2010 PEERS Conference Features Five Workshops

Print this article | Send to Colleague

The TAPPI 2010 PEERS Conference, October 17 – 20 in Norfolk, Va., USA, features five special training workshops that support and expand the event’s engineering, pulping, and environmental program pillars. Three of these workshops are free with conference registration, but attendees are encouraged to sign up in advance because space is limited. The other two workshops require an additional registration fee. Registration information for the conference and the workshops is available online.

At the Advances in Paper Recycling Workshop, to be held Sunday, October 17, 12:30 pm - 5:30 pm, experts from around the world will present recent advances in the most important paper recycling topics. The course is for engineers, scientists, and technicians who want to keep up with current paper recycling technologies. The course will benefit those working in recycling mills, using recycled pulps, or affiliated with companies supplying equipment, chemicals, and recovered paper to the recycling industry. The additional registration fee for this workshop is $175 if registered on or before September 20 and $225 if registered after September 20.

The Bleach Plant Operations Workshop on Sunday, October 17, 8:00 am - 4:00 pm, is designed for bleach plant operators or engineers, paper company environmental engineers, research, technical sales, and service personnel from paper companies, chemical suppliers, or equipment suppliers. Led by Tom McDonough, IPST Professor Emeritus and TAPPI Fellow with an extensive record of research and publications in the field of pulp bleaching, this workshop will deliver a comprehensive understanding of modern pulp bleaching technology. Updates to last year's highly regarded workshop will include a newly developed section on bleaching of recycled fiber that will be of special interest to tissue producers. The additional registration fee for this workshop is $125 if registered on or before September 20 and $175 if registered after September 20.

The free-with-registration BioSat Workshop on Monday, October 18, 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm, will further familiarize participants with features of BioSAT (the Biomass Site Assessment Tool), a web-based system for optimal cellulose feedstock sourcing. BioSat integrates contemporary web-based information technology (e.g., Virtual Earth and Microsoft SQL) with existing U.S. Forest Service FIA data, and agricultural residue USDA NASS data, and estimates harvesting and transportation costs for these residue and merchantable feedstocks. BioSAT generates total costs, average total costs, and marginal cost curves for user-selected zip code tabulation areas (ZCTAs). Cost estimates can also be generated for all ZCTAs within a state. BioSAT estimates are available for the 33 Eastern United States. A detailed overview of the features and models of BioSAT will be presented at the workshop. Also, hands on demonstrations and interaction with the BioSAT website tool will be available to workshop participants.

The Piping System Simulation Workshop on Tuesday, October 19, 8:30 am - 10:30 pm, also free-with-registration, focuses on how commercially available piping simulation software is being used to design, analyze, and troubleshoot new or existing fluid piping systems. The workshop will demonstrate how this application can be used to draw a flow diagram showing the equipment in the system along with the interconnecting pipelines. It will also explain how the piping system model can then be used in construction and commissioning, and finally, turned over to the owner-operator of the piping system where it can be used by operations to determine how a change to a system will affect the operation and by maintenance to help troubleshoot plant operations and identify faulty equipment .

The Pumping System Assessment Workshop (free with registration) on Tuesday, October 19, 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm, will provide an overview of the recently-released ASME EA-2-2009 Energy Assessment for Pumping Systems standard and present a methodology for collecting data needed to perform a pumping system assessment using this standard. This four-hour workshop will also examine evaluation of the assessment data, based on a variety of case studies of pumped systems typically found in pulp and paper mills. It will further focus on conducting necessary calculations needed to determine how the system is operating, and finally look at how to present the information in such a way that all stakeholders know the true cost of operating and maintaining the pumped system.