Autumn 2007 Newsletter:
Partner Interview with René Kahnt
of G.E.O.S.
G.E.O.S.
Freiberg Ingeniergesellschaft mbH is an international
German consultancy working in the areas of geology, geotechnics,
management consulting, hydro-technical engineering, water
supply and ecology. Special services are provided in the fields
of microbiological technologies, treatment technologies for
mine effluents, process modelling and optimisation of large
scale remediation projects.
René Kahnt
is the head of the Water-Energy-Biotechnology department at
G.E.O.S, and is a very experienced GoldSim modeler. René
earned a Ph.D. and specialized in theoretical solid state
physics at TU Chemnitz (Chemnitz University of Technology).
In 1994, René began to work for Wismut, the Eastern
German Uranium Mining remediation project. There he was responsible
for environmental modelling and decision analysis. The focus
of his work was contaminant release and transport from tailings
facilities, flooded underground mines, and waste rock piles.
While at Wismut, René started to work with the precursors
to GoldSim (RIP and STRIP), and in the late 1990s was one
of first serious users of GoldSim. René joined G.E.O.S.
in January 2006.
What has been one of the most challenging projects that you've built a GoldSim model for?
I developed a so called "Conceptual Site Model"
(CSM) for the Wismut low level radiation remediation
project at the Seelingstädt site. The model comprises
4 tailings facilities, about 10 waste rock piles and a water
treatment plant. It includes a number of complex processes,
including the following:
-
Groundwater flow beneath the tailings and the piles solved
with an explicit scheme.
-
Interaction between groundwater flow and flow through
the tailings taking into account transient development
of water management and tailings pond water.
-
Desaturation of sandy and transition zone tailings taking
into account residual saturation.
-
Squeezing out of porewater in fine slime and transition
zone due to consolidation.
-
Oxygen diffusion taking into account the covering state
(pond water, interim, final).
-
Simplified chemical reactions (pyrite oxidation, carbonate
buffering).
-
Contaminant release depending on chemical state based
on solubilities or/and partition coefficients.
-
Surface water transport in different stream segments
taking into account variable flow rates.
-
Seepage water management and water treatment.
The model was designed to evaluate different remediation
measures at a complex site and to illustrate the impact of
remediating a single object or part of the object on the overall
contaminant load from the site. The model is a tool to optimize
the use of money with regard to environmental remediation.
The model was provided to the licensing authorities in the
form of a Player file.
What do you predict will be your firm's biggest growth areas in the next 1-3 years?
Our company is working in the fields of minerals exploration,
mining, water and energy. We believe that the exploration
business will further increase. In the past, we used GoldSim
to evaluate the data and to set up simple risk and decision
models for such exploration jobs. At the moment our biggest
growth is in the areas of Oil and Gas exploration, in particular,
in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
What techniques do you use for quality control of large, complex models?
Our quality control for large complex models is quite straightforward and includes the following steps:
-
A modeler that was not involved in building the model
checks the model with regard to the results and parameter
sensitivities for plausibility.
-
The model results are checked by rough calculations made in a spreadsheet.
What is something you realize today (about modelling, consulting, etc.) that you wish you knew ten years ago?
Ten years ago there had been developed a variety of sophisticated
models (i.e., in geochemistry, environmental transport) that
made us believe that it is quite straightforward to simulate
the world with high accuracy. At that time many modelers did
not understand that there was still a very long way to go
achieve that. In the last 5 years there has been a movement
back to the roots - that is, setting up relatively simple
models to help to understand a complex system. Therefore the
GoldSim approach is very helpful.
How does your firm differentiate itself from your competitors?
Our company has a very broad working profile. So we are
able to solve complex problems incorporating quite different
engineering fields very effectively. We also have special
experience in exploration and mining in Russia, Kazakhstan,
Azerbaidshan and nearly all of the Eastern European countries.
For example we have daughter companies and joint ventures
in Kazakhstan, Poland and Romania. This is made possible due
to the language skills (e.g., Russian) of a significant part
of our staff.
If you were asked to provide a talk to a classroom of new university engineering/science students, what would be your topic, and what points would you emphasize?
I would focus on the conceptual approach that can be adapted
to nearly any kind of system. By a conceptual approach, I
mean that the understanding of any system always can be improved
through quantitative modeling. I would force all (technical)
students to get some understanding of systems simulation by
use of spreadsheets or by such tools as GoldSim.
What do you think will be some of the biggest changes to
environmental regulations in Europe in the coming years, and
how will that effect the focus of your firm?
I think the focus of our firm will be significantly affected
by the increasing efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, especially
CO2. We are already involved in projects of CO2-sequestration.
Additionally we have developed a new business branch dealing
with geothermal energy from deep aquifers. I believe that
the regulations will be tightened very quickly, resulting
in a shift of the cost benefit equation for alternative energy.
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