Mike Levey: "Environmental Clean-Up Can Be Profitable"
Mike Levey - Envorem Technical Director
The co-founder and technology director at Envorem, Mike Levey, is a long-standing environmentalist who believes that oil sludge clean-up is not only possible but profitable. In this interview with Envorem News, he explains why.
Envorem News: You’ve been described as an environmental forerunner. How did your interest in ecology and your commitment to conservation start?
Mike Levey: As a scientist, I believe technology can deliver solutions. These are certainly needed in today’s world. There has never been a time in history when the rate of carbon dioxide has been so high. We need a rapid decline in the combustion of hydrocarbons, more than ever, to stop temperatures from rising.
Back in the 90s my daughters became concerned about the environmental impact of human activity, prompting them to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle. Witnessing their passion, I felt I needed to play a greater role, based on the premise that as people became more aware of the horrendous environmental problems caused by human activities, companies would be more than willing to pay for the cleanup of pollution arising from their activities. I believed that this represented a massive market opportunity.
However, a few years ago, my younger daughter, then in her mid-30s, remarked, "Dad, you entered the environmental space 25 years too early!" Nevertheless, I am pleased to have developed methods utilising different technologies to help rehabilitate the environment and significantly reduce hydrocarbon pollution.
Envorem News: Tell us a bit about your academic background....
Mike Levey: I have a BSC (Hons) degree in Physics from Imperial College London, but my working background covers a host of things. I’ve worked as a chemist, biochemist, computer systems designer and materials management specialist. I also have extensive experience in the treatment, recovery and recycling of industrial process and wastewater.
Envorem News: You are also highly respected for your medical discovery concerning treating hospital superbugs.
Mike Levey: 20 years ago, I was one of the founders of Pharmaceutica. Where the team of scientists that I was leading discovered that superbug antibiotic resistance could be reversed using certain chemicals derived from an amino acid called glycine. It was all over the news media at the time, including in The New Scientist where our findings were reported in an article entitled: Antibiotic-boosting drug kills superbugs.
While this may not sound like a conservation project, it was all part of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) which is related to the overuse and misuse of antibiotics and the quest to find sustainable solutions. Since then, I have been actively involved in bioremediation, the process of using microorganisms to consume and break down organic environmental pollutants, including hydrocarbons. One of the technologies I developed for this utilises certain molecules extracted from particular species of seaweeds..
Envorem News: So, given your background as an environmental advocate, your notable efforts in combating superbugs, and your leadership role in various businesses, how did you come to be involved in starting Envorem?
Mike Levey: I met Mark Batt-Rawden several years ago on a project where he enlisted my technological advice, and this ultimately led to us pooling our collective concerns for the environment. Mark, like me, has always viewed new technology as a game changer for climate change and was looking for an effective way to clean up oil sludge and eliminate lagoons.
I had previously investigated several ways to assist major oil and gas producers to deal with the large volumes of highly polluting wastes arising from oil and gas production, such as oily waste sludges, which are frequently discarded to local environments with disastrous consequences. We discovered that we were working towards similar goals and that when we combined our ideas, we were able to come up with a radical technological solution to remediate these wastes, which was both highly cost-effective, able to handle large throughputs and therefore good for the environment.
Envorem News: Sounds like this could be a huge breakthrough for the Oil and Gas Industry?
Mike Levey: Indeed, especially since we have devised a way to harness the destructive energies released by certain physical phenomena to remediate and actually recover viable crude oil hydrocarbons from the highly polluting wastes, at lower cost than extracting new crude oil from wells. We believe that this is a “true game changer” for the Industry, where materials previously discarded as wastes should actually be treated as valuable resources, which can be processed to generate profit. You can see the before and after photographs from our successfully completed demonstration project in the Middle East.
As The Oman Observer reports, we have pushed the boundaries of technology in a number of areas. (See New technology to treat sludge and oil-contaminated soil in Oman.) Our innovative green technology solution uses very little energy to disassemble production waste sludges, completely clean hydrocarbon contaminated solids and recover the entrained crude oil for use – all with minimal energy consumption or generating large carbon disoxide emissions. We call it the Envorem Oil Remediation System.
Mike Levey (Technical Director) and Mark Batt-Rawden (Managing Director) talking at Envorem Labs
Envorem News: So how have you specifically contributed to the project?
Mike Levey: What I brought to Envorem is the ability to harness a physical phenomenon called ‘Hydrodynamic Cavitation’. This occurs when a liquid rapidly transitions from a region of very high pressure into a region of low pressure, below its vapour pressure. This results in the production of vast numbers of micro-vapour bubbles, which immediately collapse resulting in localised releases of large amounts of energy across microscopic distances. Hydrodynamic cavitation is something that engineers usually fear, because it has been seen to severely damage propellers on ships, pump impellers, valves and pipework, and concrete dam spillways. However, when they are correctly harnessed the otherwise highly destructive energy releases by Hydrodynamic Cavitation have incredibly useful applications.
Envorem News: This could be highly beneficial for oil companies, right?
Mike Levey: Yes, there are massive opportunities and not just for oil companies. Our system can also be packaged to very effectively recover heavy fuel oils from the sludges that are separated on board ships to avoid damage to the engines, thereby improving vessel operating costs for shipping companies to recover.
The harnessing of carefully controlled Hydrodynamic Cavitation and its focussed application in our systems, enables us to recover the major of crude and other heavy oils from wastes in sufficient quantity and of a high enough quality to enable it to be refined and sold thereby ensuring that our process is not only economically viable, but it is profitable. Furthermore, the sediments are largely clean enough for return to the environment and all water used in the process can be recycled. So, it is a win-win process all round.
Envorem News: So how are you winning oil companies over?
An increasing number of major oil companies are now being obliged by the enactment of local laws to address the environmental issues caused by both current and historic oil and gas production waste streams. In fact, in the short to medium term, Envorem’s technology offers the opportunity to profitably recover crude and other heavy oils from wastes with much lower carbon emissions than can be achieved with new production and so offering hydrocarbon production companies an important pathway forwards on their routes to decarbonisation. It should be noted that “the decarbonisation of the energy system of today” was a central issue at Cop28. (See Envorem & COP28: Aligning Green Tech Milestones.)
Envorem emphasises the value (and hence profit) that is there to be extracted from these oil production waste streams. You only need to look at a satellite image of the Middle East and you will see vast numbers of such production waste lagoons, which represent a major, untapped revenue stream, with the added advantage the local environments are clean-up and remediated.
Envorem News: What then are the financial benefits of using the Envorem Remediation System?
Mike Levey: Envorem’s focus is on providing systems that enable our clients to generate profits from previously discarded production wastes and therefore directly enhance the financial values of their production assets, thereby making it financially advantageous for corporations to adopt our systems. At the same time, the utilisation of Envorem’s remediation systems enables businesses to demonstrably reduce their environmental impacts, whilst offering improved returns to their shareholders.
The market potential is enormous. Envorem has probably the most cost-effective solution for processing materials containing significant concentrations of heavy hydrocarbons and crude oil materials and turning them into products. In doing so, Envorem not only contributes to environmental clean-up, but also makes doing so a profitable opportunity. Companies are more inclined to adopt technologies that address environmental concerns in a manner which directly contributes to their profitability.
Envorem News: Looking back at all you and Mark have achieved as founders, you must have high hopes for the future?
Mike Levey: We believe we’re headed for explosive growth. Envorem has already received significant investment, and the deployment of our systems to the major oil producing countries in the Middle East and beyond is going to require more funding, which presents a major opportunity for large-scale investors.
We have developed a revolutionary technology and have a highly professional team that now needs to grow exponentially. We are also building an international team with the right credentials to enter into those economic environmental conversations.
Ultimately, the major oil and gas companies will quickly realise that they have major hydrocarbon resources tied up in their waste deposits that they have never considered as production assets, which are incredibly low cost to exploit compared with bringing a new oilfield onstream. Further, it is now possible using Envorem’s technology to commence production from these assets in a small fraction of the time (only months instead of years), and with a much lower capital investment than it would take to bring a new production asset (oilfield) on stream!
Environmental clean-up and remediation of oil and gas production wastes, is not only the right thing to do, it can also be major income generator. If you would like to discuss the potential of utilising Envorem’s systems, please get in touch.
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