What Lurks Beneath: How Robots Can Save City Plumbing with Vanessa Speight
Listen now
Description
In this episode, we’re going underground, undersea and into your water and sewer pipelines with science fiction’s favorite problem-solvers…robots! Jay sits down with Vanessa Speight, a professor of Integrated Water Systems at the University of Sheffield, to learn how new, spider-like robots have the potential to locate and fix leaks in aging water pipes.    Jay and Vanessa discuss when we might actually see these pipe-traveling bots in action and what they can realistically do for developing nations, where drinking water loss can be as much as 70 per cent due to aging and unmaintained systems.    In our Last Word, professor Lucian Busoniu tells us about SeaClear, a project funded by the European Union, building the first fleet of autonomous robots to collect litter from the ocean floor.   
More Episodes
What happens when we change our relationship to water? Can we stop trying to control water and just go with the flow? Erica Gies, environmental journalist, National Geographic Explorer, and author of Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge sits down with host Jay Famiglietti...
Published 07/22/24
The Endhó Dam north of Mexico City has been called “the largest septic tank in the world” and “Mexico’s toilet bowl”. Once designed to solve water problems in the region, it now receives wastewater from local industry and Mexico City.    Arizona State University doctoral students Raquel Neri, in...
Published 07/22/24