My father is a civil engineer, so when I was hired to be the librarian for Turner Collie & Braden, a Houston based civil engineering firm, I asked him for a little advice. “How,” I asked him, “am I going to provide these engineers the information they need to do their work? I majored in philosophy, for heaven’s sake.”
His answer … “Engineers are good at details, but sometimes they are not so good at seeing the big picture. That’s where you can help.”
That is the single most valuable piece of advice I have ever received. Since that time my research support in civil engineering, space engineering, and petroleum engineering has been performed in the context of the “big picture.”
That’s why I value an article like Chunshan Song’s “Effects of Support in Hydrotreating Catalysis for Ultra-clean Fuels” (Catalysis Today, Volume 86, Issues 1-4, 1 November 2003, Pages 211-263).
Interesting for the overview it provides of new approaches to deep desulfurization for ultra-clean gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel, the abstract has a sentence that really piqued my interest …
“The society at large is stepping on the road to zero sulfur fuel, so researchers should begin with the end in mind and try to develop long-term solutions.”
We may think we are searching for ways to desulfurize to the levels required by current regulations, but ultimately, we will have to desulfurize to ZERO! As plants are designed, built and retrofitted, the ultimate goal should be kept in mind … it will save huge amounts of money in the long run.
Chunshan Song (csong@psu.edu) is Professor of Fuel Science and Chemical Engineering; Director, EMS Energy Institute; and Associate Director, Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment
View his bio at: http://www.eme.psu.edu/faculty/song.html
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