TERRACO2TTA Warriors
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Most of you know the city of Xi’an for the famous terracotta warriors. In fact, this necropolis project is featured in the introductory chapter of our book, Bridging the PM Competency Gap, as a way to indicate how skills and capabilities used to be passed down from generation to generation and now we simply do not have the time for that version of apprenticeship training.
But this post is not about the warriors. Well, in a way it is about Xi’an warriors, but a different kind of warrior – one battling pollutants, not foreign invaders. As background, let’s learn a little more about Xi’an – from this article in China’s Global Times: Northwest China's Shaanxi Province has one of the most polluted provincial capitals in the country, China's environment watchdog says, as it singled out Xi'an for "severe" air quality issues. Indeed, here’s a post that compares the smog levels in Xi’an to other cities in China. https://www.quora.com/How-bad-is-air-pollution-in-Xian-compared-to-other-Chinese-cities So what’s a warrior to do about it? Well, this is a project management blog – so of course, the answer is: launch a project! Indeed the project was featured in the June edition of PM Network in an article called “Soak It In”. One “warrior”, chemist Cao Junji, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, quoted in Nature magazine, has built a tower in Xi’an, as described in Nature magazine as referenced in the PM Network feature. A 60-metre-high chimney stands among a sea of high-rise buildings in one of China’s most polluted cities. But instead of adding to Xian’s smog, this chimney is helping to clear the air. The outdoor air-purifying system, powered by the Sun, filters out noxious particles and billows clean air into the skies. Chinese scientists who designed the prototype say that the system could significantly cut pollution in urban areas in China and elsewhere. The technology has excited and intrigued researchers — especially in China, where air pollution is a daily challenge. Early results, which are yet to be published, are promising, says the project's leader Cao Junji, a chemist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Key Laboratory of Aerosol Chemistry and Physics in Xian in central China.
In the PM Network article, the project parameters are impressive:
Here's a photo of the tower:
Since this was only a proof-of-concept project, the next steps envisioned include more – and larger – towers, including one that will be 1,640 feet high. It’s going to take more than one warrior-tower to fight this battle. The small article in PM Network intrigued me enough to do some research. You can, as well with this scientific review of the project – visit the article in Nature here. Other attempts to “soak up” pollutants have been glamorous but not as successful. Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde build a tower with the idea of “turning China’s smog into diamonds” with mixed results. See below for a photo of the artist and his tower. The website of the artist claims success, but an article in The Shanghiist says, (The tower’s planners promises that it will) suck up 75% of the dangerous particles in the nearby air, and then spit back out clean air into the surrounding space. The captured smog particles would then be turned into diamonds, which would be sold as rings, cubes or cufflinks to fund the creation of more towers. And that all sounds really awesome! Unfortunately, it sucks. Like really sucks. But not in a good way. …the tower does manage to filter air particles, it doesn’t do it particularly well, or for a very large area. Despite claims that it could purify 30,000 cubic meters of air an hour, the machine has failed to create a non-toxic air bubble around even itself. Experts estimated that every hour the amount of harmful particulates that the machine captures doesn’t even add up to a single spoonful of salt, and have renamed it the “Smog Warning Tower.” So on this version of vacuuming carbon and making that into diamonds, “your mileage may vary”.
And let’s get back to our ‘stone army’ - It also turns out that these two reasons for Xi’an’s fame (pollution and the terracotta army) are related. In this article from Smithsonian magazine, it turns out that the army is deteriorating, in part due to exposure to the polluted atmosphere. It says, In an analysis of air pollutants affecting the soldiers, the researchers found notable concentrations of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone. The levels the researchers recorded exceeded those typically reported each year by the museum.
For further reading: Critical review – will it work? https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/xian-unveils-smog-fighting-tower-work/ Clean Air Alliance of China http://en.cleanairchina.org/channel/type/75-364-1.html?menuId=588
Blogger’s Note: The title of the post, while catchy, is actually a bit inaccurate as the idea is to remove a multitude of pollutants, not just carbon or CO2. Still – I couldn’t resist.
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Amazing Fiets of Success
| For those who don’t know their Dutch, “fiets” means bicycle. But here I use it (in wordplay) to describe a feat – an accomplishment. I was going to blog about the Blue Orchard Bee, osmia lignaria – in terms of a project in which that species of bee was going to be used to supplement pollination duties for the declining honeybee population in vast fields of almonds in California. But that “backup bee” post will have to become a backup post. Why? Well, as a good PM and author, I double-checked the status of the project to make sure all was on track - and I’m glad I did this form of mitigation. It turns out, The sponsoring “Wonderful Company” has decided to stop funding the project. It won’t die – it will most likely be taken over by academic and government interests. So instead of discussing flower petals, I’ll talk about bike pedals. The most recent issue of PM Network features a story with the title “Pedal Power” and it discusses a Dutch project which is building the world’s largest bicycle parking garage. Having lived in Holland* for two years, I know this personally. I think you can get familiar with the context without moving there (although I recommend it) by simply stopping here and watching this 5-minute video. Then, return to the text. Just in case you missed the video, here’s a summary of some of the key context. The Netherlands has a growing population of 17 million people. All together the Dutch own 22.5 million bicycles. This means that on average they own 1.3 bicycles per capita, more than any other country in the world. Many people might think the Chinese cycle a lot too, but they own only 0.4 bicycles per person, just slightly more than the US with 0.3 bicycles per person. Not everybody has a bicycle though, not even in the Netherlands. The bicycles are owned by 84% of the Dutch. That means there are many people who have more than one bicycle. So here’s a question for you: where do all these fietsen (bicycles) get parked? If you have been to The Netherlands*, you know that parking a bike can be difficult.
The PM Network story talks about Utrecht, a city of about 350,000 people in the center of The Netherlands, and the way in which the government of the city worked with other stakeholders to build a E4 million Stationsplein bike parking garage – the largest in the world. My favorite quote in the article comes from Rutger Siderius, a Senior Project Manager at Procap, the PM consultancy that represented the Utrecht government during the planning and design phase. “The most important benefit is that people are using the garage”. Uitstekend, Rutger! This goes back to my theme that the project is really a success only when the organizations and stakeholders involved are really reaping benefits. The article is worth reading, from a sustainability perspective and from a project management perspective – the usual project challenges are there: scope and stakeholder management, realized risks (in this case, other projects nearby that caused a crowded work area and delays due to structural design changes in the foundation, caused, in turn by other real-estate developments). But it all came together and the garage opened in August 2017. And here is a video that shows how this all came together!
Notice the frequent use of stakeholder engagement throughout the project. I’d assert that this was one of the reasons for its success.
*remember, The Netherlands is the country, Holland is really only the western part of the country. Granted, this contains a large percentage of the population and important cities like Den Haag (The Hague) and Amsterdam, however, when you say Holland, you are only covering 2 out of 12 provinces. It would be like calling the USA “California”. This article is about Utrecht - which is in neither of these provinces, and in fact is a province of its own! |
