious and fuel consumption couldn't have been lower that 50-55 Litres of HFO per ton, which was at least 30-35% above the industry average.
After I finished my presentation is the best possible (intelligible) Hindi I could muster, the Foreman-turned-Manager smugly asked me, “look I am having an average consumption of 30 Litres per MT of steel in my furnace, tell me how much more would I economize if I use your Oil-Water-Juddad ( contraption)??” It didn't take long for me to reply, “not a litre, matter of fact I would strictly advise you not to even touch a single setting of your burners as even God would probably mess up things for you”. My sudden fluency in Hindi surprised me, while my mentor frowned disapprovingly. Predictably there was no sale and all the way back to Delhi I had to endure a long sermon as to the virtues of diplomacy and keeping the tongue in check.
Toxicity Tests & a Toxic Tongue
A decade onward I myself started appreciating the virtues of being selectively deaf and dumb with potential clients, especially when on a marketing assignment. But even here, occasionally all my mentor's chiding fly out of the window when the other side not only starts spouting BS, but actually end up believing it, all with the air of abject self-righteousness. Recently when a plant manager who initially seemed a very pleasing and sensible individual, ( what couldn't be said about his chief engineer) went off on a tangent as to what a great risk he would be taking by trying out our Fuel Emulsion in his company's boiler even for a day. And went to the extent of saying that he would require a toxicity test of our fuel to be done beforehand as his was a food company ( something he confessed he didn't do for the regular muck they was burning). Somewhere half way through the tirade, I interrupted and asked in the most polite way possible “ I know I am shooting myself in the leg, but given your tough quality standards, concern for emissions and international parameters, how come you are still using HFO which by itself is a dirty, non-standard residual product, that too transported by unscrupulous transporters. Why not switch to Natural Gas instead? I know its now more expensive, but its way cleaner and safer, you are an international company with international standards to maintain after all.” An awkward silence followed and the meeting went downhill soon thereafter and my colleague has still not forgiven me till date. On my part this episode remains my perfect excuse as to why I shouldn't accompany them on marketing calls.
Ravi Deka is an energy efficiency consultant and
Fuel Paradise
Walking the plant's internal roadways below smoking stacks and trying not to gag in air, breathable only if one is used to the smell of ammonia and rotten eggs, we made our way to see a senior engineer whose age made one think that he had not only witnessed the commissioning, but even the laying of the foundation stone of the factory. For a change, he was quite amiable, offered us water, spoke about his 40 years of working experience and even discussed about hydrogen extraction technologies. It was only when he started off talking about fuels, that politeness and respect for age forced us to remain poker faced and stopped us from breaking into an all out guffaw. Leaving aside his insistance that HFO was a distillate and not a residual oil and that its density was .92-.93 and not .96-.98 as attested by the oil companies, he also assured us that in his entire career he had faced fuel adulteration only once and that he never needed to clean his Fuel storage tank because it doesn't contain a drop of sludge or water. To this effect they apparently never even bothered to clean their Fuel filters as they never choked. He concluded on a self satisfied and almost emotional note, that the oil company must be giving them special material because they were an old and large consumer. All this while his assistant sat silently and nodded his head in affirmation. There was hardly a case for us to talk about our sludge-free, homogenized emulsified Fuel, he already had paradise on earth.
Whats your Deal?
The meeting reminded me of another one of almost a decade back when a mentor, himself a pollution equipment supplier took me along to a Steel plant to make a presentation on Fuel Emulsions. The unit belonged to three partners, one a whole-seller of rice, the other of cereals and the third of utensils, all of who were oblivious to the workings of Steel rolling mill and left the task of running the plant to their foreman turned factory manager.
E ntering the plant I performed my first analysis which corresponds to a doctor asking a patient to stick out the tongue; I looked up at the chimney. I saw a column of thick black smoke with high draft, indicating not only very poor combustion, but also high excess air and furnace pressure. Once nearer I could see dull red flames shooting out from every possible orifice of the billet re-heating furnace. In short the entire combustion process and burner adjustment was atrocious and fuel consumption couldn't have been lower that 50-55 Litres of HFO per ton, which was at least 30-35% above the industry average.
After I finished my presentation is the best possible (intelligible) Hindi I could muster, the Foreman-turned-Manager smugly asked me, “look I am having an average consumption of 30 Litres per MT of steel in my furnace, tell me how much more would I economize if I use your Oil-Water-Juddad ( contraption)??” It didn't take long for me to reply, “not a litre, matter of fact I would strictly advise you not to even touch a single setting of your burners as even God would probably mess up things for you”. My sudden fluency in Hindi surprised me, while my mentor frowned disapprovingly. Predictably there was no sale and all the way back to Delhi I had to endure a long sermon as to the virtues of diplomacy and keeping the tongue in check.
Toxicity Tests & a Toxic Tongue
A decade onward I myself started appreciating the virtues of being selectively deaf and dumb with potential clients, especially when on a marketing assignment. But even here, occasionally all my mentor's chiding fly out of the window when the other side not only starts spouting BS, but actually end up believing it, all with the air of abject self-righteousness. Recently when a plant manager who initially seemed a very pleasing and sensible individual, ( what couldn't be said about his chief engineer) went off on a tangent as to what a great risk he would be taking by trying out our Fuel Emulsion in his company's boiler even for a day. And went to the extent of saying that he would require a toxicity test of our fuel to be done beforehand as his was a food company ( something he confessed he didn't do for the regular muck they was burning). Somewhere half way through the tirade, I interrupted and asked in the most polite way possible “ I know I am shooting myself in the leg, but given your tough quality standards, concern for emissions and international parameters, how come you are still using HFO which by itself is a dirty, non-standard residual product, that too transported by unscrupulous transporters. Why not switch to Natural Gas instead? I know its now more expensive, but its way cleaner and safer, you are an international company with international standards to maintain after all.” An awkward silence followed and the meeting went downhill soon thereafter and my colleague has still not forgiven me till date. On my part this episode remains my perfect excuse as to why I shouldn't accompany them on marketing calls.
Ravi Deka is an energy efficiency consultant and
CEO / Dir. Technology at Creatnet Technology Pvt Ltd.
www.rade.co.in
www.creatnettechnology.com
www.rade.co.in
www.creatnettechnology.com
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