Tag Archives: environmental

Episode 111 — Environmental Engineering

ducklingsBronwyn Bell joins Adam, Brian, Carmen, and Jeff to discuss the challenges and responsibilities of an environmental engineer working in the mining sector.

  • Carmen likes to help out local beer brewers in harvesting hops, but he’s not sure what makes for a good hops growing season.
  • Environmental engineers plan, design and manage projects associated with environmental protection or remediation.
  • Our guest for this episode is Bronwyn Bell, an environmental engineer from Western Australia with extensive experience in the Mining & Resources economic sector.
  • An unfortunate early experience with Super Glue, while building a popsicle stick bridge, convinced Brownyn that she’d rather not be a civil engineer.
  • Subsectors within the environmental engineering field include wastewater treatment, air pollution control, waste disposal, recyling, and public health management.
  • Bronwyn managed to make spending time at a nearby beer brewery an integral part of her engineering studies.
  • Our guest has worked in coal mines, iron mines, and diamond mines… and has also visited a number of gold mines.
  • Kimberlite is an igneous rock that may contain diamonds.
  • Alluvial diamond mining is usually associated with smaller-scale mining operations.
  • Browyn has done a lot of work in the Pilbara region of Australia, which contains some of the Earth’s oldest rock formations.
  • Tailings are the materials that remain after ore is processed to remove its more valuable components.
  • Brian jokes about differences in pronouncing the thirteenth element on the periodic table.
  • A metric ton, or tonne, is a mass equivalent to 1,000 kilograms.
  • Bronwyn notes that a good environmental solution is often a good financial solution, as waste reduction aids both.
  • One of our guest’s projects received financial relief due to the presence of Asian green mussels.
  • Our guest can be reached via email: billson.bell -=+ at +=- gmail dot com.

Thanks to Stephen Bowler for use of the photo titled “Ducklings.” Opening music by John Trimble, and concluding theme by Paul Stevenson.