Following last week’s post about the Hydros water filtration bottle, we have this story of a musician who is redefining water reclamation in California.
The traditional narrative of progress and innovation plays heavily on formal training and orderly development. Somewhere outside of this norm is Frank Schubert who, under the auspices of Combined Solar Technologies, has developed a boiler, steam engine, and electrical generator system that has almost entirely reversed the environmental impact of olive oil producer Musco Olives.
The production of olive oil results in a brine water stream that is nearly impossible to clean effectively using conventional methods. Prior to the development CST’s system, Musco olives had ongoing problems with their waste water stream, to the point that they eventually landed one of the largest fines ever handed down to a food producer by the state of California.
Frank’s system centers around his steamboy boiler, which is able to produce steam from dirty water with high levels of dissolved solids; a task which would choke any traditional boiler. With production of steam from the waste water stream accounted for, everything else falls neatly into place; the steam drives a steam engine which turns an electrical generator with the steam then condensing as clean water.
This system has taken Musco olives from a consumer of energy and a producer of waste to a producer of electricity with almost no waste stream. Even the solid waste burner that heats the boiler is in on the scheme. It burns olive pits and has emissions with less than half the parts per million count of the next cleanest solid fuel burner in the state of California. When the system reaches it’s final state, the generator will handle all of the electrical power requirements of the plant.
Total reversal of the olive oil plant’s environmental impact is itself noteworthy. It gets more interesting when you learn that Frank Schubert is not an engineer. In fact, he is a former studio musician, a former Devo collaborator, a former member of the Mars Society, and, rumor has it, a fairly competitive downhill skier. With higher education only on his own terms and no formal engineering training, Frank makes clear the separation between technical prowess and creativity. Skills can be learned, but creativity, if not innate, is the result of a lifelong pursuit of original thought.
Tango Echo will be revisiting Frank and his thoughts in the future, just as soon as your trusty correspondents find themselves again on the West Coast.
