Alberta Inventors and Inventions

When it comes to size, Daniel Kwok's engineering project is strictly small-scale. Actually, make that nano-scale. Dr. Kwok is a mechanical engineer who is in the midst of developing technology that could put Alberta in the forefront of an emerging industry with huge global potential, according to science and engineering heavyweights.

As an Alberta Ingenuity Establishment Grant recipient, Kwok works out of the recently opened nanofabrication centre at the University of Alberta's new $65-million Electrical and Computer Engineering Research Facility. His goal is to literally create a "lab-on-a-chip", using self-propelled droplets in a microchannel for biomedical applications, specifically for blood analysis. In simplified terms, Kwok says, the "lab", a two centimetre by five centimetre square, consists of tiny micro channels, much like water pipes. The blood molecules move from one part, to other parts, of the chip through the channels, interacting with other molecules on the chip to test for disease or various conditions. Kwok says his research also has important potential applications in the oil and gas industry, for instance, to improve the process of water separation from oil.

Kwok is only one of a number of top researchers who have chosen to work out of the University of Alberta and are contributing to engineering excellence in the province.

Engineering is an important contributor to Alberta's GDP, generating $1.65 billion in 1999 out of a total of $20.8 billion revenue from all the major service sectors (according to the latest numbers available, as provided by Alberta Economic Development and Alberta International and Intergovernmental Relations). The international export of engineering services totalled $152.5 million in revenue while $91.5 million of Alberta engineering services were sold in areas across the country.

Revenues for engineering services in 1999 were almost doubled from 1995. About $30 million worth of revenue resulted from the outsourcing of the Alberta Transportation and Utilities consulting work previously done within the department. In addition, there is a significant revenue number which is not recorded as engineering services revenue since it falls under other categories such as architecture, construction and oil and gas services.

Naturally, Alberta's track record in oil and gas technology has become a major reason for attracting international business, but the scope of engineering services has widened considerably, as the above example demonstrates. Stantec Inc., one of Alberta's best known engineering firms, provides several other examples of diversification. Dr. Don Stanley, Harvard environmental engineering graduate, (in fact, the first environmental graduate at the school) formed the company in Edmonton in 1954. Through its first 20 years, Dr. Stanley Associates took on mainly municipal and wastewater projects and by 1967, the company landed its first international project, a sewage system for Kuala Lumpur.

Over the next decade, through acquisition and expansion, the company moved into other areas of engineering, such as transportation, taking part in the development of Calgary and Edmonton's Light Rail Transit (LRT) system. Stantec's president and CEO, Tony Franceschini, says the company's involvement in that project came about as a result of taking advantage of the specific situations presented by the two Alberta centres.

It was population density, he says. "Cities like Toronto and Montreal had gone to heavy rail as opposed to light rail. Heavy rail technology is more robust to serve higher density cities, but also twice as expensive because it's meant to move larger numbers of people. Because of our land use, we were ideal candidates to adapt European-type transportation, which we did. Today, we're still working on the Calgary and Edmonton systems, but we're also involved with LRT projects in Arizona, North Carolina and other areas."

Stantec has also gone on to work internationally in its original area of expertise - environmental technology - with recent contracts for biological nutrient removal plants in New York and Missoula, Mont., as well as an undersea horizontal well drilling process for a Barbados sewerage system. Franceschini says fully half of Stantec's business comes from the U.S.

Multidiscipline engineering firm Techna-West Engineering Ltd. is also making international inroads. The company was recently recognized by the Consulting Engineers of Alberta with an Award of Excellence for its work on the Lehigh Cement Plant modernization at Union Bridge, Md. Considered North America's largest cement plant (6,000 tonnes of production per day), it was built on an 18-month, fast track plan.

Techna-West chairman Janko Misic says that the $300-million Maryland project landed on his desk through referrals from earlier work with similar plants in Edmonton and feels it's the company's ability to work with other project participants that is responsible for continuing contracts.

"On this particular project," Misic says, "we worked with four other U.S.-based consulting firms. We were responsible for certain areas of the Maryland project – I would say about 25% of the total project. There definitely areas in material handling and structural engineering that were unique to this project."

As a mid- to small-sized consulting firm, Techna-West developed its reputation over the past 25 years by cultivating contracts with major corporations such Suncor, despite the fact it has been one of the smallest engineering companies to do business with the oil-sands giant. With a judicious diversification plan, Techna-West has reduced its dependency on Suncor, which once provided 40% to 50% of its revenues.

"We were tempted to go to the U.S.," Misic says. "A few of our shareholders said we should open a smaller office there but we didn't want to go through disorderly growth. We wanted to make sure it was done in a sustainable manner. We really do believe that bigger doesn't necessarily mean better."

Employing that philosophy successfully, Techna-West has completed projects in Cuba, Chile and European countries, including Manchester, England.

It might be naturally assumed that the U.S. would be Alberta's largest export recipient of engineering services, but that's not the case. In fact, the largest market in that sector has been China, where firms earned an average of $337,000 annually in 1999, while Russian clients paid Canadian firms $218,000 annually on average and the U.S. paid $211,000 annually to Canadian firms.

Calgary engineering firm Colder Associates Ltd. has its foot in the door of the Chinese market through the supply of a real-time, decision-support software system developed for the Yangtze River. The software has helped to prevent possible flood damage to the Sihu Basin of Hubei Province.

There's no question, however, that Alberta's expertise in the petroleum industry has paved the way for export of engineering services. Ferguson Simek dark (Alberta) Ltd. was recently awarded contracts to build an arena and hangar, as well as a fish processing plant, schools and daycare centre in Siberia. FSC landed those jobs as result of permafrost experience which translated to work on an air terminal in northern Russia in the 1990s.

Alberta companies have also benefited from decades of pipeline design and construction. Hydroconsult ENS Services Ltd. of Calgary has a number of pipeline projects on the go in South America, while UMA Engineering Ltd. is responsible for developing an oilsands extraction process now being used in Queensland, Australia.

While oil and gas technologies have played a major role in introducing the Alberta engineering sector to the global marketplace, other engineering-related sectors are stepping up to maintain a leading edge and to focus on the future. As Stantec's Tony Franceschini explains, funding of research outside of the private sector can make a crucial difference.

"I think, socially, the structure in Alberta and Canada has been beneficial," he says. "Government-funded programs don't always have to immediately justify the cash investment. In other words, you can germinate innovation by being able to experiment with different kinds of things. Even the development of the LRT was a result, to some extent, because of the way we funded public projects in Canada during the 1970s and 1980s. The U.S. just did not have the tax structures or funding to make that happen."

It's not necessarily that we're ahead technologically, Franceshini says, but that companies can take advantage of certain situations which materialize. He also points out a common element of engineering innovation is the involvement of universities. The universities' role is to do basic research and, occasionally, it has commercial application.

"Most firms can't afford to do that on their own because of the cost structure," Franceshini says. "There's generally no big payback for engineering as opposed to a sector such as pharmaceuticals, for example. So, having a working relationship with universities is essential."

Daniel Kwok agrees that the climate in Alberta is a strong attraction for top engineering researchers. Kwok, is a former Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto, with completion of his Postdocterate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"I had several offers from the U.S. but I liked the conditions in Canada better. For one thing," he says, "the research environment here is different than the U.S. Operating expenses are cheaper- you aren't responsible for living or tuition expenses for student staff members. And another factor in Alberta is major support like the Alberta Ingenuity fund. Not only does it support five of my student researchers, but I am also supported through the Ingenuity Establishment fund."

Alberta Ingenuity is the trade name of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Science and Engineering Research, established in 2000 to manage an endowment of $500 million.

That same fund is assisting geotechnical engineer Dr. Jocelyn Grozic, who is setting up her lab at the University of Calgary to conduct beginning-stage research into natural gas hydrates trapped in soil and rock formations beneath the earth's surface. Grozic believes if technology can be developed to extract the methane within the hydrates, there's a potential windfall of energy to be exploited. Canada's north has an abundant supply of this substance as does Japan.

After completing her doctorate at the University of Alberta, Grozic spent research time in Norway and has now returned to continue her work in Calgary.

"We're working in conjunction with Japan -they're relying on us," Grozic says. "They're funding some of the experimental wells in Canada but Calgary has the technology and we have one of the top hydrate researchers who has been studying this subject area since the 1970s." Perhaps Alberta Ingenuity president Bill Bridger, a former U of A medical/chemistry researcher and vice-president, research, University of Western Ontario, puts it most succinctly when he says he thinks Alberta retains its competitive edge through a combination of research and risk. "In Alberta, it seems to be OK to take risks," he says, "and if you invest in new knowledge it pays off in the long run."

"Applied Innovation"