Wastewater Encapsulation
Mahyar Ghorbanian: LG&E and KU Energy. Kirk Ellison: Electric Power Research Institute.
November approaches. And that means our special issue featuring the Fortnightly Top Innovators for this year, 2019, is right around the corner. Last November's special issue featuring the Fortnightly Top Innovators 2018 was perhaps the most widely-read issue in the ninety-one year history of PUF. This November's special issue — sponsored by the Electric Power Institute — might break the record again.
To ramp up for the selection of this year's Top Innovators, this issue and the next three will highlight individuals and teams that are setting the pace as we speak (as we write?). In this issue we spoke with Mahyar Ghorbanian of LG&E and KU Energy and Kirk Ellison of the aforementioned EPRI. Their innovation - keeping powerplant waste from the environment by reducing it such as through evaporation and encapsulation — is so important to the public we serve.
To investigate a novel wastewater encapsulation approach — an integrated solid and liquid waste disposal technology — researchers and utility personnel encapsulated more than one hundred thousand gallons of waste brine at Trimble County Generating Station in Kentucky. They then mixed it with the site's fly ash and additives to create an engineered hardened low-permeability matrix. The material was mixed as a grout-like paste and pumped directly into the on-site disposal area to harden in place.