And now for something weird...

BR-549

Joined Sep 22, 2013
4,928
About fifteen years ago, I worked for an environmental lab.......we did a lot of contract work for the EPA and other states "epas".

The county wastewater plant was receiving doses of some kind of solvent that was disturbing the plant.
The powers that be....suspected a precious metal vendor here in town. This was a large concrete building with very high security.

I clandestinely installed a self contained flow weight sampler for 3 days into the building's outfall.
Flow rate sampling is quite a chore. A sealed weir plate....air pump bubbler....sampler pump and strip chart recorder. All in manhole.

Anyhow........the solvent was not coming from there(it was coming from a truck frame manufacture)........but you would not believe the high precious metals we were getting from there.

When all this was over......I went back to the metals vendor and showed him what he was washing away.

Of course he was in shock.....and bought a 100 K $ paper filter machine. All production liquids were passed thru this paper. The paper was dried...then burned...then sent to smelter. Paid for his paper filter within months.

And paid me every six months to check his outfall.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
The story is about this, the story is about $2M of gold lost down the sewer. That is distributed over 65 waste water treatment facilities. If someone is going to invest in equipment, chemicals, time, energy, etc at each facility to recover $31,000 dollars per year (assuming they could reclaim it all).

There is no difference in value between two million dollars in gold value or the $2M in floculating agents, filtration aids, filter media, energy for airation or any thing else associated with the processing. Also, there may be more than $2M per year in un-metabolized cocaine in the wastewater that could be recovered as well.

That is a non-story to me.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
Now that you mention all that, yeah, it doesn't seem like a big deal... it'd probably be easier to develop an economically viable technology capable of extracting gold and other valuable metals from seawater.
Or have some guy named Gunther look at each piece of solid flowing down the pipe and decide, poop or gold?
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
You can hear the motors for the rear trailer wheels as it passes close o he camera at about 30 seconds into the video (and in the first few seconds).
I still recall the picture posted somewhere in this forum, some years ago, precisely by GopherT, showing a blade approaching/negociating a bend.

In few days I am leaving to discharge more windmill parts in Bahía Blanca and Puerto Madryn.

Longest ones, for the moment, are 55m and the distance between tools is 35m. Trucks are of the extensible type and all have a small engine driving an hydraulic pump allowing the independ steering of the backend. For equipment ablet to carry pieces of 100 MT and above, you can see the seat for the guy who steers the rear end when underway. On the same panel or close to it they could have the control handles to level the piece at any moment or even move the platform up and down. This last is a good thing for "taking" the weight of the piece by bringin the platform up instead of bringing the ship's crane hook down.
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
To complement post above, some pictures:

Extensible truck with the blade being secured prior releasing the ship's hook slings

Rear steering.jpg

Pump and commands in the rear. It provides no push, allowing just steering. Basically you pull by traction from forward. In case of extreme situations (heavy cargoes and steep climbing) you add an extra tractor pulling as well. If you see one behind, it is just for safety if brakes fail, not for pushing.

Rear steering 04.jpg

Bonus track - bottom section shifted inside hold, left on the tank top and then discharged in 2-cranes lift (easier, faster and safer).

Bottom section inside hold.jpg
 
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