Tank Terminals Sustainability: can information theory help us reach our goals?

 

The question is no longer; is it sustainable? But; how can we ensure non harmful functionality?

StocExpo is back in 2023 with two separate conference streams, one exploring big picture tank storage, and the other on health & safety and the practicalities of terminal operations.

On day two of the Terminal Operations and Safety conference stream, Arend Van Campen, founder of the Tank Storage Sustainability Initiative and Tank Terminal Training, will talk on how tank terminals can realistically minimise their social and environmental impact using information theory.

Here’s a taster…

It’s incredibly hard for the tank storage sector to minimise its impact on the environment in a significant and wholesale way. There are different levels of regulation, infrastructure, and desire to tackle the environmental impact of tank terminals country to country.  But even on an individual level, sustainability represents a huge challenge to terminal operators.

This is partly because most individuals understand sustainability in a very shallow way. We want more green technology, we want to reach the slightly abstract goal of Net Zero, but predicting all the knock on effects and consequences down the line is beyond most of us. 

The fact of the matter is sustainability is an extremely complex goal with lots of moving parts. Small tweaks to complex systems can have a colossal and almost unpredictable impact, that impact can be positive, but it is just as likely to be negative if done without an eye on the bigger picture.

Tank terminal operators need to therefore conceptualise sustainability in terms of information theory. Information theory is the study of the quantification, communication and storage of information. It has been instrumental in NASA’s Voyager mission, the creation of the internet, and the viability of mobile phones. Similarly, information theory can have a profound impact on tank terminal sustainability.

With an information theory-led approach, tank terminal sustainability becomes far easier to understand and measure, and therefore far easier to manage and improve.

At StocExpo 2023, I’ll explain how information theory points towards a new approach to technology, seeking non-harmful functionality over simply reducing the impact of normal tank terminal processes.

With this new approach, it becomes much easier to say what is actually achievable in terms of sustainability, and also produce a roadmap to achieve it. I simply apply the two laws of thermodynamics to test functionality within the limitations of reality (Realimiteit) a.k.a. the natural boundaries of and for functionality which can only be ‘steered’ and ‘navigated’ with information. Our reality no longer consists of only matter and energy, but also of information.

World-leading experts from a variety of fields will join Arend in speaking at StocExpo in Rotterdam this March. The event will also host hundreds of industry-leading organisations from across the world, many of whom will be launching new technologies and products or announcing company updates to the international audience.

 

I will tell you more about the natural and scientific criteria for non harmful functionality of all man-made systems.

 

Is information the primary substance in the Universe?

Information is a word that has never been easy to pin down. In its most familiar sense, information today is news, intelligence, facts and ideas that are needed and passed on as knowledge. But a more active and constructive meaning as something that gives a certain shape or character to matter, or to mind; a force that shapes behaviour, trains, instructs, inspires and guides. Information gives form to the formless, DNA codes are information and form human thought patterns. In this way, information spans the disparate fields of space computing, classical physics, molecular biology and human communication, the evolution of language and the evolution of man. Nature can no longer be seen as matter and energy, but must be interpreted as matter, energy and information. (Campbell, Jeremy, 1982)

The universe is a physical system that contains bits of information. Every elementary particle carries bits of information. Electrons carrying information interact in a systematic way to perform a quantum logic operation. A computer and our mobile phones work like the universe because they are part of the universe and to work they must obey the same physical laws. Computers and the universe are information processors. Quantum computing is currently possible because of information, the universe already works this way. (Lloyd, Seth, 2016) 

Quantum information processing analyses the universe in terms of information: the universe consists not only of photons, electrons, neutrinos and quarks, but also of quantum bits or qubits. Professor Lloyd says that the universe is a gigantic computer, which processes information in quantum bits (qubits). Cosmologist Paul Davies says: “Instead of seeing matter as the primary substance of the universe, we think that information is the primary substance of the universe.” (Davies, Paul, 2020)

The universe, a computer, the human body, the environment, a shipping or tank storage company; all living systems are information carriers, receptors and/or transmitters dependent on communication. The information they carry can be understood as meaning, observed and grasped by the human consciousness and processed by its brain. Without the human ability to interpret information and meaning, the usefulness (functionality) of bits of information could not have been observed.

The first entry point of information is the human observation by subconscious and conscious perception ability. Therefore it is of crucial importance how man interprets the information, because what it means to him or her will ‘in-form i.e. give form’ to one’s lived reality. A false perception by misunderstanding or deliberately invoked by lies or propaganda causes man to make choices that may be or become harmful to life, the environment and social cohesion.

For our bulk storage and transport industries, learning about this exciting theory has proven to be very useful. All you have to do is to measure the available quantity of quality in your organisation and start using all of it. This will mitigate risk and improve HSEQ and operational excellence. The research is ongoing. If you want to learn more please visit www.sustenance4all.com.

This is the latest in a monthly series of articles by Arend van Campen, founder of TankTerminalTraining, who can be contacted at arendvc@tankterminaltraining.com. More information on the company’s activities can be found at www.tankterminaltraining.com.