Vorsicht: Maschine läuft automatisch an!

Microsoft is hosting the Imaginecup which is a contest featuring quite a few disciplines ranging from programming to photography. This year’s “theme” is sustainabilty and as Sebastian and I are very fond of polarbears we gave it a try. So the next few frames are from our first essay which shows how a modern clarification plant works. In fact, the one here in Vienna is one of the most advanced plants worldwide. There is also a second essay that will be submitted as we think from a storytelling point of view, this one here is a weaker although the facilty itself is quite impressive.

The inflow. They said they found bycycles, turtles and pythons in there. Latter dead.

Water getting pumped to the first filtering.

This thing pretty much works like a big rack removing anything bigger than 10 mm.

A minor detail – I like the hands.

As far as I remember the basic idea of those things was to keep the sludge moving.

Pumping air into the water which forms the first part of the biological clearing.

Checking the water quality.

There is a gap storywise because Sebastian covered those shots (the old part of the facility). Whatever.

As said before, this plant is one of the most advanced in the world because they recently added another clearing process which works biologically.

They were cleaning some parts of the plant.

The main idea of this part of the facility is to pump tiny air bubbles into the water so that specific kind of micro organisms grow. I lack of the shot that shows the process but I’m sure Sebastian is going to post some.

Some O-shaped basin. And yes, those things are huge. And yes, they were cleaning as well. Also, this was the final step of clearing.

On the left, the water after the first traditional filtering. On the right, after the additional second biological filtering. Little difference, eh? They say the water is cleared by 98% – which is a quite impressive figure I think.

That’s the place where the sludge gets dehydrated and compressed. Not the nicest place I’d like to add… some might consider it smelly.

The plant is operated fully automatically meaning there are hundreds of kilometer wires. This tunnel is about 800 meters long and connects the main parts of the plant.

I love the moire. Lovely.

The control room. And the Hoond at work.

As stated before, the water quality is checked several times a day meaning they operate a lab. To be fair, again, Sebastian covered most of the lab shots so I suggest you check out his blog.

So, once again a not so-b/w-tri-x-ish entry. Still, I hope you enjoyed a few of those frames.

Take care,

Bernhard