Hot Air by Clean Air

Walt Smith might best be characterized as the Father of Stack Testing. Walt was one of the original EPA employees and was responsible for the development of many of the fundamental air pollution reference methods in use today including Methods 1-5 for particulate. In Part 1 of this interview, we talk with Walt about some of the early days at EPA and the origins of some of the test methods still in use today. Visit info.cleanair.com/blog for copies of some of Walt's current work. You can visit Walt at his website: www.waltersmith.com.

An interview with drone monitoring entrepreneur Danny Landry from Premium Inspection Services. Danny and I worked on a very cool project involving the remote monitoring of an enclosed flare plume using an open path FTIR. This approach is very similar to a typical fence line monitoring set up except that the mirror was suspended in the air by one of Danny's drones. During the interview, Danny also discusses some of the other interesting projects he has used his drones for including 3-D plant modeling, confined space inspections, and raw material pile quantification. You can see some cool pictures and videos of Danny and his drones at info.cleanair.com/blog. Contact Danny at dlandry@pitinc.com or visit his site at www.pitinc.com. 

In the final part of the 3-part series on conducting a successful stack test, Jim Guenthoer and Scott Evans from Clean Air Engineering discuss post-test activities. Topics include: Sample analysis, report preparation, EPA's Electronic Reporting Tool (ERT), as well as a bit about detection limits and stack tester accreditation.   This audio podcast was taken from a video podcast showing slides. There is an occasional reference in the audio to the slides shown in the video but nothing that would make following the audio confusing. The original audio podcast can be found at info.cleanair.com/blog

Jim Guenthoer and Scott Evans of Clean Air Engineering discuss the on-site portion of conducting a stack in in Part 2 of the 3-part series. Topics include: Mobilization, audit samples, site entry, the role of plant personnel, sample packing and shipping and other relevant topics. This audio podcast was taken from a video podcast showing slides. There is an occasional reference in the audio to the slides shown in the video but nothing that would make following the audio confusing. The original audio podcast can be found at info.cleanair.com/blog

Jim Guenthoer and Scott Evans from Clean Air Engineering discuss the fundamentals of conducting a successful stack test. This first of three episodes focuses on pre-test planning and covers topics such as the test plan, site issues, safety, etc. This audio podcast was taken from a video podcast showing slides. There is an occasional reference in the audio to the slides shown in the video but nothing that would make following the audio confusing. The original audio podcast can be found at info.cleanair.com/blog