Improving the Sustainability of Thermal Remediation

Originally broadcast on Feb 28, 2024

How can you make thermal remediation more sustainable?  Doesn’t it use a lot of electricity or other fuels to heat the subsurface and doesn’t it require lots of drilling and materials like steel and concrete for construction and operation?  In this webinar, we discuss how we use advanced design, construction, and operations techniques to reduce the carbon footprint of thermal remediation and make it more sustainable.

As you know, In Situ Thermal Remediation (ISTR) is highly effective at quickly cleaning up contaminant source zones, including DNAPL such as Chlorinated VOCs (CVOCs), and even semi-volatile recalcitrant contaminants such as PCBs, dioxins, PAHs and PFAS.  But ISTR requires energy to heat up the soil and groundwater,  volatize the contaminants, and drilling & installation of the energy delivery wells (e.g., heaters, electrodes, and/or steam injection).

In this webinar, we will discuss how we have optimized specific design aspects of our ISTR systems to reduce the amount of power and fuel required to heat and achieve the remedial goals, including:

  • Use of numerical models to develop targeted heating strategies and advanced wellfield layouts and heating designs,
  • Design of heaters and electrodes that are capable of precisely targeting the treatment interval,
  • Incorporation of insulated vapor covers over the ISTR wellfields and
  • Use of sophisticated operational strategies to get the most out of the energy delivered to the subsurface for heating and contaminant removal.

So, please join us for an informative look and discussion on how thermal remediation can be optimized to reduce its energy usage and carbon footprint. And importantly, there will be time at the end of the presentation for your questions, so bring them on!