College of Engineering and Architecture

Civil Engineering Department

Brgy. Bajumpandan, Dumaguete City

ENS 131 – Engineering Orientation

TTH 8:00 – 9:00 A.M.

Chapter 14 – Civil Engineering Disciplines

Topic: Environmental and Energy

Student Reporter
Adrian Cardiño
James Aeron A. Tubat

Engr. Christopher B. Patrimonio MBA, MEngCE

Instructor

February, 2023
 Chapter 14
Civil Engineering Disciplines: Environmental and Energy

Cardiño, Andrian Tubat, James Aeron A.

 Table of Contents

A. Introduction — Cardiño, A ……………………………………..

B. Discussion
1. Environmental Engineering — Tubat, JA ……………………………………..
1.1 Definition and Description
1.2 History
1.3 Role in the Modern Society
1.4 Examples of Environmental Engineering Projects in the Philippines
1.5 Famous/Renowned Environmental Engineers (Both locally
and internationally)
1.6 Skills and Practices needed to become an Environmental Engineer

2. Energy Engineering — Cardiño, A ………………………………..

2.1 Definition and Description
2.2 History
2.3 Role in the Modern Society
2.4 Examples of Energy Engineering Projects in the Philippines
2.5 Famous/Renowned Energy Engineers (Both locally and
internationally)
2.6. Skills and Practices needed to become an Energy Engineer

C. Assessment Exercise

D. Answers to the Assessment Exercise

E. References
 Chapter 14
Civil Engineering Disciplines: Environmental and Energy

Specific Objectives

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

1. define and provide a general idea about environmental and energy engineering;
2. examine its application and relevance especially to the modern world;
3. discover and develop necessary skills and practices needed to become an
environmental and energy engineer; and
4. identify societal problems and dilemmas that can be addressed by the
aforementioned field/profession.

INTRODUCTION

Since the dawn of civilization, humans have transformed our environmental

resources to accommodate and satisfy their needs. Advances in agriculture, mining,
manufacturing, transportation, and energy production, for example, have dramatically
improved standards of living over the centuries. However, this progress has been achieved
at a cost to Earth’s natural systems and has yet to be more equitably distributed to all.
Human impacts on the environment accelerated with the advent of the Industrial Age and
the subsequent rapid growth of the human population, creating significant areas of friction
between human societies and the environment. At its worst, the human presence is
manifest in pollution hanging over cities; sprawling development in place of forests;
hazardous chemicals permeating rivers, lakes, and soil; vanishing species; and a changing
climate.

The field of energy and environmental engineering emerged to support human and
environmental needs while mitigating adverse impacts associated with human activities.
Propelled by public sentiment in support of protecting natural resources and human health
and by laws aimed at curtailing some of the most egregious forms of environmental
damage, these field has achieved remarkable successes over the past several decades.
However, the solutions of the past will not be sufficient to address the problems of the
future. As humanity faces mounting and diverse challenges, the field of environmental
engineering must build on its unique strengths, inspire and implement visionary solutions,
and continue to evolve in order to serve the best interests of people and the planet.
DISCUSSION

1. Environmental Engineering

1.1 Definition and Description

Environmental engineering is a practice

that focuses on designing systems and solutions
at the interface between humans and the
environment. It is a broad field that encompasses
the application of the principles of science and
engineering to protect and improve
environmental conditions. In the 1970s the term
environmental engineering replaced the
previous term, sanitary engineering, as the field’s
focus broadened to include the mitigation of
pollution in air, water, and soil. Around the same
time, the field’s approach to design shifted from a focus on engineered treatment systems
toward a greater emphasis on ecological principles and processes. More recently, the field
has expanded further to address emerging contaminants, chemical exposures from goods
and materials, and endeavors such as green manufacturing and sustainable urban design.
The ultimate goal of environmental engineering is the protection of human populations
from the effects of adverse environmental factors and the protection of environments, both
local and global, from potentially deleterious effects of natural and human activities. This
goal is achieved by efficiently managing our resources so that environmental pollution and
degradation is minimized.

Moreover, Environmental Engineers study water, soil and air pollution problems,
and develop technical solutions needed to solve, attenuate or control these problems in a
manner that is compatible with legislative, economic, social and political concerns. Civil
engineers are particularly involved in such activities as water supply and sewerage,
management of surface water and groundwater quality, remediation of contaminated sites
and solid waste management. The activities of such engineers include, but are not limited
to, the planning, design, construction and operation of water and wastewater treatment
facilities in municipalities and industries, modelling and analysis of surface water and
groundwater quality, design of soil and remediation systems, planning for the disposal and
reuse of wastewaters and sludges, and the collection, transport, processing, recovery and
disposal of solid wastes according to accepted engineering practices.
 Environmental engineers are called upon to play an important role in
environmental protection, because engineering solutions are required to meet the
environmental standards set by legislation. Consulting firms, municipalities, government
agencies, industries and non-governmental organizations and specialized contractors are
potential employers for civil engineers with a specialization in environmental engineering.

1.2 History

We humans have always used the environment around us to suit our needs. Starting
with the wetland drainage to building cesspits, we have always strived to enhance our
living conditions. In all this, sanitation is definitely the biggest part of our civil evolution.
Had that not been a part of our survival strategies, we would have succumbed to water-
borne diseases and illness, depleting the quality of life. So, since the early days, taking care
of the sewage, keeping the water clean and controlling the use of natural or artificial water
has been necessary to take care of both our health and the environment.

Although the term environmental engineering has been in use for only a few
decades, the field’s roots reach back centuries. Romans built sophisticated sewage disposal
and water supply systems, some of which still deliver water to Rome today. In the new
world, the Inca and the Maya developed innovative systems to distribute clean water to
great cities such as Cusco and Tikal. The beginnings of modern-day environmental
engineering are typically traced to the creation of the first municipal drinking water
filtration systems, the first continuously pressurized drinking water supply, and the first
large-scale municipal sanitary sewer in 19th century London.

Joseph Bazalgette was the in charge of constructing a humongous sewer system, which is
today known as the Great Stink
 After the industrial revolution took place in the 19 th Century, it also paved way for
environmental engineers as controlling the rising pollution had become mandatory. In
London, during the 19th Century, Joseph Bazalgette (considered as the very first
environmental engineer) was the in charge of constructing a humongous sewer system,
which is today known as the Great Stink. The city came under the grips of cholera when the
raw sewage was pumped into the River Thames, which was the main source of drinking
water. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli took the reins of the project in his hand
replacing the pipes and improving the already present network. This substantially
enhanced the health of the city’s population and put an end to the cholera epidemic.

These and subsequent advancements markedly improved people’s quality of life by

curbing the spread of disease. In the early 20th century, chlorine-based disinfection for
water treatment and advances in wastewater treatment contributed to a drastic decline in
urban mortality rates. Environmental engineering continued to evolve throughout the 20th
century as a series of environmental crises sparked the creation of new laws aimed at
preventing and mitigating pollution in air, water, and soil. After London’s Great Smog of
1952 killed thousands of people, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the first
major legislation aimed at limiting emissions from households and industries. In the United
States, debilitating smog over Los Angeles and other U.S. cities from vehicle emissions led
to the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970. Environmental engineers, working with
atmospheric chemists and other scientists, responded by developing models of pollution
and its sources, monitoring emissions, helping ensure compliance with regulations, and
designing and implementing technologies to improve air quality. Such efforts resulted in a
two-thirds drop in U.S. emissions of common air pollutants between 1970 and 2017. The
same period saw a major movement to reduce water pollution. After the 1969 fire on
Ohio’s Cuyahoga River called public attention to the widespread practice of dumping
industrial and household wastes into rivers and streams, the U.S. Clean Water Act of 1972
banned the discharge of pollutants from pipes and other point sources into navigable
waters without a permit. In 1974, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act
establishing standards for public water systems. Environmental engineers work to support
the enforcement of these laws by developing water treatment technologies along with new
analytical methods and modeling tools to quantify and reduce contamination of rivers and
streams.

Another infamous episode focused the public and environmental engineers on

contamination of soils and groundwater. More than 21,000 tons of hazardous chemicals
dumped into a 70-acre industrial landfill near Love Canal, New York, during the 1950s and
1960s seeped into waterways and soil, affecting the health of hundreds of residents.
Responding to the disaster, Congress in 1980 passed a law launching the Superfund
program, which called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop remedial
actions and treatment technologies to reduce pollutants at designated sites. Environmental
engineers today play a crucial role in carrying out this charge by providing technical
expertise to assess and remediate existing contaminants and by designing new processes
and disposal methods to prevent future contamination.

1.3 The Roles and Goals of Energy Engineering in the Modern Society

In this century, human pressure on the environment will accelerate. Life expectancy
has increased substantially across the globe over the past several decades as living
conditions have improved and is projected to continue to increase. The United Nations
predicts that by 2050 the world’s population will reach roughly 9.8 Billion people, an
increase of approximately 30 percent from today. As human populations grow, so too will
humanity’s demand for natural resources and impacts on natural systems. These impacts
will play out in different ways in different areas. At least two-thirds of the population in
2050 will live in cities, compounding pressures on urban systems that provide clean water,
food, energy, and sanitation. Rapid economic and population growth in lower-income
countries threatens to overwhelm basic infrastructure and drive sharp increases in
pollution, just as the developed world experienced in the early 20th century. At the same
time, countries of all income levels face new types of challenges—many driven by climate
change—that existing policies, technologies, and infrastructures are not equipped to
handle.

As we face this
period of dramatic growth
and change, it is time to step
back and consider new roles
that environmental
engineers might play in
meeting human and
environmental needs.
Although efforts to
characterize, manage, and
remediate existing
environmental problems are
still essential,
environmental engineers must also turn their skills and knowledge toward the design,
development, and communication of innovative solutions that avoid or reduce
environmental problems. The core competencies of environmental engineering, which
emphasize not only specific goals related to human needs and the condition of the
environment but holistic consideration of the
consequences of our actions, are uniquely
valuable in developing the solutions that will be
needed in the coming decades.

According to the study, there are five

pressing challenges for the 21st century that
environmental engineers are uniquely poised to
help advance:

1: Sustainably supply food, water, and

energy

Providing life’s essentials—food, water, and energy—for the world’s growing

population is a major challenge. Doing so in a manner that does not threaten the
environment and the health or productivity of future generations is an even bigger
challenge.

The challenges differ in high- and

low-income countries. In low-income
countries the infrastructure to supply
water and energy and manage
wastewater in many cases simply does
not exist, and economic and social
barriers put basic services out of reach
for billions of people. Nearly 800 million
people worldwide are undernourished;
nutrition-related factors contribute to 45
percent of deaths in children under age
5. In 2015, 844 million people had no
access to safe drinking water, and 2.3
billion people did not have ready access to basic sanitation services. More than 1 billion
people, or about 1 in 7 globally, live without electricity. These issues are most severe in
sub-Saharan Africa and central and southern Asia. High-income countries have mature
production and delivery systems to provide food, water, and energy to their populations,
but these systems often waste resources and discharge harmful pollutants. In many places,
water and sanitation infrastructure has outlived the planning horizon under which it was
built, creating large challenges in maintaining expected water quality and reliability.

Complexities arise from the fact that food, water, and energy are inextricably linked.
About 70 percent of global water withdrawals are for agricultural purposes (irrigation,
livestock, or aquaculture; Figure 1-1), and agriculture represents about 80-90 percent of all
consumptive use. Agricultural activities release nutrients and contaminants into
groundwater and downstream water bodies, degrading terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems
and threatening the water resources on which humans depend. The food production and
supply chain is estimated to consume about 30 percent of global energy and produce about
22 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (including landfill gas from food wastes),
although there is uncertainty with such calculations. The global energy mix remains
dominated by fossil fuels, the extraction and the use of which involve water-intensive
processing and contribute to water pollution.

In the decades ahead, sustainably supplying food, water, and energy to all will be
made more difficult by population growth, increasing standards of living, and climate
change. Innovation will be needed to augment supplies, improve distribution, reduce
waste, increase efficiency, and reduce demand. Because the food-water-energy nexus is so
tightly interwoven, potential solutions or demands in one area often have repercussions in
another. A holistic, systems-oriented approach is crucial to balancing resource demands as
we strive to meet the basic needs of our growing population.

In the midst of all these challenges, there are definitely a lot of things that
Environmental Engineers can do. Some of the example roles for environmental engineers
to help supply food, water, and energy for earth’s growing population include the
following:

Food
• Develop a systems-level “farm to plate” assessment to identify ways to reduce waste,
energy, and water consumption and to improve access to healthy food choices.
• Develop precision delivery systems for water, nutrients, and pesticides to minimize
impacts on air quality, soil, groundwater, and ecosystems while reducing waste and energy
consumption.
• Develop on-site systems to affordably transform agricultural waste into energy.
• Assess the costs and benefits of alternative food sources, such as cultured meat, from
human and environmental perspectives.
• Develop aquaculture and aquaponics systems to meet increasing demand for seafood to
reduce impacts on ocean supplies with integrated nutrient recovery and reuse to minimize
adverse effects on the environment.
• Design urban agriculture systems to utilize waste energy and recycle water, minimizing
water use and pollution.

Water and Sanitation

• Considering the full spectrum of human development conditions, develop energy-efficient
water conservation strategies and technologies that are socially acceptable and
implementable.
• Develop low-cost desalination and water reuse technologies, including strategies to
reduce energy use and manage or reuse waste streams to minimize environmental impacts.
• Develop water supply and water quality forecasting tools, including low-cost, distributed
sensing systems, to anticipate water availability and quality threats.
• Develop and evaluate energy-neutral or energy-positive cost-effective wastewater
treatment technologies suitable for low-, middle-, and high-income settings that provide
enhanced contaminant removal, minimize energy consumption, and promote safe water
reuse.
• Participate in innovative interdisciplinary teams to develop and evaluate approaches to
water, sanitation, and hygiene challenges in low-income countries.
• Develop improved diagnostic tools and predictive modeling approaches to understand
the state of aging water infrastructure and develop cost-effective strategies to maintain the
water services provided by existing infrastructure.

Energy
• Conduct life-cycle analyses of renewable technologies and distribution strategies in terms
of benefits provided and water and energy use and pollution, including all stages. Develop
approaches to minimize those impacts.
• Investigate approaches to store energy, such as with hydroelectric dams or batteries, and
examine associated environmental impacts and ways to minimize those impacts.
• Develop low-cost ways to reduce environmental impacts associated with traditional
energy production.
• Develop viable, sustainable biofuel options.

2: Curb climate change and adapt to its impacts

It is now more certain than ever that humans are changing Earth’s climate. The
burning of fossil fuels for electricity generation, transportation, heating, cooling, and other
energy uses has raised the concentration of global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to
more than 400 parts per million (ppm)—a level that last occurred about 3 million years
ago when both global average temperature and sea level were significantly higher than
today.98 At the same time, the production of fossil fuels and agricultural and industrial
processes also have emitted large amounts of methane and nitrous oxide, both powerful
greenhouse gases, into the atmosphere.

Warming of about 5.4°F

(3°C) or more could push Earth past
several “tipping points.” For
example, this amount of warming
could melt the Greenland ice sheet,
which would raise global average
sea level an additional 20 feet (6
meters). It could also accelerate the
thawing of permafrost, which would
accelerate the release of CO2 and
methane stored in frozen soil,
exacerbating warming. While
projections such as these are useful in planning for the changes ahead, it is also important
to recognize that a great deal remains unknown, particularly when it comes to the complex
feedbacks among human activities, ecosystems, and the atmosphere.

For decades, scientists have led the efforts to understand and predict climate change
effects, but engineers are now recognizing that their efforts are needed to help
develop and implement solutions. Conceptually, climate solutions are divided into two
areas of focus: mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation refers to efforts to reduce the
magnitude or rate of climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases or removing them from the atmosphere. Adaptation refers to solutions
that avoid or lessen the impacts of climate change on people, ecosystems, resources, and
infrastructure. Environmental engineers have an opportunity to be leaders in developing
technologies and systems that provide solutions on both of these fronts. Given that future
climate changes likely hold surprises, it will be important to remain nimble, incorporate
new knowledge, and work to address uncertainty as environmental engineers develop, test,
and implement solutions.

Furthermore, the following are some of the things that Environmental Engineers can
perform in order to curb the effects of climate change:

Increasing Energy Efficiency

• Using life-cycle analysis, identify opportunities for improved energy efficiency across
sectors
to focus energy efficiency improvements toward those with the greatest benefits.
• Identify opportunities for the use of the heat that is a by-product of the generation of
electricity. Currently much of this heat is “wasted” during cooling processes.

Advancing Alternative Energy Sources

• Identify opportunities for addressing environmental issues associated with promising
renewable energy sources, including hydropower, solar, and wind.
• Develop low-cost reliable anaerobic carbon conversion systems to turn organic wastes,
including human waste as well as agricultural plant and forest residues, into energy.
• Develop strategies to manage nuclear waste.

Advancing Climate Intervention Strategies

• Develop biological and mechanical carbon capture methods that can be scaled at
reasonable
cost.
• Develop uses for captured carbon and methods for safe storage, including monitoring for
leakage.
• Improve understanding of the factors that influence the permanence of carbon capture by
vegetation and soils.

Reducing Other Greenhouse Gases

• Develop monitoring tools to detect emissions of methane in natural gas systems and
methods
to minimize or eliminate them.
• Develop technologies and approaches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from
agriculture.
• Identify the largest sources of black carbon and develop low-cost strategies to reduce
these
emissions.

Additionally, there are areas in which environmental engineers can advance efforts
to adapt to climate change. Environmental engineers, working with civil engineers and
experts in climate science and data, can play a number of roles in adapting to the expected
impacts of climate change:

Building Disaster Resilience

• Develop a national wildfire smoke forecast system.
• Analyze changing coastal and inland flood risks under climate change and land-use
change, including risks to priority infrastructure.

Adapting Urban and Coastal Infrastructure

• Analyze the benefits and costs of gray versus green infrastructure, including pollution
control and ecosystem services.
• Identify cost-effective adaptation strategies for water and wastewater infrastructure at
risk from sea-level rise.

Ecosystems
• Develop a better understanding of ecosystem services in mitigating the impact of climate
change.
• Develop and evaluate approaches to reduce pollutant loading to ecosystems.
• Develop strategies to reduce and mitigate impacts of environmental degradation,
deforestation, and ecosystem loss.

Agriculture
• Analyze large-scale costs and benefits of major changes to agriculture, including location
and dietary changes.

Health
• Develop sensors capable of rapid pathogen detection in humans, animals, and the
environment.
• Use green infrastructure, vegetation, and other methods to reduce urban heat island
effects while improving water quality in vulnerable communities.
• Participate in formulation and implementation of innovative strategies to reduce the risk
of transmission of vectorborne, zoonotic, foodborne, and waterborne disease.
 3: Design a future without pollution and waste

In nature, waste is a resource.

One organism’s waste is repurposed to
sustain another. Since the Industrial
Revolution, human society has adopted a
more linear model. Resources and
energy are used to manufacture
products, which are then used and
ultimately discarded as waste when
those products are no longer wanted.
This linear model of “take-make-dispose”
has been successful in providing
affordable products to billions of people and advancing their standard of living. However,
this production model generates over a billion tons of discarded products and by-products
globally each year, and uses large amounts of energy and resources that are never
recaptured. An analysis of five high-income countries found that one-half to three-quarters
of annual resource inputs are returned to the environment as waste within a year. Despite
improved efficiency in the use of resources, the overall production of waste in many
countries, including the United States, continues to increase.

The “take-make-dispose” model introduces large amounts of pollutants into the

water, soil, and air. Throughout much of the 20th century, large-scale chemical production
combined with inappropriate chemical handling and waste disposal created a daunting
array of legacy hazardous waste sites globally. Technologies to characterize these sites and
contain and remove hazardous contaminants have advanced significantly over the past
three decades, and there have been many successes. However, there remain at least
126,000 hazardous waste sites with residual contamination in the United States alone,
about 12,000 of which are considered unlikely to be remediated to the point of unrestricted
use with current technology. Some of these sites will require monitoring, treatment, and
oversight in perpetuity. Meanwhile, new concerns associated with legacy contaminants
continue to be discovered.

Over the past few decades, the amount of pollution produced by some industries
and activities has dropped precipitously thanks to research and technology advances and
effective policy interventions. For example, regulations on heavy-duty diesel fuel emissions,
the development of ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel, and new emission control technologies
have helped reduce particulate matter and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 90
percent in diesel truck and bus engines put into use since 2010 in the United States.
Nevertheless, large quantities of untreated sewage, industrial by-products, and vehicle
emissions continue to find their way into the water, soil, and air. Human activities are
causing nitrogen and phosphorus to accumulate in bodies of water and greenhouse gases
to accumulate in the atmosphere. Toxic chemicals have been detected in people and
wildlife in every corner of the globe, from the Arctic wilderness to remote tropical islands.

Because of improvements in living conditions, including water treatment, sanitation,

and health care, the 20th century saw a doubling of life spans globally, but pollution
continues to have profound effects on human health. Pollution contributes to the leading
causes of death worldwide including heart disease, stroke, and chronic lung disease. One of
every six deaths in 2015—about 9 million deaths worldwide—can be attributed to disease
from exposure to pollution. Air pollution causes two-thirds of the premature pollution-
related deaths, while unsafe drinking water and sanitation account for nearly 20 percent.
More than 90 percent of the world’s population lives in areas where air quality does not
meet health standards. Although the problems are worse in low- and middle-income
countries where the sources of air pollution are minimally controlled, air pollution is
estimated to cause nearly 400,000 premature deaths annually in high-income countries.
Because these estimates do not account for compounds whose effects are not well
characterized, for example, chemicals thought to cause endocrine disruption, the true toll
of the health effects of chemicals is likely underestimated.

Pollution also harms natural ecosystems. Metals leaching into streams from
abandoned mines have been linked with reduced biodiversity, and trace organic chemicals,
such as pharmaceuticals, have been associated with reproductive anomalies including the
feminization of male fish. Millions of tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year,
creating large floating islands of garbage, and small plastic particles (“microplastics”) are
accumulating in the food chain with a largely unknown effect. Wastewater discharges,
urban and agricultural runoff, and fossil fuel combustion sources have overloaded lakes,
estuaries, and rivers with nutrients, fostering algal blooms that can deplete oxygen and
produce toxins. All of these ecological problems ultimately harm human health and disrupt
industries such as fisheries and agriculture. In 2014, for example, about 500,000 residents
of Toledo, Ohio, were ordered not to use their tap water for days due to toxins produced by
an algal bloom in Lake Erie.

Challenges posed by pollution and waste will intensify as the world’s population
grows, people live in ever higher densities, standards of living increase, and industrial
production expands to meet increasing demands. Two new approaches will be required to
achieve economic progress while minimizing negative health and environmental impacts
and sustainably managing Earth’s resources. First, a new paradigm of waste management
and pollution prevention is needed—one that shifts from a linear model of resource
extraction, production, use, disposal, and cleanup toward one designed to prevent waste
and pollution from the outset. Second, innovative approaches are needed to recover
valuable resources from the waste we do produce. Ideally the two approaches are closely
coupled. These new approaches will require life-cycle and systems thinking to identify
sustainable solutions that minimize the amount of energy and resources consumed and the
amount of waste and pollution generated through all components of production and use.

Meanwhile, Environmental engineers have essential skills needed to move toward a

future without pollution or waste. Examples of ways environmental engineers can
contribute include

Preventing Pollution and Waste

• Redesign products and their production processes to promote resource efficiency,
longevity, reuse, repair, and recycling while minimizing pollution.
• Develop and use tools to better predict the risks of new and existing chemicals in the
environment, including toxicity, fate, and transport.
• Quantify and document the life-cycle consequences associated with producing commonly
used resources and products and the broad costs and benefits of alternative approaches
designed to reduce pollution and waste. Work with social and behavioral scientists to
communicate this information to inform the decisions of consumers, manufacturers, and
governments that could incentivize these efforts.
• Manage or remediate existing legacy hazardous waste and contaminated sites to
eliminate harmful exposures and return sites to productive use.

Capturing the Value of Waste

• Quantify waste-stream characteristics and identify opportunities to reuse or recover
materials traditionally considered as waste.
• Identify products that could be manufactured with recycled and reused materials that
would have lower cost, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and require less energy to
produce.
• Develop new resource-recovery technologies and processes for cost-effective recovery of
materials and energy from the waste stream.
• Work with other sectors including public health, architecture, and urban planning to
integrate engineering designs, processes, and technologies to develop effective approaches
to resource recovery with broad societal benefits.
 4: Create efficient, healthy, resilient cities

The future is increasingly urban. Cities will absorb almost all of the world’s
projected population growth in the next three decades. By 2050 cities will be home to over
2 billion more people than today. The proportion of the world’s population that lives in
urban areas will grow from 55 percent in 2017 to 66 percent in 2050. By 2030, 10 more
cities are expected to cross the 10-million-inhabitant threshold for the first time, increasing
the number of “megacities” from 31 in 2016 to 41 in 2030. The majority of these will be in
lower-income countries and contain large slums—dense informal developments without
government services.

While this massive concentrated population growth is likely to further compound

many of the current problems that cities face,
the urbanization of the human population is
happening at least in part because of the
inherent attractiveness of cities. They offer
significant educational, economic, and
cultural opportunities as well as better access
to communication and health care services.
These opportunities draw migrants from the
rural countryside where such opportunities
are sparser. As noted in a 2016 United
Nations report on urbanization, cities are
seen as economic hubs and drivers of innovation and competition, propelling a steady flow
of people from rural to urban areas, particularly in Asia.

Even as this economic attraction accelerates urbanization, today’s cities face

persistent problems associated with air and water pollution, energy distribution, water
supply, waste disposal, and waste generation. Although cities only occupy 3 percent of
Earth’s ice-free landmass, they produce 50 percent of global waste and 60 to 80 percent of
global greenhouse gas emissions. Cities account for 60 to 80 percent of the world’s energy
use and 75 percent of all natural resource use. Cities have stark inequities in the
distribution of incomes, public services, access to open space, and quality of life. In middle-
to high-income countries, urban sprawl and car-centric and inefficient transit systems
create traffic congestion, pollution, and safety hazards, degrading quality of life. Lack of
green space and abandoned properties contribute to social and environmental stress,
especially in poor urban neighborhoods. Urban communities are fractured by poverty and
unequal access to community services, even as accelerating gentrification exacerbates
those inequities.
 In low- and middle-income countries, large populations live in dense informal
settlements that are expanding rapidly; about 880 million people live in slums today and
that number is projected to more than double by 2050. With many cities unable to provide
adequate sanitation or food and water security for these slums, their residents face a high
risk of malnutrition and disease. Increased human contact with domestic animals and
wildlife in these settings heightens the risk of diseases with pandemic potential that
emerge from animals and subsequently spread from person to person, as occurred with the
SARS epidemic. SARS spread rapidly to more than 30 counties before being contained.

The functioning and stability of many of the world’s major cities are made all the
more precarious by threats from extreme
events such as floods, heat waves, and
droughts, which are expected to hit cities
harder and more frequently in the coming
decades, putting more lives and
infrastructure at risk.

These challenges, however, are not

insurmountable. The scale and structure of
cities offer unique opportunities to improve
quality of life and equitably address many of
the grand challenges such as climate change adaptation, pollution, waste, and sustainable
food, water, and energy supplies. Aging physical infrastructure represents both a major
challenge and a key opportunity to reshape tomorrow’s world. The American Society of
Civil Engineers has estimated that $4.6 trillion in U.S. infrastructure investment will be
needed by 2025, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
estimates worldwide infrastructure needs at $70 trillion by 2030. If this infrastructure
were refashioned to support multiple city functions and the lives of residents in an
integrated way, it is possible to create cities that are more equitable, efficient, healthy, and
resilient. Environmental engineers can bring unique training and analytical skills to build
partnerships with the other professions—in planning, energy, and transportation, among
others—who together can creatively overcome these challenges and take advantage of the
significant opportunities that cities present.

The following are examples of ways that environmental engineers, working

collaboratively with other disciplines, can engage with the public and private sectors to
help build efficient, healthy, resilient cities. In doing so, environmental engineers can
ensure as well that solutions like those highlighted below are designed and implemented in
ways that are fully cognizant of—and help to address—the significant current inequitable
distribution of services in today’s cities.

• Design and revitalize infrastructure systems, including water, energy, food, buildings,
parks, and transportation systems, to achieve equitable access and optimize among
sometimes competing objectives for health, well-being, water and energy conservation, and
resilience.
• Evaluate the potential positive and negative consequences from alternative infrastructure
designs, including impacts to pollution, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas
emissions.
• Address extraordinary infrastructure challenges in low-income country settings by
developing and evaluating innovative approaches to address water, sanitation, and health
challenges unique to urban and periurban slums.
• Identify opportunities in cities and design systems for capturing and repurposing waste
(solid waste, wastewater, and heat) for energy or resource recovery, considering both
large, centralized and small, decentralized systems.
• Develop and use sensors to support more efficient city operations, including
transportation, water and wastewater, energy, environmental quality, and public health.
This includes working to develop artificial intelligence decision-making algorithms for
smart cities and working, in collaboration with social scientists, to engage citizens in the
development and refinement of these algorithms.
• Develop and evaluate innovative approaches to reducing indoor and outdoor air
pollution.

5: Foster informed decisions and actions

Addressing the world’s largest environmental problems will require major shifts in
our approaches and actions. New strategies and technologies will only be effective in
solving these grand challenges with widespread adoption, which may require regulatory
changes at the governmental level and behavioral changes at the community and individual
levels. For this to happen, decision makers in the public and private sectors and a
significant portion of the general public must believe that the environmental problems are
serious enough to warrant change—and that proposed solutions are worth adopting. In
other words, addressing grand environmental challenges requires, in addition to effective
solutions, a pervasive recognition that implementing those solutions is in our best interest.
 Achieving this will require,
first, engendering a civil society that
is well informed about how the
environment affects human well-
being and prosperity. This is not
about changing people’s preferences
or making the public “care” more
about the environment. Rather, it is
about equipping people with options
that provide solutions and with
information to make wise choices
based on an understanding of the
potential outcomes and costs
associated with each course of action and the ,potential risks from inaction.

Second, it is important that experts and stakeholders act in partnership to identify

problems and consider alternative solutions. There is sometimes a gap between what
scientists and engineers believe will be useful for stakeholders and what the stakeholders
themselves understand as useful. It is possible to reduce this gap by taking a collaborative
approach that engages both experts and stakeholders to define and prioritize problems,
select alternatives to be considered, identify constraints and criteria for success, and
consider issues of equity and distribution.

These first two elements—understanding and stakeholder engagement—create a

foundation for identifying and implementing policy, management, and regulatory
approaches to promote outcomes that are consistent with the collective priorities.
Although the responsibility for engaging stakeholders and fostering full understanding of
environmental choices does not lie entirely with environmental engineers, there is much
that the engineering community can contribute.

Furthermore, some of the many ways environmental engineers can partner with
other experts and stakeholders to help foster informed decisions and actions include:

• Work with communities and other disciplinary experts, including ecologists, economists,
sociobehavioral scientists, and communication experts, to analyze and clearly
communicate the potential consequences of alternative choices associated with the
environmental grand
challenges. Analyses should include impacts and benefits to individuals and various groups
in society so that stakeholders and decision makers can better understand the impacts of
their choices.
• Proactively diversify the field by recruiting members of underrepresented groups to
become experts in the environmental engineering field and partner disciplines.
• Develop new approaches and technologies to collect environmental data needed to
support ecosystem services and life-cycle analyses.
• Partner with communities and citizens to collect and assess environmental and
socioeconomic data, understand the connections between trends and individual, corporate,
and governmental behavior, and communicate the implications of this information.
Environmental engineers can also develop enhanced participatory science approaches and
technology-enabled platforms. Particular attention should be given to communities that
have traditionally been underserved and marginalized.
• Develop transparent, user-friendly decision tools that can assist decision making by
synthesizing information on financial, social, and environmental risks, costs, and benefits.

1.4 Examples of Environmental Engineering Projects in the Philippines

Philippines is a country that is currently in a process of adapting to globalization.

There has been a continuous rise in its population, resulting to a higher rate of resource
consumption. Unfortunately, over the past years, humans have been abusive towards our
environment, leading to its devastating and massive destruction.

In order to rectify this problem, various environmental engineering projects have

been devised, implemented, and constructed. These projects aim to solve the existing
problems closely linked to the environment and make sure that the people in the
community are sufficiently and efficiently supplied with the necessities of which they are
due.

Moreover, the following are example projects of environmental engineering

conducted in the Philippines:

1. LOWER AGUSAN DEVELOPMENT PROJECT (Agusan del Norte, Philippines)

Utilization and control of the

Agusan River through flood mitigation and
irrigation works. Flood control works
involve a river floodway (17,980 has.)
levees (26 kms.), flood walls (4 kms.) and
bridge viaducts (600 m.). Irrigation works
for 8,500 has. Involve two pumping plants, mains and laterals (125 kms.), canal structures
(450 kms.) and roads (142 kms.).

2. PAMPANGA DELTA DEVELOPMENT

PROJECT (Pampanga, Philippines)

The Pampanga River swells during

rainy season. To prevent flooding of the nearby
areas, the government has come up with this
project. This involves the construction of a 465-
meter slope protection that will prevent
scouring along the riverbank that damages
crops and properties on the low-lying plains of Barangays Pandan and Capaya in Angeles
City.

Funded by the 2020 appropriations, the P49-million project included the use of steel
sheet pile foundation to prevent river obstruction from landslide, rockslides, and flooding
and also to protect the lives and properties of the people residing within the area of scope.

3. AGNO RIVER BASIN FLOOD CONTROL STUDY (Western Part of Central Luzon,
Philippines)

The project consists of the urgent

rehabilitation works in the lower Agno and
upper Sinocalan Rivers, which have been
identified and prioritized. A comprehensive
study to establish adequate measures for
flood control in the Agno River System and
its allied rivers, namely: Poporto Floodway,
Tarlac River, Camiling River, Banila River,
Viday-Dipala River, Ambayoan River, Panto
River and Cayanga River. An inventory of damaged structures such as earth dikes, walls
and toes, riverbank slide, revetment, flood gates, intake facilities, bridges and water level
gauging stations was conducted for future improvement and upgrading.

4. PASAY SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT/LIBERTAD PUMPING STATION (Pasay,

Philippines)
 The Metropolitan Authority (MMDA)
and the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources (DENR) has
collaboratively constructed and established a
sewage treatment plant (STP) and
wastewater interceptor in Pasay City. This
project will ultimately help address the
problem of wastewater discharge that
contributes to the pollution in Manila Bay.
The STP is capable of treating 10 million liters of waste water per day from the retarding
pond of the Libertad Pumping Station before being discharged to Manila Bay.

5. BORACAY REHABILITATION PROJECT

The main purpose of the Boracay
Rehabilitation Project is to recover the
beach areas and clean its waters, regain the
wetlands which are the island’s ‘kidneys,’
restore ecosystems, and clear and pave the
roads that are designated for public
transport.

To address continuing water supply

problems, the DENR’s Western Visayas
office has built a water tank that will supply
potable water to a portion of Barangay Balabag, on the east coast of the island, and all of
Barangay Yapak, which is to the north.

The Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force, which is in charge of the rehabilitation, also
evaluated a pumping station with a capacity of 800 cubic meters of raw water to be
brought in from Malay, Aklan, on the Panay mainland, and supply raw water to the Angol
Treatment Plant. It will also provide water to Barangay Manoc-Manoc in the south of the
island, and to the rest of Balabag.

Demolition orders and notices to vacate were issued to owners in the remaining
commercial and residential structures deemed too close to beach easements.

In support of the rehabilitation of the Island, Boracay Water is also accelerating its
sewer system projects in accordance with the used water masterplan approved by Tourism
Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority including the construction of the island’s
third sewage treatment plant in Barangay Yapak with a capacity of 5 MLD.
 The company is also expanding its current sewer network of 22 kilometers while
providing desludging services to unsewered areas with a fleet of 7 desludging trucks. This
ensures that septage or wastes collected from septic tanks of residential and commercial
establishments undergo proper treatment.

1.5 Famous/Renowned Environmental Engineers (Both locally and internationally)

Environmental engineers conduct hazardous-waste management studies to

evaluate
the significance of such hazards, advise on treatment and containment, and develop
regulations to prevent mishaps. Environmental engineers also design municipal water
supply and industrial wastewater treatment systems as well as address local and
worldwide environmental issues such as the effects of acid rain, global warming, ozone
depletion, water pollution and air pollution from automobile exhausts and industrial
sources.

The following are some of the most notable and respected personalities in the field
of environmental engineering:

1. GURU DAS AGRAWAL

Guru das Agrawal, also known as Sant
Swami Sanand and Sant Swami Gyan Swaroop
Sanand (20 July 1932 – 11 October 2018), was
an Indian environmentalist, engineer, religious
leader, monk, and professor. He is notable for
several fasts undertaken to stop many projects
on the River Ganga. His fast in 2009 led to the
damming of the Bhagirathi River being stopped.

Agrawal died on 11
October 2018,
after fasting since 22 June 2018, demanding the government act on its promises to clean
and save the Ganga.

2. BRADEN R. ALLENBY
Braden R. Allenby (born 1950) is an
American environmental scientist,
environmental attorney and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and of Law,
at Arizona State University.

From 1991 to 1992 he was the J. Herbert Holloman Fellow at the National Academy
of Engineering in Washington, DC. During 1992, he was the J. Herbert Holloman Fellow at
the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, DC. From 1995 to 1997 he was
Director for Energy and Environmental Systems at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, on temporary assignment from his position as Research Vice President,
Technology and Environment, for AT&T. From 1997 to 2004 he was the Environment,
Health, and Safety Vice President for AT&T, with global responsibility for those operations
for the firm. In 2004, he moved to Arizona State University, where he is now President’s
Professor, and Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics. In June, 2000, he chaired the
second Gordon Conference on Industrial Ecology.

3. MARC EDWARDS
Marc Edwards (born 1964) is a civil engineering/environmental engineer and the
Charles Edward Via Professor of Civil and
Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. An
expert on water treatment and corrosion, Edwards’s
research on elevated lead levels in Washington, DC’s
municipal water supply gained national attention,
changed the city’s recommendations on water use in
homes with lead service pipes, and caused the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to admit
to publishing a report so rife with errors that a
congressional investigation called it “scientifically indefensible.” He is considered one of the
world’s leading experts in water corrosion in home plumbing, and a nationally recognized
expert on copper corrosion.

Edwards’s research in the mid-1990s focused on an increasing incidence of pinhole

leaks in copper water pipes. Homeowners contacted him about the leaks, some of which
were occurring 18 months after installation. After a century of using copper for water
pipes, the expectation is that they will last for 50 years in residential applications.

Edwards has been awarded multiple awards for his outstanding work and
successful projects in the field of environmental engineering. Some of such awards include
the MacArthur Fellow, 2007; Outstanding Faculty Award, 2007; and Praxis Award in
Professional Ethics, 2010
 4. DR. ANTHONY S.F. CHIU
Dr. Chiu is a proud Filipino who has made significant contributions to the country
and to the international community through his environmental expertise. He pioneered the
Philippine and Asia Pacific eco-industrial park development and developed the Asia Pacific
EID Continuum Concept through UNEP-UNDP-DTI. As
early as 2000s, he placed Philippines in the radar of
social mapping of EID publications worldwide. He has
presented his authored publications in global
resource material flow assessment and stock (MFA),
decoupling theory, energy, and urbanization, and
energy transportation to the Head of State at UN
Environmental Assembly.

He also introduced systems thinking of

industrial system engineering into transdisciplinary research at various institutions and
became the first Philippine awardee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
International Correspondent and the first Philippine academe recipient of the ASEAN
Engineer (IE).

Dr. Chiu is currently a University Fellow, Professor, and Research Fellow at De La

Salle University (DLSU), Manila. He is also a member of the International Resource Panel of
the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Foundation for
Production Research. He is the Founding President of the International Society for Business
Innovation and Technology Management. He served as member of the Pollution
Adjudication Board of DENR from 2004-2016 and as Regional Executive of the Resource
Efficient and Cleaner Production Network from 2013 to 2015.

He received his degree in Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (magna

cum laude and Valedictorian) at DLSU, Manila in 1986, Master of Engineering in Industrial
Engineering & Management at Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand in 1988,
and Doctor in Business Administration at DLSU, Manila in 2004.

His research entry for the award is entitled “Resource efficiency of the Philippine
economy: A material flow accounting perspective (1955-2016)”.

5. DR. EMILYN Q. ESPIRITU

 Dr. Espiritu has contributed with great impact to environmental science throughout
her career. She is a known expert in water quality and water
pollution and is a pioneer in the field of Ecotoxicology in the
country. Her researches on different environment pollutants,
particularly microplastics, have raise awareness and insights
in its effect to the environment.

Her research in microplastics added to the urgency for

the need to find a solution to manage plastic waste and to
produce biodegradable plastic. She led concrete policy
initiatives and helped in the development of ecolabelling
schemes for the country.

As environmental science educator, she paved way to the approval of a new degree
program, Bachelor of Science in Life Sciences in the Biology Department of Ateneo De
Manila University (ADMU) and the revision to a five-year BS Biology program. Recently,
she contributed to the approval of the PhD program in Environmental Science in ADMU.

Dr. Espiritu is currently a Professor at the Environmental Science Department,

School of Science & Engineering, ADMU and has been teaching since 1995. She served as a
member of the Foundation for the Philippine Environment, Projects Technical Review
Committee from 2014 to 2016. She also served as a member of the Experts Advisory Panel
of the National Ecolabelling Programme (Green Choice Philippines) from 2012 to 2016 and
a member of the Technical Panel for BS Environmental Science of the Commission on
Higher Education from 2007 to 2010. She is an Accredited EIA Reviewer of the DENR-
Environmental Management Bureau.

1.6 Skills and Practices needed to become an Environmental Engineer

To become an effective and efficient environmental engineer (or any other kind of
engineer on this regard), one must possess certain qualities and skills needed to respond to
the job. Some of the qualities that a person shall exhibit to fit and qualify for such a huge
and important duty include the following:

Imagination. Environmental engineers sometimes have to design systems that will be part
of larger ones. They must foresee how the proposed designs will interact with components
of the larger system, including the workers, machinery, and equipment, as well as with the
environment.
Interpersonal skills. Environmental engineers must work with others toward a common
goal. They usually work with engineers and scientists who design other systems and with
the technicians and mechanics who put the designs into practice.

Problem-solving skills. When designing facilities and processes, environmental engineers

strive to solve several issues at once, from workers’ safety to environmental protection.
They must identify and anticipate problems in order to prevent losses for their employers,
safeguard workers’ health, and mitigate environmental damage.

Reading skills. Environmental engineers often work with businesspeople, lawyers, and
other professionals outside their field. They frequently are required to read and
understand documents that deal with topics outside their scope of training.

Writing skills. Environmental engineers must write clearly so that others without their
specific training can understand their documents, including plans, proposals, specifications,
and findings, among others.

2. Energy Engineering

2.1 Definition and Description

Energy engineering is a broad field of engineering that involves energy
management, energy efficiency, renewable energy,
and environmental maintenance. Not only must
energy engineers be familiar with renewable
energy, they must also know about oil and natural-
gas energies. Energy engineering is an
interdisciplinary collaboration between all of the
energy technologies.

Energy engineering is all about reducing the

world’s energy consumption. Energy is the building
blocks of everything and is required to power or
build anything that is used in the world.
Engineering applied to the energy sector focuses on increasing the energy efficiency of
companies, machinery and households.

Energy engineers achieve energy saving through clever building designs, better use
of materials and through renewable energy devices. Engineers often conduct building
audits and inspections to first identify where energy can be saved. They use light level
meters, thermo-guns and data logging to measure the energy losses.

Although an energy engineer is concerned about obtaining and using energy in the
most environmentally friendly ways, their field is not limited to strictly renewable energy
like hydro, solar, biomass, or geothermal. Energy engineers are also employed by the fields
of oil and natural gas extraction.

2.2 History
Human beings have been transferring energy from one form to another since their
first use of fire. Energy and powered devices are an
integral part of society. Humanity’s earliest days saw
the discovery of fire through wood combustion
(burning of wood), and the use of charcoal for
smelting metals dates back as early as 5000 BC.
Powered devices using natural energy sources such
as water and wind were introduced by the Ancient
Greeks and were commonly used until the 18 th
century, when the steam engine revolutionized the way devices could be powered. Various
natural oils were also used for a range of purposes, such as whale oil for lamps.

The Industrial Revolution led to the massive use of coal as fuel, and the extraction of
petroleum and various other oils became extremely important with the advent of internal
combustion engines. Electrical power, also based on fossil fuels, became widespread at the
end of the 19th century and the production of cleaner electrical energy through hydro-
power, nuclear, geothermal, and solar means is a topic even more relevant to today’s world.

The efficiency of the transfer of energy is a new field. The oil crisis of 1973 and the
energy crisis of 1979 brought to light the need to get more work out of less energy.

 Oil Crisis of 1973 — The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973
when
the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by
Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had
supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The initial nations targeted were Canada,
Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, though the embargo also
later extended to Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa. By the end of the embargo in March
1974, the price of oil had risen nearly 300%, from US$3 per barrel ($19/m3) to nearly $12
per barrel ($75/m3) globally; US prices were significantly higher. The embargo caused an
oil crisis, or "shock", with many short- and long-term effects on global politics and the
global economy. It was later called the "first oil shock", followed by the 1979 oil crisis,
termed the "second oil shock".

The energy crisis led to greater interest in renewable energy, nuclear power and
domestic fossil fuels. According to Peter Grossman, American energy policies since the
crisis have been dominated by crisis-mentality thinking, promoting expensive quick fixes
and single-shot solutions that ignore market and technology realities. He wrote that instead
of providing stable rules that support basic research while leaving plenty of scope for
entrepreneurship and innovation, Congresses and presidents have repeatedly backed
policies which promise solutions that are politically expedient, but whose prospects are
doubtful.

The Brazilian government implemented its “Proálcool” (pro-alcohol) project in

1975 that mixed ethanol with gasoline for automotive fuel. Israel was one of the few
countries unaffected by the embargo, since it could extract sufficient oil from the Sinai. But
to supplement Israel’s over-taxed power grid, Harry Zvi Tabor, the father of Israel’s solar
industry, developed the prototype for a solar water heater now used in over 90% of Israeli
homes.

 Oil Crisis of 1979 — The 1979 oil crisis, also known as the 1979 Oil Shock or Second
Oil Crisis, was an energy crisis caused by a drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian
Revolution. Although the global oil supply only decreased by approximately four percent,
the oil markets' reaction raised the price of crude oil drastically over the next 12 months,
more than doubling it to $39.50 per barrel ($248/m3). The sudden increase in price was
connected with fuel shortages and long lines at gas stations similar to the 1973 oil crisis.

2.3 Role in the Modern Society

As an energy engineer, you’ll be involved with the production of energy through

natural resources, such as the extraction of oil and gas, as well as from renewable or
sustainable sources of energy, including biofuels, hydro, wind and solar power.

Your focus will be on finding efficient, clean and innovative ways to supply energy.
You could work in a variety of roles, including:

 Designing and testing machinery

  Developing ways of improving existing processes
 Converting, transmitting and supplying useful energy to meet our needs for
electricity
 Researching and developing ways to generate new energy, reduce emissions from
fossil fuels and minimize environmental damage.

As an energy engineer, it is your responsibility to do the following:

 Design, develop and build renewable energy technologies

 Combine renewable energy production with existing power systems
 Arrange new supplies and negotiate tariffs with fuel providers
 Carry out site inspections and energy surveys
 Design and select equipment
 Use mathematical and computer models to complete design and specification
calculations
 Carry out lab experiments and adapt them to large-scale industrial processes
 Prepare detailed schedules of work, feasibility studies and cost estimates
 Check site and ground conditions for the installation of renewable technologies,
such as wind turbines
 Negotiate service agreements and manage associated costs and revenues
 Liaise and negotiate with specialist contractors, geologists and other relevant
organizations
 Keep up to date with legislation and environmental standards and make sure
systems and processes comply
 Develop technical expertise in all matters to do with energy and environmental
control.

But above all, an energy engineer’s fundamental role in the modern society is to use
his/her skills to come up with projects and plans that will be of great use to the people in
the community. He/She should be able to adapt to the ever-changing societal conditions
and generate a more efficient and safer source of power from the untapped energy in the
environment to respond to the need of the people and the society for cheaper and greener
way of consuming energy.

2.4 Example of Energy Engineering Projects in the Philippines

Philippines is known for having an abundant and untapped amount of natural

resources (e.g., water and mineral resources). Thus, over the years, many professionals,
including engineers, had engage into a continuous research on how to transform these
resources into energy, and they have been quite successful in doing so given the fact that
they have triumphantly built and established various projects that aims to produce
valuable and efficient energy source for the people in the community. These projects
include the following:

1. BURGOS WIND FARM PROJECT

The Burgos Wind Project is the largest wind farm in the Philippines, and also
considered to be one of the largest wind farms in South East Asia. It is located in one of the
best areas in the country to generate clean energy from wind. The 150-MW facility has fifty
(50) Vestas V90 wind turbines, each with a rated capacity of 3 MWs. The wind farm has a
substation which is connected to a 43 KM 115 kV Transmission Line to the Laoag
substation of the grid operator, the NGCP (National Grid Corporation of the Philippines).

The Project complies with all local and

national environmental policies. The Project
maintains and monitors strict compliance to
standards on land use, water and waste disposal,
and noise monitoring. More importantly, the
Burgos Wind Farm produces clean energy and
displaces generation from other sources that
contribute pollutants and greenhouse gas
emissions to the environment. The Burgos Wind
Team likewise leads projects and initiatives with
the local governments and communities that promote the protection of the environment.
Engaging and empowering the community is a critical objective of the Project. In fact, the
team hosts a local radio program that discusses various topics with the local community,
mostly on the protection and promotion of the environment.

2. CALATAGAN SOLAR POWER PLANT

The Calatagan Solar Power Plant is the largest solar facility in Luzon, Philippines.
With
200,000 Trina Solar TSM-PC14 modules installed, this facility is generating enough power
for the whole of the western Batangas province.

Over 200,000 Trina Solar TSM-PC14

solar panels are installed over an expansive
160-hectares, generating a substantial
amount of clean energy, enough to power the
whole of western Batangas. The solar farm also enjoys optimum weather conditions –
receiving a steady breeze off the South China Sea, the highest levels of sunshine in Southern
Tagalog, and seldom hit by typhoons. Developed by Solar Philippines, a full locally owned
project developer and EPC, the new solar farm is the fi rst project that is fully developed, fi
nanced and constructed by a local renewable energy company at a facility of this scale. As
the Philippines looks to invest further in green technologies, the Calatagan Solar Farm is
making a direct impact in meeting the country’s energy needs and easing environmental
pressures. Experts have even said the Philippines can become one of the world’s first 100
percent renewable energy-powered economies because of its plentiful sunlight.

A significant achievement was also the fact that the project was not only completed
in time but started generating power weeks ahead of the government’s feed-in-tariff (FIT)
deadline. The Philippines is a stellar example in the South East Asia region for investing in
cleaner energy sources and the Calatagan Solar Farm is a momentous achievement in
supplementing the country’s energy requirements.

3. AGUSAN HYDROELECTRIC PLANT

The Agusan Hydroelectric Plant, the
downstream facility of two proposed plants, was
constructed in Damilag, Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon
to serve the immediate domestic and industrial
requirements of the area. The watershed is small,
and covers an area of around 25 km2 at the
diversion dam. The run-of-river plant consists of
two 800-kW turbine generators that use water
from the Agusan River to generate electricity. It is
connected to the local distribution grid Cepalco through the Transco distribution line.

2.5 Famous/Renowned Energy Engineers (Both locally and internationally)

Energy engineers apply their skills to increase efficiency and further develop
renewable sources of energy. The main job of energy engineers is to find the most efficient
and sustainable ways to operate buildings and manufacturing processes. Energy engineers
audit the use of energy in those processes and suggest ways to improve the systems. This
means suggesting advanced lighting, better insulation, more efficient heating and cooling
properties of buildings. Although an energy engineer is concerned about obtaining and
using energy in the most environmentally friendly ways, their field is not limited to strictly
renewable energy like hydro, solar, biomass, or geothermal. Energy engineers are also
employed by the fields of oil and natural gas extraction.
 Some of the most famous and renowned energy engineers in the world include the
following:

1. BILL HERONEMUS
Bill Heronemus is known the world over as the “father
of modern windpower” and the inventor of the wind turbine
array, windship, wind furnace, and offshore hydrogen flotilla
ideas. He is generally credited with the invention of the terms
“windfarm,” “windshaft,” and “windsmith” in wide use today.
All the present researchers in wind turbines owe the grasp of
the fundamentals to Bill Heronemus’ work of the 1970s, when
he and his cadre published many, many reports on
windpower, along with the earlier pioneers forming the
backbone of all the engineering, which was yet to come.

2. AMANDO LANUZA
Engineer Lanuza is a veteran of various
commercial solar rooftops and solar farms in the
country. He spearheaded Buskowitz Energy’s 84
projects in 25 provinces around the Philippines,
which include: three branches of John B. Lacson
University in Iloilo, Bacolod, and Arevalo; six
branches of Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp; Expo
Home Depot in Zamboanga and the Universidad de
Zamboanga; Sunmoon Fruits Inc. in Binondo, Manila;
Santi’s Delicatessen; De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, and many more.

Other notable on-going projects he is working on are the six sites of the North Luzon
Expressway Corporation in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental; Robinsons Malls in Pavia and
Jaro, Iloilo; and OLMECS and Company Development Corporation in Katipunan, North
Cotabato.

3. JAMES B. FRANCIS
James Bicheno Francis (May 18, 1815 – September 18,
1892) was a British-American civil engineer, who invented
the Francis turbine.
 The Francis turbine is a type of water turbine. It is an inward-flow reaction turbine
that combines radial and axial flow concepts. Francis turbines are the most common water
turbine in use today, and can achieve over 95% efficiency. It is used frequently in
hydroelectric power plants. In these plants, high pressure water enters the turbine through
the snail-shell casing (the volute). This lowers the pressure as the water curls through the
tube, but the speed of the water is maintained.

2.6 Skills and Practices needed to become an Energy Engineer

Energy engineers possess commercial awareness, in which they have a good
understanding of the general energy market and maintain knowledge of the latest industry
trends. They have strong organizational skills as well as great communication skills, both
written and verbal. Typically, employers will require a bachelor’s degree in an engineering-
related subject, as well as the following abilities:

Computer Skills: Energy engineers possess strong computer skills to use software and
programs required to do this job, such as AutoCAD, Microsoft Excel, and project
management tools
Independent: Often, energy engineers are required to work independently, so they need to
have the initiative and proactive approach to be able to find solutions to problems on their
own, without a team assisting them
Initiative: Energy engineers need to have the ability to recognize emerging problems and
be able to take the initiative to proactively identify solutions, such as fixing technical issues
with equipment
Math Skills: This job requires the ability to collect and analyze data, customize software and
spreadsheets, and model facility changes based on audits of potential energy consumption.
For this aspect of the job, strong math and science skills are vital
Project Management Skills: Energy engineers need to have strong time management skills
and the ability to organize tasks effectively, as they coordinate with project management
team members to analyze installation systems and ensure that projects are completed to
schedule.

ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

To test/assess your understanding of the lesson, you are now hereby tasked to
correctly provide the answer of the following questions. There will be two categories of
tests that you will be asked to comply: (a) the identification; and (b) the essay type of
assessment.

A. Identification
 Direction: Please provide the answer that correctly corresponds to the following
statements/questions.

1. He is considered as the very first environmental engineer.

2. This is a practice that focuses on designing systems and solutions at the interface
between humans and the environment.
3. What is the previous term for environmental engineering?
4. What particular act or law banned the discharge of pollutants from pipes and other point
sources into navigable waters without a permit?
5. Identify the five pressing challenges for the 21st century that environmental engineers
are uniquely poised to help advance.
6. This project consists of the urgent rehabilitation works in the lower Agno and upper
Sinocalan Rivers, which have been identified and prioritized.
7. He is an environmental engineer notable for several fasts undertaken to stop many
projects on the River Ganga.
8. He is a proud Filipino who has made significant contributions to the country and to the
international community through his environmental expertise.
9. One of the skills that an environmental engineer must possess which requires them to
work with others toward a common goal.
10. It is the branch of engineering that deals with energy efficiency, power generation,
energy services, facility management, environmental compliance, sustainable energy and
renewable energy.
11. What are the events that brought to light the need to get more work out of less energy?
12. It is the largest wind farm in the Philippines, and also considered to be one of the
largest wind farms in South East Asia.
13. What is the largest solar facility in Luzon, Philippines?
14. He is known as the “father of modern windpower.”
15. This is a skill that energy engineers must possess in order to use software and
programs required to do their job.
16. He is a veteran of various commercial solar rooftops and solar farms in the country.
17. When did the first oil crisis began?
18. It was caused by a drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian Revolution.
19. What is the modern name of the humongous sewer system built and constructed by
Joseph Bazalgette?
20. One of the skills of an environmental engineer wherein they have to design systems that
will be part of larger ones. They must foresee how the proposed designs will interact with
components of the larger system, including the workers, machinery, and equipment, as well
as with the environment.
 B. Essay/Explanation (5 points each)

1. In your own words, what do you think is the relevance of having environmental and
energy engineers in our society? Please explain in 3-5 sentences only.

2. What are the existing challenges in your own community that environmental and energy
engineering can help advance and resolve? Please explain in 3-5 sentences only.

ANSWERS TO THE ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

A. Identification
1. Joseph Bazalgette
2. Environmental Engineering
3. Sanitary Engineering
4. U.S. Clean Water Act of 1972
5. (a) Sustainably supply food, water, and energy; (b) Curb climate change and adapt to its
impacts; (c) Design a future without pollution and waste; (d) Create efficient, healthy,
resilient cities; and (e) Foster informed decisions and actions
6. Agno River Basin Flood Control Study
7. Guru das Agrawal
8. Dr. Anthony S.F. Chiu
9. Interpersonal Skills
10. Energy Engineering
11. The oil crisis of 1973 and the energy crisis of 1979
12. Burgos Wind Farm Project
13. Calatagan Solar Power Plant
14. Bill Heronemus
15. Computer Skills
16. Amando Lanuza
17. October 1973
18. Oil Crisis of 1979
19. The Great Stink
20. Imagination

B. Essay/Explanation
1. Answers may vary
2. Answers may vary

REFERENCES