First Reduce Oxide Losses, Save Fuel Later !!

“What do you mean mill-scale formation would reduce if I start using Emulsified Fuels, I sell the mill-scale!!”                                                                            
But at what rates? I asked.                                                                                                  
“I always get at least 800 Rupees a ton,” boasted the Executive Director .   “Well considering that steel ingots cost about Rs.25,000 per ton, wouldn’t it make more sense to cut down on waste generation, rather than selling it at 3% of its value?”
Silence…

Sometimes, the logic and fallacies governing Indian business practices defy all convention, so visiting a new client I am always mentally prepared to hear the most outlandish of claims or experience the most bizarre of procedures. The above conversation was held at the office of a mid-sized SME Steel rebar manufacturer and my pitch was how converting to Emulsified HFO would save them far more money by reducing metal oxide losses in their process than via fuel economy. After all, metal loss through burning and scaling comprises a major loss in any steel and non-ferrous re-heating furnace.

People outside the metal industry are mostly unaware that heating and reheating of most metal creates a significant amount of waste comprising of different metal oxides. In ferrous industries the term commonly used for such oxides is Mill-Scale, in non-ferrous plants like Zinc and Aluminum it is called Dross.

Here by their own admission, the company was generating over 5 metric tons of mill-scale per day amounting to a loss of Rs.1,25,000/-(almost  2000 USD) in raw material cost. That’s $ 60,000 per month, of which they proudly recovered back a little over 3%.

Mill-scale consists of iron oxides like FeO and Fe2O3 which first form when ingots or billets are re-heated to red-hot temperatures inside the furnace and later again when they are rolled into different sections and profiles. The scales comprise of flakes of metal that fall off in slivers ranging from a few millimeters to several inches in length and thickness. In an average steel re-heating and rolling operation the quantum of mill-scale generated is close to 3% of its daily process capacity though it can go up as high as 7%.

The metal scaling that takes place during the rolling process due to the exposure of the red-hot steel to air is what actually should be termed as mill-scale. And unfortunately not much can be done to reduce its formation as it would involve purging the entire area with a fluxing gas; a very costly and technically impractical process.

The scale that form inside the furnaces due to the prolonged exposure of the steel to extremely high temperatures and atmospheric oxygen is correctly known as Furnace-Scale. Reducing the peak temperature and stringent control of combustion and excess air inside the furnace can reduce this type of scale formation, through it is an absolute nightmare to implement real life.

A similar process takes place in an Aluminum and Lead furnaces where oil fired burners are used for re-melting the metal or for holding the molten metal till the time it is poured or cast. Here, instead of forming flakes, the oxide layer forms as a thick semi-solid layer on top of the molten metal. Various chemical fluxes are used to reduce the dross formation, nonetheless a considerable amount of metal is lost to forming oxides. However, a positive differentiation between the two types of metallic oxides is that unlike steel scale, dross  fetches a descent price in the market, though still a fraction of that of finished metal.

It is also an easily provable fact, that combustion of Emulsified Fuel in the metal reheating process drastically reduces mills-scale and dross formation. In fact, following the instantly measurable reduction of NOx levels and spike in O2 levels in the flue gases, the next easiest quantifiable aspect directly attributable to usage of emulsified fuels is the reduction of metal scaling and dross.
This phenomenon is accomplished by a simple factor:  emulsified fuel needs extremely low levels of Excess Air because of the complete combustion of fuel due to Secondary Atomization. So combustion reduces most of the oxygen  leaving very little for the purpose of oxidization.

Secondly, the super heated steam released by the emulsified fuel combustion ensures that the flame’s peak temperatures doesn’t exceed 1300 degrees and the temperature spread is uniformly distributed with no hot-spots. This limitation of temperature is also what inhibits oxide formation both on the metal as well as in gas. So the reduction of metallic oxides losses always goes in tandem with decline in NOx levels in the flue gas.

Lastly, the traces of steam quickly radiates out the latent heat due to having a higher thermal transfer co-efficient than air and so it cools down slightly, increasing in density and settles down acting like a flux insulating the heated metal from  air of more specifically oxygen.
After converting a 100 Ton per day rebar mill to emulsified HFO, the amount of burning loss and mill-scale fell down from 3.5 % to 1.6 %. Moreover, instead of the 2-3 mm thick and 30-40 cm long slivers constantly peeling off steel ingots earlier, we found only tiny mica-like flakes  not exceeding .06 mm in thickness.

In terms of  cost calculations, considering today’s average price for steel ingots at Rs 25,000, the reduction of mill-scale by almost 2% in a 100TPD rolling mill, amounts to a savings of Rs. 47,500 per day or 22,619 USD per month.

And now if we calculate only in terms of fuel saving, considering the industry  average usage of 36 litres of HFO per metric ton of steel, at Rs.25,000 per KL, the daily consumption of fuel would be 3600 litres costing Rs. 90,000. Now considering the( highly unlikely) best case scenario of gaining a maximum of 10% savings in fuel consumption by switching over to Emulsified HFO, would only save Rs.9000 per day or 4286 USD per month.

Switching over to Emulsified fuels in metallic furnaces saves way more money when considering the reduction in waste oxide formation than in fuel saving. Besides it’s way easier to measure and quantify.

Its a pity the Executive Director from the beginning of the article, failed to see the logic till the very end or may be he just didn’t want to loose of his Rs 800 per ton of mill-scale monthly revenue.

Ravi Deka is an energy management adviser and one of the pioneers in introducing Fuel Emulsification concepts in the country.
www.rade.co.in
www.creatnettechnology.com

Do Fuel Emulsions have a Future?

The communication came in the form of a filled up feedback form from my erstwhile website. It was written in very poor English, which was all right as the sender was not from an English speaking country, but the tone was nasty and its insinuations, simply preposterous; that I had stolen his technology!!

 I had never heard of this person, his technology or even seen the website, which he highlighted in his note. I replied back in the best Russian that I could muster( as I don't know Ukrainian) , that Fuel Emulsification wasn’t exactly rocket science, and I needn’t copy anything from him and wished him luck. He was apparently not satisfied and in his updated website goaded about how the Americans stole his technology, the Indians (that’s me) pinched it from the Americans and the Chinese just copied from the Indians. At least we were not at the bottom of the list!!

Last month it was I, who was sending emails to several companies offering  Fuel Emulsions related services and technologies, even to former employees of the now defunct ones. But instead of issuing threats, I was pleading for references about their clients, specifically power stations so that I could highlight them at a forthcoming technical presentation with a government company. I didn’t receive a single reply and I suspect  it was not due to secrecy but because they had no clients to talk about.  As a result I couldn’t provide any examples except Santa Rita in Philippines (now on natural gas), the Planta Arizona unit in Guatemala  and an obscure power station in Albania. Anyway the presentation was doomed from the start, as the obnoxious “His Engineer-ness” who headed their team ignored or shot-down everything I said and we would have still been treated like dirt had we brought them all the proof on earth or teleported them to Vlore ( that's the Albanian Station's name).

It just all bottles down to the sad fact, that ever since Venezuela stopped shipping Orimulsion, usage of Emulsified Fuels worldwide, especially HFO has been negligible to the point of being non-existing. Probably the same scenario is with emulsified Diesel as we stopped hearing about Purinox & Aquazole for a decade now.

 During a recent Skype conversation with Bill Howe, the former CEO of Quadrise, the man who got both Wartisila and Maersk,  not only to conduct trials but also approve their MSAR II Fuel Emulsion, I asked him same question I made to  myself a thousand times before “Do you feel Fuel Emulsions have a future?

 Bill, who has now moved over to the world of LNG, replied slowly and introspectively, “I don’t know.” Bill probably meant things exactly as he said, but I only heard a "NO" at the end!  Later he also mentioned that to the best of his knowledge Maersk has not given up on MSAR II and it was now just the question of working out the how’s and where’s. Well,  a "sigh " of relief!!

Also dwelling on the future of Fuel Emulsions, the “Pitbull of LNG - Rudolf Huber” who had himself shortly dabbled with emulsions,  in his article “LNG or emulsion fuels – what’s it gonna be?” made a few extremely valid observations. One, that there is “a solid kernel of science behind Emulsion Fuels,” but also that it would always remain a niche segment fuel. He also remarked that any breakthrough announced in the world of Fuel Emulsions should be taken with a generous pinch of salt and that the technology is notoriously difficult to implement in the real world. Rudolf has since returned to his LNG world of gaseous bliss and on my part I can’t help agreeing with everything that he wrote, especially the pinch of salt part.

India's former President and the country’s favorite science icon Late Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam enthusiastically spoke about the advantages of fuel emulsions in several of his speeches till he realized that the person who introduced him to the subject had gone so completely overboard with his tall unsubstantiated claims, that he consequently  refused to have anything to do with this field.

After all,  when someone spouts absolute drivel like, “.. the MOLECULAR ENGINEERED EMULSIFICATION by the patented ________'s EXCITATION PROCESS and the SYNTHESIZER makes HYDROPHILIC ADHESIONS due to changed VAN DER WALLS forces due to COLD PLASMA CATALYSIS facilitating mixing of several blends easy ensuring stability of the fuel for a longer time,” you can't blame  people for regarding this technology as Snake Oil.

Nonetheless, to understand what makes Fuel Emulsions so special and why they are still relevant in today’s world, one has to first understand what its all about, as going by patents filed worldwide, the first attempts in blending fuel and water go back to the 1930s. Thereafter like a Phoenix, the technology kept fading away and  resurrecting itself every decade especially when petroleum  prices hit the roof.

When  industrial fuels like Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) or Refinery residues are emulsified, the process inserts microscopic water droplets into the oil phase or vise versa. During combustion, these water droplets explode into steam in a continuous series of micro-explosions in a process called  Secondary Atomization, ripping apart the oil droplets into a nano-sized mist that burn-out completely releasing slightly more thermal energy and far lesser pollutants like particulate matter, NOx and CO.
Well, that was the good part, but as Rudolf said, in the real world things are far more complicated  and  I would say the correct word is “ugly.”

First, there is the mountainous effort of surmounting the prejudices related to mixing oil and water. Secondly, in order to avail the promised fuel savings of HFO Emulsions, it is crucial to readjust the  Burners for least excess amount of air, in fact far lower levels than with stock fuel. Which is easier said than done, at least in the Indian SME sector, where we have come across Boilers running with 30% and Furnaces having over 150% excess air. Furthermore, the people manning them are usually poorly educated if at all, who mostly learned their skills on the job and have uncompromising egos and convictions as how things are to be done and adjusted. Let also not forget that  virtually none of these plants have a fuel flow meter, and it is always the person handling the burner and the dipstick who has the last word about fuel consumption. So in the best of cases the fuel economy remains unchanged but usually the complaint is that it  goes steeply downhill. I shall leave out the part about fuel adulteration and pay-offs as I had written about it in an earlier post.

 In the case of HFO engines used in ships and for captive power generation  Emulsified Fuels could play a far-reaching positive role in providing better economy, reducing maintenance and emissions, but here too there are numerous  obstacles to overcome. Predictably most of the owners don’t want to experiment with  new fuels without the manufacturer’s consent, who on their part despite claiming in brochures that their engines are emulsion-ready, rarely address any queries on this subject. And even when a trial is agreed upon, there are still plenty of other unforeseen technical issues  like for example, how to bypass the moisture transducer of modern Centrifugal Separators such as Alfa Laval’s S – Models, where it acts like an electronic gatekeeper to stop any moisture containing fuel from reaching the engines.

 Lastly, with the current low oil prices, there is hardly any incentive for most bulk fuel consumers to walk the extra mile for adopting a new technology and work procedures that would at best provide them with a 5% improvement in fuel economy, that too one as controversial as mixing Oil and Water.
Unless!! Unless  they are in a fix and with no other viable solution in sight, and the only industry in such a quagmire that I can think of today, is India’s Power Sector. With over 8000MW of generating capacity either standing idle  or working intermittently, these are Gas Turbine based combined cycle  plants that had been built atop promises of cheap and copious soon-to-be-available domestic Natural Gas. However, the forecast soon turned out to be a gas bubble by itself as both the private and government Gas companies failed to deliver. Meanwhile running these plants on  imported Gas or Naphtha is just to expensive for economical power generation.

So the only way to get these Power Stations up and running would entail one of the following ways:

1. The government starts giving the power companies’ hefty subsidies on imported gas price, which is what they are lobbying for but what would cost heavily to the public exchequer.
2. The power stations set up Syn-gas plants to make gas from coal or coke, which is not likely considering that most are not even able to service their bank loans.
3. Some of these Gas Turbines can be made to switch over to HFO Emulsions, which is not such a far-fetched or improbable idea considering that most legacy and multi-fuel turbines such as GE’s B & E class, Siemens' SGT 500 series or Ansaldo’s AE94.2 & AE64.3A+ models can easily burn residual fuels.  Some of them actually use steam injection to reduce NOx and for flame augmentation, others use water injection to cool and condense the charge.
   

Adapting Gas turbines to fire Emulsified HFO would of course entail its own share of challenges, but nothing extremely difficult or prohibitively expensive as the technology exists, is mature  and has proved itself several times over.
On the benefit front, the Power Stations  would be running on the cheapest liquid fuel available, cheaper than Naptha, cheaper than  Natural Gas and being Emulsified it would negate most of the problems of Sooting and Fouling associated with using HFO in Gas Turbines. And unlike the elusive Natural Gas, Indian refineries produce over 15 million MT of HFO per year and the cournty consumes only a 3rd of it, the rest is sold overseas at a discount.

Ravi Deka is an energy management consultant and one of the pioneers in introducing Fuel Emulsification concepts in the country.
www.rade.co.in
www.creatnettechnology.com

Cleaning Up Coal - Ravi Deka

It’s ironic how the world’s two most used energy resources are the ones getting the worst rap.
Petroleum is invariably associated with fundamentalist medieval regimes or brutal foreign invasions under the self-righteous guise of ushering democracy. While Coal, which produces 41 % of the world’s and 68% of India’s electricity, is usually thought about only in terms of pollution, mafia, miners dying in explosions and in the recent years; scandals involving corrupt Indian politicians and their Crony-Capitalist friends.

Though boasting India’s first colliery but only having 0.37% of the country’s reserves, in  North Eastern India, it is also infamous  for the so-called Coal Syndicate of Assam and the notorious rat-hole mines of Meghalaya. The precarious conditions and safety records of the latter even made it to the pages of the L.A. Times, leading to the current mining ban imposed by the National Green Tribunal.

It just takes a short 20 minute ride from Assam's capital Guwahati towards Shillong to reach Byrnihat, Meghalaya’s industrial hub. Situated not too close to Guwahati to be a nuisance and far enough from Shillong to be of  concern, the acrid sulfurous air and the grey sky above the town is a testimony of primitive level industrialization gone amok and the corresponding lack of any environmental regulations.

The many Steel Rolling mills there, all use Pulverized Coal Combustion(PCC) in their reheating furnaces whilst Pollution control equipment is either not installed or just never used. Similarly, all of the 40 plus Coal Coking units located in Assam and Meghalaya use the non-recovery type Beehive Ovens, whose design dates back to the early epochs of the industrial revolution and consequently are a source of considerable atmospheric and water pollution. Metallurgical Coke is produced by burning off the volatile components of coal, consequently emitting a host of air pollutants like particulate matters or soot; volatile organic compounds, poly-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons , methane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, along with sulfur-nitrogen oxides, directly into the atmosphere. Later the Coke is quenched with water, whereby any remaining volatiles and elements like sulfur and mercury are leached into the ground eventually percolating to a running water body or the ground water table.

The outdated Steam Boilers installed in various factories, especially the Tea gardens are another example of archaic engineering entrenched in the field of coal combustion. Many are relics from another age, while others are age old designs still peddled by Boiler Manufacturers to unsuspecting buyers lokking for a cheap deal. The end result is the same; low efficiency, considerable wastage in unburned coal and high atmospheric pollution.
Preferring to adopt a policy of either total ban such as in Goa, or turning a blind eye as in Chhattisgarh and Odissa, till date none of the State governments in India have been able to constructively address the problem of Coal pollution, while the central government could never formulate a coherent Clean Coal policy. A fact testified by  the Coal and  Natural Gas burning Badarpur Thermal Power Plant in Delhi, which run by the government owned NTPC had been recently declared as the most polluting plant in the country.

So far the only Clean Coal technology that has caught the imagination of the Indian government and private sector, is the controversial and prohibitively expensive Coal to Liquid (CTL) process. Being touted a way to reduce petroleum imports, Oil India first announced a pilot project in 1998 and subsequently in 2006 along with Coal India Ltd., made press releases promising a $2.5 billion CTL plant in Assam. The topic kept surfacing in the news sporadically but with no actual project in sight.

 Tata-Sasol, a collaboration between India’s Tata Group and South African Petrochemical giant Sasol made a few headlines and raked up a few controversies with their plan of building a $10 billion CTL plant in Odissa with a capacity of 80,000 barrels of oil per day. Jindal Steel too has proposed to set up a CTL project next to their DRI plant in Angul district also with a capacity of 80,000 barrels per day of oil products. The two plants, at an estimated cost of Rs 90,000 crore are expected to come up by 2016. Even the “anti-everything” CM of West Bengal, Mamta Banerjee jumped on the CTL bandwagon and applied to the centre for a Rs 10,000-crore coal mining and coal-to-oil project in Bengal.

There is no denying the fact that liquid hydrocarbons can be derived from coal using the Bergius and the Fischer-Tropsch processes and during WWII Nazi Germany was totally dependent on coal based synthetic fuels. In 1944 its annual production exceeded 124,000 barrels per day from 25 plants. From 1955 onwards South Africa’s Sasol had been manufacturing synthetic fuels from coal due to the oil embargo against their Apartheid regime.
A CTL plant has three major divisions comprising of the gasification unit, the liquid conversion catalyst unit and a refinery section, which makes it prohibitively expensive project with a long gestation period. It also requires a lot of land, consumes huge amount of water (upto 15 barrels of water per barrel of fuel produced) and has an appallingly low conversion efficiency of only 42%, meaning more than half the coal’s energy is lost in the process.

With government policies swinging between apathetic and draconian, the private sector’s fixation on touting controversial mega projects for the sole purpose of securing Coal blocks and the undeniable existence of thousands of outdated coal burning industrial units that cannot be scrapped overnight, the eventuality of any realistic implementation of Clean Coal Technologies in India does actually seem very bleak.


Ravi Deka is an energy efficiency consultant and

CEO / Dir. Technology at Creatnet Technology Pvt Ltd.

www.rade.co.in
www.creatnettechnology.com

Screening Out the Shylocks - Ravi Deka

Some would be smart and sophisticated, others downright rude and crude. One will act as if he is doing  a great favour, another regard you with utmost suspicion as if dealing a thief and the third, talk so condescendingly one would think that you already owe him money. Lets accept it; friendly, sensible clients who pay on time and do it willingly and respectfully are far and in-between.

I wish I could write a true self-help style article about how to find great, paying clients.
Unfortunately, even after working for decades I am clueless about it and still have to put up with freeloaders, moochers and talk-you-downs on a weekly basis. Thus, as I lack both clairvoyance or the skills of Cold Reader, with wisdom garnered from innumerable  insipid professional experiences, I created a strict manifesto for screening out Shylocks amidst potential clients and regimenting my work.

1. Never Do it For Free.

If you are good in something never do it for free even if it is your hobby. If you do it as a favour a few times, very soon people would take you for granted and the moment you refuse you would become the bad guy. Only while interning or as an apprentice can one afford to do a few free assignments, but again solely for the purpose of gaining experience and a portfolio, where the client is essentially your Guinea Pig. Remember that the often-touted argument about proving yourself is a bogus pretext to make you work for free. If a client hires you, it should be solely on the basis of what you had already done and not what you would do for him for free to prove yourself.

2. No Detailed Write-ups or Concept Notes.

When potential clients ask you for a detailed write-up or proposal, limit it to a one-page teaser or a very short presentation. If you give them a comprehensive report, chances are that it would be plagiarized and someone else will get the credit or the work, usually both. Once a suave Auto magazine editor requested me to write a hard-selling proposal to a bike manufacturer for sponsoring a series of motorcycling travelogues. I wrote an impressive pitch and it got accepted, but instead of me, he got one of his servile staffers do the job. The resultant series was atrocious and it felt like karma working to see the magazine fold-up in a few months, but for me as a freelancer it was a loss of time and potential income, not to say faith in people.

3. Price yourself reasonably.

Have a fair idea of what your service is worth and charge accordingly. In case you have a specific USP, try pricing yourself a little over the market average. Don’t get greedy because the client is a large corporation or has deep pockets. Large corporations are staffed with scores of employees who are ballasts whose sole claim to productivity is either throwing a spanner in the works or  getting people work for free or a pittance. The man with deep pockets probably got there by cutting costs everywhere as well. However once you set your price, never baulk down because it would be discounts all the way thereafter.

4. Don’t share Business Intelligence.

 While it pays to give the protective client an insight of your knowledge and exposure to your field of expertise, stop short from divulging anything that may be considered as Business Intelligence. It may come as an innocuous request for a Google link or a block diagram, but remember that it can be relatively easy to extrapolate technical ideas or uncover business secrets after getting a hint. While it may be very easy for you to get the daily prices of wool in Kazakhstan thanks to your wife’s 3^rd cousin’s uncle, but for others it would either entail a trip there or involve purchasing an expensive subscription to an online service. Every bit of authentic information has a price, so share it selectively and only if you see a tangible return, either monetarily or by way of goodwill and confidence building: you can’t eat brownie points.

5. Make Them Pay for Travels.

If a potential client approaches you himself but is in another town or part of country and wants to meet you for an initial discussion, make sure he pays for the passage and your time, otherwise let him come down himself. There were several instances when would-be clients promise to reimburse the travel expenses and later stop picking up the phone or answering emails. And there are also freeloaders who start or interject the conversation with “when are you planning to visit ……….(insert their location)”, but at least they are more honest. They declare upfront their lack of intent of paying for the journey, which automatically implies that they aren’t likely to compensate for your time, knowledge and work either.

6.  Limit Preliminary Interaction to Basics.

If the prospective client only wants to discuss again and again over phone or face to face but with no hint of any forth-coming payment, drop him, as he is either a time-waster or picking your brains for free. By the third meeting, long telephonic discussion or Skype conversation, one should know whether the deal is on or off and how much it would be worth. I had both former, as well as new potential clients call me up for hours at a time to discuss their forthcoming projects or technical designs, but the moment I asked for an advance they disappeared like a “Bat Out Of Hell” before the first rays of the sun ( I first wanted to give an analogy of me running away from a Transvestite Prostitute).

7. Recognize a Politician’s Promises.

 Don’t be led tales of  “grand opportunity, golden tomorrow” or in the  "we are in this together" pitch. It’s just a carrot on a stick, a ploy to exploit you or use your knowledge and contacts for free or at a discount. A genuine client should be first focused on what you can do for him today and not what you would get tomorrow.

8. Forgo Temptations of Ownership.

No client who hints of bringing you on board as a partner, but is also the main investor would ever treat you as an equal even if he or she fulfills the promise. In most cases, especially in South Asia it’s just another carrot and stick technique to make you work harder, for free or a pittance.

9. Real Friends Pay and also Deliver.

The only acid test in a professional relation between a client and a service provider is that of fees being paid and proper services rendered. Friendship is reserved for picnics and bars. Moreover, true friends always pay for the goods and services availed, and in turn shouldn’t also be  slackers or delivering half-baked services.

10. Don't get “wowed” by Loud Names.

They may be fortune 500 companies, but the people contacting you are usually lowly managers with limited clout on the lookout for a sucker who would initially work for free or peanuts in the hope of bagging a big account. In case they succeed in finding a sucker, its laurels for them, but in case something goes wrong, it’s your fault. Either way they remain safe, while you take the brunt on you professional reputation and finances.



Ravi Deka is an energy efficiency consultant and

CEO / Dir. Technology at Creatnet Technology Pvt Ltd.

www.rade.co.in
www.creatnettechnology.com

Posers Paradise & Tongue Toxicity - Ravi Deka

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

CEO / Dir. Technology at Creatnet Technology Pvt Ltd.

www.rade.co.in
www.creatnettechnology.com

Fuel Double Standards - Ravi Deka

"I am not running Greenpeace here," proclaimed a CEO of a large company to whom I was extolling the virtues and eco-friendliness of our Emulsified Fuels. My two hour session where  my every point  was cross questioned, countered or simply ignored, all stemmed down to one thing;  by how much would our fuel be cheaper than their current stock. 

Though we have already got used to this characteristic routine and now expect it from every potential client, I still can't help getting peeved when industry people,  especially the technical bosses just ignore the ecological impact and the long time maintenance related benefits derived from using a superior grade of Fuel.

Car Fuel
Once while facing a similar scenario, I suddenly asked my prospective as whether he uses the same criteria of buying only the cheapest fuel for his luxury car and whether he used the cheapest lubricants in it as well. Lets say he was startled for a moment, not used to having vendors question his life's choices and replied that no he didn't,  he used only premium petrol and the car manufacturer specified lubes. "Why not?" I insisted, after all fuel costs are the largest expenditures associated with automobile ownership after the cost of the car itself. He mumbled something about spurious fuel, poor performance, high cost of repairs and returned back to bargaining. My example of his double standards on fuels apparently didn't cut any ice, he wanted the cheapest HFO for his company's furnace.

Commercial Benefit!
The quest for "Commercial Benefit" (a term commonly denoting upfront price discounts in India) is endemic to all industries in India and has been one of the main factors sustaining the 40,000 crore fuel adulteration racket in the country. A myopic outlook, where the insatiable demand for discounts both for fuel as well as other consumables takes precedence over quality, the  longtime cost of ownership and most importantly the cost of downtime. A scenario where many fuel transporters are forced to pilfer and adulterate the very fuel they are entrusted to deliver simply because their clients are not ready to pay a proper freight rate and in most cases their fee doesn't even justify the cost of diesel spent on the trip.

When told about the ultra low formation of  soot and carbon deposits  on the Boiler Tubes  from Emulsified Fuels, which automatically increases the thermal efficiency and increases the gap between scheduled maintenance , most just shrug their shoulders, though we have also met engineers who nod in agreement, but invariably the conversation ends with,  “but you would have to convince our commercial people!!”

Have you repaired a Turbo?
Coming back to the CEO, I was not going to accept his guffaw on ecology with a vendor's forced grin and countered back, “point taken, but now do tell me if you know  the maintenance interval of your Generator's turbo-chargers or rather the cost of rebuilding one?” He didn't , but I knew  roughly that the expense was in INR 7 digits zone. I proceeded telling him the causes of turbo failure, which is as much due to lubrication problems, as to overheating due to being soiled by unburned carbon from poor combustion; and in the case of HFO engines, poor combustion is mostly caused by poor fuel. “But they are still working”, he protested trying to brush off my point, nonetheless my message had for once hit home.

Cost Of Downtime
Reflecting upon most  of my meetings with clients and seminars where I talked about Fuel handling  and  Emulsification, I realise that sooner or later I  always drift into an animated discussion about the actual Cost-of-Downtime.Where I have argued, lectured and even sermonized, that the actual cost of fuel was not restricted to its upfront price or consumption levels, but also involved maintenance related savings and the reduction of the cost of downtime. A cheaper fuel that constantly clogs  Burner nozzles and chokes  filters, necessitating countless interruptions in an operation is a more expensive fuel simply because its hampers the work flow and has a direct impact on productivity and maintenance. A cheaper fuel that coats the boiler tubes with a thick layer of carbon, ends up becoming a more expensive proposition because it decreases thermal conductivity and hence   the overall efficiency, not to say increases cleaning intervals which is directly connected to the cost of down-time. And finally, that the cost-of-downtime is not just restricted to the cost of spares or repairing, but encompasses everything from salaries paid, bank interest, profits lost, raw material stockpiling and production damages.

Logic??
At the end of the day, where is the logic in being so choosy about what goes into a car which is hardly used more than twice a day for ferrying one or two persons to and from work and yet be so  focused on purchasing the cheapest muck passing of as hydrocarbons to feed an industrial heart that has to work 24x7, and costs millions.


Ravi Deka is an energy efficiency consultant and

CEO / Dir. Technology at Creatnet Technology Pvt Ltd.

www.rade.co.in
www.creatnettechnology.com

If Only - Why Serious Motorcyclists wear a Helmet

IF ONLY

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people!!

Alcohol doesn’t kill; people just die from liver cirrhosis,

Tobacco trees never choked anyone; people just die from lung cancer

& Helmets definitely don’t safe lives as a person dies from old age anyway..

 Judging life’s progress by reminiscing the various sweet first times and “would be happy to forget” last ones, there are also the memories of different individuals with whom, whether willingly or otherwise, we spent any length of time. And surprisingly, while the nice, pleasant and good, are thought of only once in a while, it is usually the memory of the unsavoury ones that come cropping up every now and then. For me one such living example of God’s follies was of all things, an editor. I am not taking about Rajan here, but a certain individual who once headed an Auto journal for a short duration before he successfully drove it into the graveyard of dead publications. My association with him stemmed from the fact that I was their motorcycling correspondent-at-large; who because of being unpaid for months at a time, walked out just before their doors closed shut. Among the constant disputes that characterized our relationship, the most memorable one was when this narcissistic individual published a photo of himself on the cover, astride a Japanese crotch-rocket, sans a helmet. This provoked an avalanche of indignant reader’s mail (am still not sure if it was his face or the fact that he was not wearing a helmet), amongst which was also my private email to him voicing my distaste in his lack of helmet sense. He printed almost all of it in the next issue’s readers mail section, including my own mail and the response to all by Mr. Mad Max (as he used to call himself in print) was “It’s my life, and I decide what’s good for me.” The attitude was, if you don’t like my answer, stop reading this mag!! Many did.

A single truth that these vocal pro-choice advocates (irrespective whether it be seat-belts, helmets or babies), somehow never seem to acknowledge, is that one of the best ways of discovering that the world is still full of decent folks is at the site of a traffic accident. While the “its my choice not to wear a helmet” motorcyclist or scooterist lies sprawled across the tarmac in a blissful coma haemorrhaging from ears, their soul on the to play the harp or massaging the Devil’s tail, it is usually a group of total strangers who drop their own schedule and go out their way to deliver their mangled bodies to the hospital, file police FIRs and inform their grief stricken next of kin. A scenario little different from when a suicidee forecloses his or her life leaving behind a sea of confusion, discomforts and pain.

Having ridden across the entire country on a motorcycle, it is in my last few year in Goa, that I have witnessed the largest number of fatal accidents involving two-wheeler riders. Till date totalling six and four happening seconds before I arrived at the scene, involving people of different age groups, riding diverse makes of two-wheelers, at various times of the day and parts of the State. Their only common denominator; None was wearing a helmet!! 

Interestingly it is also in this very same State which has already senselessly lost 87 lives this year in two-wheeler accidents, there is this seemingly powerful lobby who call themselves the Motorcycle Action Group, who rally against Helmet laws and make press releases implying” Helmets don’t save lives.” 

Well something is seriously amiss here, and while I would refrain from publicly calling them a bunch of idiots (and protect myself from a libel suit, considering their spokesman is a lawyer), I  still can’t help taking an abysmal view towards this what seems to be a very Goencho phenomenon.

I shall skip past their prime argument  that “Helmets don’t safe lives” as the very statement is too simple to discard and is probably so pregnant with wisdom, that it is straight from the realm of esoteric Buddhist though, a Zen Kaona maybe. Something complimented by “what’s the sound of a skull cracking.” Unless of course there is an Emperor’s new clothes theorem lurking around. 

Where is concern’s the allegation about the nexus between helmet manufactures and the powers that be, the entire idea qualifies to be taken only with a barrel of salt. Matter of fact, helmet manufactures of the country still belong to the category of very small or cottage industries and hardly have any clout anywhere to affect government policies. And the down side of this lack of an organized sector is that much of the helmets reaching the shelves of our stores are either spurious or badly lacking in quality, their ISI markings not coming from a certification agency but some back alley screen printer’s workshop. 

If asked to pinpoint, why this tiny State sports such high traffic causality figures, I would first hold the bulk of the riders themselves responsible, as Goa in my opinion does have an extraordinarily  large number of atrociously bad drivers and riders. Not rash or speedy, but just plain bereft of any traffic sense. It is common to see a motorcyclist take a turn without looking anywhere but straight ahead, often straight into the path on an oncoming vehicle. Likewise it is a common sight to see people riding strictly on the middle of the road even at slow speeds holding up the flow of traffic. A scenario as appalling as it is frustrating that one can’t help wonder, what sort of an authority dishes out the driving licenses here and following what criterion.

The extremely large proliferations of the new generation lightweight economisers coupled with the State’s many winding roads provide another killing combination. Intended solely for carting sedate office goers, these new bikes are designed so much for fuel efficiency that they come with engines badly lacking in torque and tyres so thin, that they hardly accords any grip on the road and the slightest skid gets both the man and machine airborne. 

Bus and truck drivers no better then these two-wheeler riders and motorists in terms of driving skills, but at the controls of deadlier vehicles complete the picture by ploughing into each other and smaller machines every now and then.

As much as I dislike associating myself to this so called Action Group and their ludicrous ideas, I tend to agree to their stand that a compulsory helmet law would just add to another never satiated mulching ploy for the highway robbers in uniform. The same with their view on Interceptor cars, or rather the way they are being utilized. 

It is by some convoluted law of nature, the members of the police force across the country have an innate ability of converting any law into a cash cow for personnel benefit and acting like self-righteous fascists while at it. Nonetheless a helmet law or no law, when the wolf has decided on dining on the lamb, it doesn’t really matter whether the latter was drinking water upstream or down. About the interceptors and the ludicrous 40 kmph speed limit imposed on the various failing bridges, the less said the better. Defying their very names, none of these mobile toll collectors have ever intercepted anyone on a highway chase, exactly what they are supposed to do, and are content fleecing the unsuspecting tourist vehicles and those unfortunate enough to travel in speeds low enough to apprehend. Those speeding above eighty just skim by un-apprehended, while those at 50 odd have to pay up. Likewise, I wonder how many, if any, of these interceptor drivers are trained police drivers, not the kind that ferry officer’s wives to the market, but experts trained to capture offenders on highway chases?? 

Another often-occurring thought is why are these guardians of the traffic law never present in the most accident-prone areas of the state?? Having been almost run down by reckless trucks and tippers on the Raibander -Old Goa stretch a number of times, I finally gave up motorcycling on that road and till date am yet to see a police car regulating traffic on that stretch. Fleecing truckers and motorists with various real and drummed up charges on the wide Corlim, Banstarim, Kundaim stretch is easier.

Coming back to the subjects of helmets, I frankly fail to understand the reluctance of the people here to embrace a safety gear which though not guaranteed to save lives, drastically reduces the chance of one’s premature departure by the way of traffic accidents. Anymore than I claim to understand why people get tight-fisted when spending for the protection of their most vital organ, preferring to settle for a Rs 200 shell of dubious origin, instead of going for a quality product at Rs 500-600. After all no hospital stay comes at less then 10 times that amount, no matter how short the stay. 

Addressing the most used excuse about the weather here being unfavourable for wearing helmets, my own solution is to wear a not very common design of helmet (which incidentally is made in India for export to the US) it is open faced and does not cover the ears and is still strong enough to be DOT ( U.S Department  Of Transportation) certified. Not wanting to be accused by the MAG of being a helmet industries’ stooge, I shall not mention the name of the manufacturer and readers interested can contact me personally by email.

Lastly, an interesting observation from the last few years’ traffic death statistics: despite the large number of women two-wheeler riders in the State, their traffic related mortality rate is almost negligible unless they were sitting pillion. So it is my earnest request to the ladies of the land, no matter what your spouses, sons and siblings tell you about the unsuitable weather conditions, their motorcycling prowess or endlessly quote the ill-informed doctrines of the MAG, remember that HELMETS SAVE LIVES!!  And do so everyday all over the world. 

NAG, COAX and BLACKMAIL them in submission and make sure that the men in your lives never leave home without one and wear them while riding as well. The same applies to you ladies too.

After all no one deserves to become either a widow, a grieving mother and sister, husband, son or brother and none of the MAG’s loud proclamations are going to ease your pain or bring back to life if (heavens forbid) the inevitable happens and the only words which would make sense, would be IF ONLY….IF ONLY HE WORE A HELMET….