GROOVY GREENS - tuv-sud.co.uk · GROOVY GREENS Aside from looking good, this lettuce was grown in a very special way—namely without sunlight or soil. And it’s bringing hope for

GROOVY GREENSAside from looking good, this lettuce was grown in a very special way—namely without sunlight or soil. And it’s bringing hope for a new, resource-conserving

and local way of farming.

THE MAGAZINE OF THE TÜV SÜD GROUP — 02_2018

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DEAR READERS,

The world population continues to grow and grow. The United Nations expects it to rise to between nine and ten billion people by the year 2050, at least two-thirds of whom will probably be living in major cities. The majority of these high-population urban centers will be located in developing and emerging countries. Supplying them with food will become an increasing logistical challenge. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if fresh produce could be produced lo-cally, directly in the cities themselves? Without long transport routes and exactly where the customers are located? While conserving resources as much as possible?

This vision is the promise behind vertical farming—in large, windowless halls under precisely controlled environmental conditions, lettuces and various vegetables are grown on shelves stacked atop one another. These halls could theoretically be located almost anywhere: in metropolises as well as on the subpolar tundra or in desert regions.

This cultivation is ecological because it re-quires less water, less soil and fewer pesticides than outdoor farming. And if the energy re-quired for lighting and climate controls is generated by wind or the sun, the operation of such facilities can also be climate-neutral. Instead of the sun, by the way, special LED lamps provide exactly the right light spectrum the plants need for optimal growth. TÜV SÜD is also involved with this innovation: in a company laboratory, we inspect the LEDs that simu-late daylight in these greenhouses of the future.

Sincerely,

PROF. DR.-ING. AXEL STEPKENChairman of the Board of Management, TÜV SÜD AG

02_2018

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02 ABOUT TRUST 02_2018

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ABOUTTRUST.TUV-SUD.COM

UP AND AROUND

Airport runways for take-offs and landings have been ramrod straight for ages—but for how much longer? The re-searcher Henk Hesselink has a vision of round runways.tuv-sud.com/abouttrust/ 18_2/endlessrunway

STRAIGHT DOWN

Once a year, TÜV SÜD employee Karl Schneider has a special mission: in the Salt Mine Berchtesgaden, he inspects the electrotechnology in the shafts and tunnels—we accompanied him.tuv-sud.com/abouttrust/18_2/saltmine

OUR COVEREndive actually needs a lot of sun, water and time to grow into a lovely head of lettuce. With vertical farming, it needs a lot less of everything—thanks also to LED lamps, which immerse the healthy greens in blue light, as seen on our cover.

ORDERING ISSUESYou can easily order previous issues online at:tuv-sud.com/publications

YOUR OPINIONDo you have questions, critique, praise or com-ments about this issue? Then write to [email protected]

06BIM’S BUILDING BOOM

DIGITAL TWINS—digital copies of technical facilities—are standard in many indus-tries. They’ve now reached the construc-tion industry.

14“AND, BOOM, YOU’RE WORLD CHAMPION” With the upcoming World Cup, PROF. PAUL HOYNINGEN-HUENE talks about the con-nections between soccer and society and why a clear system of rules is necessary.

28ELECTRIFYING ELEMENTS

The important role that the four elements— earth, water, air and fire—will be playing in the ENERGY STORAGE of the future. Find out more here.

20GENIUS GREEN GIANT

Growing vegetables using VERTICAL FARMING could ensure a more ecological, safe and local agriculture in megacities and remote areas in the years to come.

3210 YEARS TÜV HESSEN KIDS The idea: teaching schoolchildren interest-ing facts about technical things. TÜV KIDS is celebrating its first decade this year.

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04 In Brief05 Vision13 Just One Word18 Inside View27 Media Corner34 Finally Explained34 Publication Details35 Worth A Thousand Words

Interested in more? On our website, there are these stories and more:

TAKE PART!Contest on page 27

03ABOUT TRUST 02_2018

Construction has been underway since April 2018, and in two years the new buil-ding will be ready for occupancy: TÜV SÜD is currently investing in a new regional headquarters in Singapore. The new buil-ding in the International Business Park will replace the current headquarters, near the National University of Singapore, and offers plenty of room for offices and laboratories, with nearly 19,000 m² of space—almost as large as two city blocks in Manhattan. The approximately six hundred TÜV SÜD employees in Singapore will be working in very modern but also very sustainable rooms: the new building will fulfill the rigo-rous Green Mark Platinum Standard estab-lished by the Singapore government. This new building means that TÜV SÜD conti-nues to rely on a strong corporate presence in Singapore, the “Smart Nation.” Back in 2016, TÜV SÜD opened a Digital Service Center of Excellence, a massive investment in the development of technologies and promotion of talent on digital topics. In this

NEW BUILDING FOR ASIAN HQ IN SINGAPORE

The Charter of Trust is an initiative started by the technology corporation Siemens to set up binding rules and standards for cy-bersecurity. The group has a new member as of May 2018: TÜV SÜD. At an event in Washington D.C., the company joined the charter alongside several other newcomers: technology conglomerate Cisco, computer technology multinational Dell, and the oil and gas company Total. The charter was initially drawn up in Feb-ruary 2018 at the Munich Security Confe-rence; first signees included Airbus, Daimler and IBM. The security alliance now includes sixteen companies that have joined forces to

“TÜV FOR ARTIFICAL

INTELLIGENCE”

innovation center the company is involved with pilot projects on highly automated driving and with advanced manufacturing, to name just a few areas. Aside from this, TÜV SÜD has also opened a center that is demonstrating new ways forward in pre-ventative health care and elder care.

COOPERATING FOR MORE CYBERSECURITY

The German Research Center for Artificial In-telligence (DFKI) and TÜV SÜD have entered into a cooperation to cer-tify artificial intelligence systems being used for autonomous driving and to develop a “TÜV for Algorithms” inspection standard. To achieve this the specialists are cur-rently researching a sys-tem’s learning behavior to be able to control its reactions. The center-piece of the cooperation is the development of an open platform for manu-facturers, suppliers and technology companies. This digital platform, cal-led Genesis, will eventual-ly validate artificial intelli-gence modules, thereby creating the foundation for certifications.

promote the security of digital applications. “Cybersecurity will become the linchpin for a dependable, sustainable and secure eco-nomy,” said TÜV SÜD Chairman of the Board Prof. Axel Stepken (at left in the photo). “We’re pleased to be a member of the Char-ter of Trust and to be able to contribute to this initiative with our protection of critical systems and large amounts of sensitive data.” P

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I N B R I E F

A sensor pill, including a built-in tracking device, is intended to help remind patients to take their medicines—however, its effectiveness and questions of data protection remain unclear.

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M ichael Birnbaum is fami-liar with the problems of medications: patients

know it’s important to take them, but often forget to do so. This is particularly true for his own pati-ents, people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorders. Nonetheless, Birnbaum, the director of the Early Treatment Program for Psychoses at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, has high hopes for the future. He says: “The advent of innovative technological tools is ubiquitous and will help us advance medical treatments.”

While big topics such as smart healthcare or telemedicine dominate headlines, doctors are focusing primarily on ultra-tiny nanosensors. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved just such a pill for the first time. The pill has

an integrated sensor that re-cords if and when it is taken. This medication system, developed by the Japanese pharmaceuticals company Otsuka Pharmaceutical, is intended to help treat schizo-phrenia, bipolar disorder and de-pression in adults. The pill without the sensor technology was first approved for treating schizophre-nia in 2002.

Once taken, the pill’s sensor sends a signal to a patch on the patient’s skin. According to the manufacturer, the sensor “is the size of a grain of sand and con-tains ingredients that are found in food.” The sensor activates upon contact with stomach fluids and then communicates with the patch. Eventually the sensor is di-gested and excreted by the body.

While the sensor is active, the smart patch recognizes and

saves the date and time the tablet was detected in the stomach—and sends all of this data to an app on a compatible mobile device. The web-based platform, extolled as safe by the company, provides the doctor, caregivers and family members access to the data through the app. How-ever, experts consider the data security of such apps to be not yet fully developed, a particular concern in the case of sensitive medical data.

And whether or not the sensor pill can actually improve pill-taking habits will only become clear from practical experience. Still, doctors such as Michael Birnbaum from New York are optimistic: “It’s only a question of time before new technologies will revolutionize behavior-oriented health care.”


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“Digital twins”—digital copies of technical facilities—have been standard in many

industries for some time. Now this technology has also reached the construction industry. The pledge: to make complex building and

infrastructure projects easier to plan and cheaper to operate.

Text Tino Scholz

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STUDIES SHOW THAT PLANNERS WHO DON’T RELY ON BIM COULD BE PUSHED OUT OF THE MARKET.

NEW FREEDOMThe Freedom Tower in New York City was one of the first internation-ally renowned building projects that used BIM technology. “The breakthrough,” says Phil Bernstein from BIM provider Autodesk.

Building information modeling describes the increasing digitization in the construc-tion industry. However BIM, the digital twin of the object to be built, is much more than just a digital 2D or 3D model. A true BIM model is made up of the virtual equiv-alents of the actual sections of the building as well as the parts required to build them. All the elements have all the characteris-tics—both physical and logical—of their real counterparts. These smart elements are the digital prototypes of the building’s physical elements, such as walls, supports, windows, doors, stairs, etc. And these digi-tal prototypes make it possible to simulate the building and its behavior and also to understand it, to test it and to optimize it even before the building actually gets built.

This virtual preplanning allows po-tential mistakes to be spotted long be-fore the first ground is broken. All of the construction partners have access to the models and data, which are continually augmented and further updated over the project’s entire duration. And this data is extremely useful for later renovations and refurbishments. Unlike blueprints, which are just filed away, the data for the digital twin is continually updated.

The digital twin isn’t something com-pletely new, of course. In aerospace, in machine engineering and auto-mobile manufacturing and in elec-

I n the end, it was just a random coinci-dence that sparked the surge of inter-est in the innovation. Phil Bernstein

was sitting in a plane, as he so often did, and started a conversation with the person sitting next to him: the lead architect for the Freedom Tower—the skyscraper that since 2014 has stood on the site of the de-stroyed World Trade Center in New York City—which was under construction at the time. Bernstein worked for the American software corporation Autodesk, which spe-cializes in digital 2D and 3D design, includ-ing for building construction. So the two spoke about the challenges that concerned the architect, and eventually landed on the topic of underground construction, a very complex task fraught with many uncertain-ties and highly prone to error—but Bern-stein had an answer. He suggested to his seatmate that he use a digital methodology that we know today as building informa-tion modeling, or BIM.

Autodesk and the architects of the Freedom Tower subsequently worked very successfully together. The Wall Street Jour-nal even published an article about it. “Ho-nestly, nearly every partner of ours from the architectural field came to us, the ar-ticle in hand, and asked: ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’” Bernstein recalls. And this was how the digital transformation in buil-ding construction began to spread, at first primarily in the United States. “The Free-dom Tower,” Bernstein says with confiden-ce, “was the breakthrough for BIM in our entire industry.”

In hindsight, to speak of a break-through is perhaps a bit exaggerated. But today, twelve years after that coincidental meeting on the plane, even if digital twins may not be ubiquitous in the construction in-dustry, there is definitely evidence of a small boom. According to a study by the strategy consulting firm Roland Berger, the market for BIM applications is expected to quadru-ple—from $2.7 billion USD in 2014 to about $11.5 billion by 2022. And the study warns that construction companies that don’t uti-lize this technology will be at a disadvantage: “BIM is increasingly becoming the standard for the building industry. Without access to this system, companies will be driven out of the market over the medium term because coordination processes with them will be more time and cost intensive.” P

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trotechnology, 3D-based planning has been around for a long time, particularly for virtual prototypes.

As Norbert Rupp, director of TÜV SÜD’s Building Advisory Services business unit explains: “Using this process for mass pro-duction is more obvious. If I’m producing a million parts, it’s better to be very meticu-lous beforehand. Building contractors are increasingly realizing that they have these possibilities as well—and that the topic is becoming more and more important.”

Rupp knows this field inside and out—supporting building contrac-tors in building management is one of TÜV SÜD’s well-established services. “Now we’re extending this into the BIM future and offering added digital value for our cus-

tomers in this arena,” Rupp explains. “It’s a mixture of how BIM works and how build-ing contractors can use it to reap its bene-fits. We supervise and provide advice along the entire building cycle. We’re well aware that BIM is something new, but it’s also a good thing. And we help ensure that this innovation provides real additional value.”

It is above all the transformation to smart, digital cities—with their net-worked infrastructure and buildings—that has made these changes necessary. “In construction it is more about creat-ing an intrinsically functioning system,” says Virtual Environments Team Leader Günter Wenzel at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering. He researches and develops the benefits of BIM software.

KEEP CALM AND CARRY PASSENGERSThe Crossrail Project—which will later be known as the Elizabeth line in honor of the British mon-arch and will connect Heathrow Airport to the city center—is being built in London with the assis- tance of a digital twin. P

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BIM AT A GLANCE – WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

1. EFFICIENCYWith a model used by all par-ticipants, there is no longer a need for a lot of rework-ing or repeated creation of new drawings due to various stakeholder demands. The model contains more infor-mation than a set of drawings and simplifies cooperation, since all participants share their complex project models and can coordinate the in-tegration with other project participants.

2. COLLISION PREVENTIONCollision recognition for elec-tricity conduits and pipes that impact structural support elements can be automated with BIM tools. Modeling beforehand allows conflicts to be recognized early in the process and therefore mini-mizes costly problems on the construction site.

3. ALWAYS AND EVERY-WHEREThe additional benefit of a model linked to a database is the constant availability of a comprehensive body of knowledge. In combina-tion with cloud functions, users have access to the model and the project details wherever they are and from almost any device.

running according to plan thanks to BIM.The chemical company BASF is

also relying on BIM—and the expertise of TÜV SÜD—to build a clean room in a new laboratory building. “This clean room serves as a reference model for BASF on the effectiveness of BIM,” Rupp says. “We’re helping them with the fundamentals in particular. We’ve developed standards that all participants must adhere to. Right now we’re getting the first digital results that we’re examining.” For a meat processing plant for Rewe, a German supermarket chain, TÜV SÜD is working on the build-ing’s thermal simulation. “With the digital twin, we can simulate cycles within the plant,” Rupp explains. “For meat processing it’s about optimal tem-

“In the construction industry, buildings and infrastructure are becoming increasingly networked with each other. Energy man-agement and mobility are just two aspects of this. Nowadays it’s no longer possible to consider a building as a singular entity; it requires a digital model.”

This is demonstrated by several glob-al examples, such as the Shanghai Tower, which is more than 600 meters tall and was completed in 2014. Thanks to the use of a digital twin, not only was this mega-project completed on time, there were also large savings in both materials and work-ing hours—32 percent for the material costs. Crossrail, in turn, a transport project adding around 118 kilometers of railway tracks through the greater London area, is P

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perature controls in all areas of the building. Therefore we’re answer-ing the question of how the cooling

systems can function safely and reliably.” BIM has conquered the world, albeit

not comprehensively. Scandinavia is con-sidered one of the early adopters in us-ing building information modeling. The magazine NBS International BIM Report notes that digital twins are being used in four of five public construction projects in Denmark. Canada, Great Britain and Japan follow in the rankings. And Ger-many? “Progress is being made,” Wenzel says. “Germany isn’t lagging nearly as far behind as everyone claims.”

Right now Germany is trying to catch up on what it missed in the early phase of BIM adoption. The Federal Republic has put together a three-step plan to follow in the footsteps of BIM pioneers such as Great Britain and Scandinavia. The goal of the phased plan is that BIM will regularly be used for planning and realizing major infrastructure projects of the German Fed-eral Ministry of Transport and Digital In-frastructure by the year 2020.

By the target date of 2020, a number of pilot projects will help to gather experi-ence with the practical application of BIM. One project is the Rastatt Tunnel, a high-speed railway tunnel more than 4 kilo-meters long that is being built completely underneath Rastatt, a town in Baden-Würt-temberg near the French border. Another is the Auenbachtal Bridge for Federal High-way 107 in Saxony, where BIM is helping to ensure optimal coordination among the individual technical planners.

That BIM’s use in Germany hasn’t yet moved beyond such pilot projects is also related to the still-prevailing fears many building contractors have. Some of them continue to feel that using a digital twin represents an unknown risk. Yet the opposite is true: BIM ensures that contrac-tors achieve greater cost certainties and minimize risks. “The rather conservative construction industry, which has worked according to fixed patterns for decades, must now reorganize itself to a large ex-tent,” Rupp says. “That they’re somewhat hesitant to do so is completely understand-able. It’s not as if participating companies can purchase a standard software package they’re familiar with and immediately un-

derstand how it all works. But that’s where a company like TÜV SÜD can provide ef-ficient support.”

Rupp is fairly certain that such exper-tise will be in demand in the future, much more than is currently the case. “We are already noticing an increase in inquiries,” Rupp says, “but we also see it at industry gatherings.” In late March he was in Cannes at the MiPIM, Europe’s largest international property trade show, with around 20,000 attendees. Investors, builders, architects, planners—they were all there. And ev-eryone was talking about BIM. “That was really noticeable and shows the direction things are going,” Rupp says. “The overall tenor was: companies that don’t start im-mediately dealing with the topic will find themselves left behind in five years.”

SOME CONTRACTORS STILL FEEL THAT THEY’D BE TAKING A RISK—YET THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE.


JUST ONE WORD

MICHAEL STRASSER, AGED 35, is a profes-sional extreme athlete from Vienna who espe-cially enjoys cycling and triathlons. He is also a book author and lecturer.

A t the end of July, I’ll be at the northernmost point of Alaska, in Prudhoe Bay. I’ll hop on my bi-

cycle, put on my helmet and take a deep breath. In front of me is a route of 24,000 kilometers—I’ll be riding to Patagonia along the Pan-American Highway, cross-ing the entire North and South American continents. Amateur cyclists need be-tween two and three years to complete the journey, but in the best case I’ll need fewer than one hundred days.

My goal is to break the current re-cord of 117 days. This challenge is the logical continuation of my athletic ambi-tions, ambitions I’ve been pursuing for a long time. Most recently in 2016, when I set a world record by cycling 11,000 ki-lometers from Cairo to Cape Town in just 35 days. For me it’s about seeing how far I can push my own limits.

The public will see me as a lone warrior, as someone seemingly left to his own devices. But hardly anyone notices the complex planning behind this sort of project. Without the will, there’s no way—but without the planning, there’s no way either. I’ve spent two years working with ten volunteers planning this tour.

Navigating it all is a challenge: across fourteen countries, there are plenty of rules to be respected. Sometimes I’m allowed to bicycle on highways, sometimes it’s pro-hibited. Therefore a team from Austria is coordinating my route—so that my four support workers and I can focus on the riding when we’re there. It’s also impor-

tant for my timing. The plan is that I will leave North America in the Northern Hemi-sphere at the end of the summer and reach Patagonia in the Southern Hemisphere at the start of spring. I can achieve my best performance when the weather is warm.

My daily routines will be as metic-ulously timed as they are flexible. On a perfect day, I can ride four hundred ki-lometers. But it’s difficult to calculate for uncertainties. There can be less head-wind and good roads—then I can ride further. If I’m having a bad day, I have to take more breaks. Road closures are un-foreseeable, aside from which I’m riding during the hurricane season. I can be as well prepared as possible, but if a hurri-cane is looming, I’m powerless. So it’s al-ways a mix of strategy and flexibility that is the key to success.

I’m already looking forward to the fi-nal meters. I dream of setting a new world record, how the strains and tribulations of the tour will all be worth it in those final moments. Until that time, there’s a long road ahead, but I’m optimistic: I could hardly be better prepared.

Mr. Strasser, what do you think about …

PLANNING?

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unprecedented, world-spanning and independent of social class and age. Indeed, there are just two “continents” that haven’t been permeated by it.

Namely? Antarctica. And women.

Women?In fact, many more men are in-terested in soccer than women are. Why this is the case ulti-mately cannot be answered. Per-haps it’s because soccer is a mil-itant competition—something that may not be as attractive to women. But we are witnessing a certain upturn in this, namely to the extent that soccer is treated more and more like an event.

Well, it’s not only confrontation, but also a very clear system of rules that plays a role.Correct. A fundamental differ-ence between the drama of life and the drama of soccer is the time constraint. The drama of a soccer match is usually over after 90 minutes, at least out on the field. The drama of life, how-ever, doesn’t have any clear time limits. That is the advantage of soccer: every weekend, every season or during every interna-tional competition, a new soccer drama can start—and end.

Getting back to the rules…The drama of life and the drama of soccer take place within a system of rules. Without them, neither would work. In our ev-eryday lives there are laws and non-codified rules of behavior. And so, just as there are conse-quences when someone steals something, there are penalties for illegal moves in soccer. A soc-cer match is only accepted when there are fair rules and viewers can assume that only the team that scores more regular goals will win. The idea of the game is that there are fair baseline con-

of chance—for instance, because you met a particular person or were at the right place at the right time. That’s what I call the “drama of life.”

And this takes place in a con-densed manner on a soccer field?Yes, because coincidences al-ways play a role there. If you take a close look at both teams before a match, you can often say which is more likely to win. But it’s not certain—particular-ly at events like the World Cup, it happens again and again that the supposedly weaker team de-feats the stronger one. This sort of drama with this intensity is nearly impossible to find in oth-er sports.

Why is that?It starts with the fact that in soc-cer, the ball can only be touched with the foot, head or chest. This adds a strong element of random-ness. Furthermore, there are so few goals that a fluke goal plays a greater role. My basic premise is: the mixture of skill and chance in soccer, which is what makes up the drama of life, is realized in a unique way.

No other sport is as popular as soccer around the world: the final of the previous World Cup was apparently watched by more than 1 billion people.The enthusiasm is historically

Professor Hoyningen-Huene, you’re a philosopher of science but also focus on the philosophi-cal connections between soccer and society. How did that come about?In 2002, when the World Cup was taking place in Japan and South Korea, I got home late one night, very tired. My son, who was ten at the time, absolutely wanted to watch the rerun of a match. In my exhaustion, I asked myself what was so fascinating about a ball rolling over a line painted on the grass and why it aroused such strong emotions in so many people.

What conclusions did you come to?Every soccer fan knows how im-portant chance, along with abil-ity, is in soccer. It makes the re-sult unpredictable. This fortune and misfortune, in combination with skill or the lack thereof, is also representative of the “dra-ma of our life,” meaning what happens to us in everyday life.

What exactly do you mean by that?Our lives aren’t completely pre-dictable. If we wish to do some-thing, there are always circum-stances that can influence the results in a positive or nega-tive way. Anyone looking back on their life so far undoubtedly recognizes that many decisive courses of action were products

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Why is soccer the most popular sport? Because it re-enacts the drama of life—says philosopher Paul Hoyningen-Huene. In this interview he talks about this comparison and why nothing would work without a clear system of rules. Interview Jörg Riedle & Tino Scholz Photos Conny Mirbach


Yet everyone is trying to be num-ber one. Is it necessary to con-stantly question your actions?I think so, yes. A Jupp Heynckes or a Pep Guardiola does that too. Every opponent, no matter how easy they might seem, is ana-lyzed in detail and isn’t taken lightly. We’re talking about ab-solute perfectionists who need to do that to be successful.

Should a person scrutinize themselves or the competition?Both, of course. Again there are parallels to real life and to busi-ness: small companies or huge corporations must continually question themselves, keeping an eye on the competition and the market, to be able to act or to react to new challenges. It isn’t enough to look only at yourself and to trust that everything will end up working out in the end.

If we take the drama of life and therefore the drama of soccer, too, as our basis, then who will be the next World Champion?At any rate, what we can say is that there is a group of teams that probably won’t be the next World Champion and they in-clude for instance Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Senegal, Iceland and Costa Rica. These teams simply lack the necessary skill: even combined with luck, it wouldn’t be enough to see them through the entire competition. So I would be extremely surprised if the World Champion were to come from this group. The group of potential World Champions is easy to determine—they’re the usual suspects.

So a glimmer of luck will decide it?Of course there can always be a vastly superior team that plays all the other teams into the ground. But if you look back to the past, that hasn’t really hap-pened that often. And even when

there was such a vastly supe-rior team, it wasn’t absolutely certain that they would become World Champion in the end—take for instance the 1954 World Cup, when Germany won and Hungary didn’t. In soccer, all sorts of unbelievable things can happen: sometimes it’s a bizarre bounce at the last second that determines who wins and who loses. And, boom, you’re World Champion.

PERSONALIA

Asked about the upcoming Soccer World Cup in Russia, Professor Paul Hoyningen-Huene says, “I’m looking for-ward to perfectly played soc-cer, but always keep an eye out for when and how the element of chance changes the course of a match.” Hoyningen-Huene, born in 1946 in Pfronten, Bavaria, lives in Zurich and is a Ger-man philosopher who spe-cializes in the general philos-ophy of science and research ethics. Main topics include the philosophy of Thomas S. Kuhn and the question of the nature of science, as well as the responsibility of scientists and engineers. Hoyningen-Huene also regularly writes on the topic of soccer. His first specialist article, “The Drama of Life: Why Soccer Fascinates,” was published (in German) in 2006.

ditions within which the drama of the match unfolds. Chance and skill form a mixture, and the point is that no one knows what the result will be in the end, and this is what makes the match so exciting.

Instant replay will be used for the first time for the upcom-ing World Cup. Was that a good decision?I think the decision was inevi-table. When Joseph Blatter was still president of FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, he said that it [instant replay] would take a fundamental element of excitement away from the sport. And it’s true: even today, people still talk about the “Wembley goal” in 1966, or the “Hand of God goal” by Diego Maradona in 1986. Yet compared to today, there’s a huge difference.

Which is? Previously, the referees’ deci-sions were irrevocable; there was no other choice. Now there are more equitable possibilities and it makes sense to use them. Only if equality of opportunity is a given does the drama of the game work. So there’s really no way to avoid the use of new technologies.

Innovation isn’t just in demand out on the field, but also in busi-ness. Will success only come to those who evolve and constantly re-invent themselves?It really varies a lot. It’s not like the most innovative is always the most successful. Sometimes it’s better to be the second in the field, able to learn from the in-novator’s mistakes. It’s the same with soccer. Take Greece at the European Championships in 2004. At the time their style of play, with a straight three-man backfield and sweeper, was con-sidered completely outdated. But they still won.


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Hurtling down a summer toboggan run is great fun for young and old. Many vacation resorts in the Alps and in lower moun-tain ranges now have these sorts of installations, with a vari-ety of different makes and models. With my inspections, I help ensure that this fun, family-friendly leisure-time activity is safe and that the risk of accidents is as small as possible.

The summer toboggan run in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a stone’s throw from the famous ski jump, has a length of 850 me-ters and an unusual form: first you ride down a sort of corkscrew. To start my inspection, I walk the course by foot and examine the stainless-steel half-pipe that holds the toboggans as they run the course. It can’t be damaged at all, for instance have cracked welding seams. I also carefully examine the course signage and the cable and retaining mechanisms of the uphill transportation system. Following that, I scrutinize every single toboggan to see if all the moving parts can be moved smoothly back and forth. This is particularly important so that the braking systems—a manual brake and an automatic brake—work properly.

The best part of every inspection for me is of course testing the course itself. Namely, I have to ride the course mul-tiple times for professional reasons. Of course it isn’t for fun, but rather to measure and evaluate the toboggan’s ride per-formance, maximum acceleration, deceleration, braking per-formance and highest speed. That’s because every summer to-boggan run has a built-in centrifugal brake that automatically reduces the speed and that must function reliably—so of course it’s also inspected during the test rides.

FAMILY-FRIENDLY ADRENALINERUSH

ALL THE FUN STUFF Ingo Kapels (35) conducts safety inspec-tions for TÜV SÜD for all types of recreational facilities—along with summer toboggan runs this can include amusement and water parks, cable cars and water-skiing facilities.

INGO KAPELS

GREENGIANT

GENIUS


GIANTHow can the world’s growing population continue to be nourished with fresh food in the future? One ap-proach is known as vertical farming. Growing vege-tables in windowless buildings could ensure a more ecological, safe and local agriculture in megacities and remote areas in years to come.

Text Tino Scholz Photos Nikita Teryoshin


T he future of food has a pink glow. It fits into a hermetically sealed, win-dowless, 200 square-meter ware-

house—about three-quarters the size of a tennis court—and contains four huge sets of shelves, each with seven levels. These shelves, lighted by 9,000 LED lamps, hold 6,000 heads of lettuce and several hun-dred tomato-plant seedlings. The lettuce and tomatoes are rooted in a nutrient so-lution instead of soil. The temperature is kept at a constant 22 degrees Celsius, the humidity at 80 percent. No insects are fly-ing around because the system is sealed off from the outside world. “This here,” says Jasper den Besten, bathed in the pink of the LED lamps, “may someday be found all over the world, helping to feed the population.”

The future is located in Venlo, Nether-lands, just a few kilometers from the Ger-man border. The area here on the Lower Rhine is famous for cultivating lettuce and other vegetables; enormous greenhouse

NOW THAT'S TALL! Up to twelve layers per shelf are mounted atop one another in vertical farms these days—as seen here at the global market leader Aero-Farms in the U.S.

facilities dominate the landscape. This is where the HAS University of Applied Scien-ces is working with several companies on a pilot project named BrightBox, led by den Besten. The goal: conducting compre-hensive research to find the right mix of lighting and climate for vertical farming as well as establishing strategic partnerships with companies interested in developing vertical farming for a broader market. Den Besten, senior lecturer in alternative far-ming at HAS University, can talk about the topic for hours on end—from large-scale solutions down to the importance of an individual head of lettuce in his testing fa-cility. “Nourishing the world’s population is a topic that motivates me,” he explains. “It’s about finding solutions to address the looming problems of the future.”

It is currently estimated that nine to ten billion people will be living on Earth by the year 2050, at least two-thirds in cities. Extrapolating from today’s harvest yields, feeding everyone would require enough ad-

AIMING HIGH Jasper den Bes-ten on working in the BrightBox: tuv-sud.com/abouttrust 18_2/vertical-farming P

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VERTICAL FARMING HAS BEEN AROUND FOR YEARS—BUT ONLY REALLY TOOK OFF ONCE LED LAMPS CAME ALONG.

ditional farmland to cover an area 20 per-cent larger than Brazil. The problem: soil is a scarce resource. Arable land is getting even scarcer—fertile soil is being lost to cli-mate change, inappropriate farming meth-ods, overgrazing and sealing (covering up soil with concrete or stone). To help allevi-ate this problem, why not move up instead of spreading out? It’s a strategy that has been used for centuries in building homes in city centers, and transferring it to farm-ing would allow vegetables to be grown in any location around the world while saving space, staying local and removing depen-dency on the climate. “Inside the farm we

can imitate the conditions of June 21 ev-ery day of the year and harvest every three weeks,” den Besten says, “all while retain-ing the same high quality.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF LED LIGHTS

Along with the savings on space, the sys-tem’s ecological benefits are its key as-pect. Soil depletion and/or erosion can be reduced, and enormous amounts of wa-ter can be saved compared to traditional farming—companies already working with vertical farming report savings of up to 95 percent. The extensive use of pesticides is no longer necessary, thanks to the integrat-ed monitoring systems and indoor environ-ment, which is kept free from most pests and fungi. The dependency on fossil fuels is also lower since a vertical farm doesn’t need tractors.

When den Besten strides through the pink-lighted rows of his farm and describes how it works, he repeatedly comes back to the topic of LED lamps. “It’s thanks to this technology that vertical farming is even possible at all,” he explains. The energy-ef-ficient light-emitting diodes have hardly any heat loss and can replace sunlight, which is naturally essential for plant growth.

A little more than a decade ago, when American and Japanese compa-nies tentatively started pursuing vertical farming on an industrial scale, the LEDs in use weren’t efficient enough—the costs for lighting and cooling were too high to be economically viable. Nowadays LEDs are around ten times more effective. Im-proving such lighting is also something TÜV SÜD works on in its Horticul-ture Laboratory in Singapore (see the info box on page 26).P

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The closed-loop, climate-indepen-dent system makes it possible to use vertical farms all over the

world. And since these farms don’t take up much land area, they can be built near cities or even centrally located within them. Vertical farms can already be found in numerous places around the globe: in Berlin, Shanghai and Chicago, and in Japan, Korea, Switzerland and Great Britain. Worldwide there are more than two hundred indoor greenhouses in operation, the lion’s share in Japan. Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, the Japanese have a particular apprecia-tion for the expensive-but-uncontaminat-ed lettuce from these plant factories.

Particularly for city-states such as Singapore, which has no appreciable farmland to speak of, this technology could make a major contribution to supply-ing residents with food in the future, de-creasing the dependency on imports. The technology corporation Panasonic runs a vertical farm in a former warehouse in Singapore that produces about 80 tons of vegetables annually. While right now this amounts to just 0.015 percent of the de-mand in the city-state, there are plans in the works to expand this share to a total of 5 percent.

CONTROLLED BY A COMPUTER SYSTEM

At least that’s the theory. Whether these bold plans will ever become reality is com-pletely up in the air at the moment, some-thing den Besten is also well aware of. He brings us from the glowing pink main hall into a smaller box measuring 50 square meters—a bit larger than 3 parking spa-ces—where he can dim the lights using an app. It’s all controlled by a computer sys-tem located on the roof of the facility. A few touches to the screen of his smartphone bring this smaller unit online; the red and blue lights slowly begin to glow. “We’re go-ing to try growing strawberries here soon,” he says. “We haven’t tried it yet because we’ll need bees.”

Generally speaking, the concept of vertical farming is limitless—tomatoes, strawberries, potatoes and even bananas could all theoretically be grown. Practi-cally, however, it doesn’t make sense to plant potatoes or rice, as den Besten ex-plains: “The amount of electricity needed

for lighting and climate controls would be considerably higher than for leafy green vegetables. As things currently stand, it wouldn’t be profitable.” And even in those places where things are running well, one shouldn’t get too enthusiastic: “Despite ef-ficient LEDs, lettuce and vegetables from indoor farms usually cost twice as much as those grown out in fields; however, they do have advantages, such as being cleaner and safer—free of soil and less likely to become contaminated with illness-causing micro-organisms.”

Because of this, vertical farming for now functions as more of a complement to traditional farming, so that highly per-ishable vegetables such as fresh lettuce or herbs can be brought to local markets over short distances. Staple foods such as rice, potatoes and grains, which can all easily be

200GRAMS OF LETTUCE

per square meter per day can be harvested from the BrightBox


400GRAMS PER DAY

is the amount of vegetables and lettuce a person needs

stored over longer periods of time, will con-tinue to be cultivated outdoors.

The company Aerofarms, with global headquarters in Newark, New Jersey in the U.S., is already further along. The company has been active in the field of vertical farm-ing since 2004 and has become the world market leader. Its 9th farm in the U.S. is its largest, covering over 70,000 square feet —with a harvest of around one thousand tons of leafy greens annually. More farms are in the works for around the world.

“This is incredibly complex thinking about the biology and the environment and the classic nature vs. nurture” says Aerofarms co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Marc Oshima. "We’re already competitive with farmers for pricing,”

Aerofarms has taken a unique approach, bringing all of the expertise in-house. The team of “farmers”—crop biolo-gists, microbiologists, bio engineers, me-chanical engineers, industrial engineers, lighting engineers, information scientists—has more in common with high tech than with a farmer’s long years of experience out in the fields. The company collects millions of data points about the green lettuce leaves during their growth—using them over the years to perfect their cultivation. Every-thing from the light, the spraying of water and the delivery of minerals is monitored, controlled and specified.

100,000RESIDENTS

in Venlo

50,000SQUARE METERS

of vertical farming space is thus required to feed the residents of

Venlo

16,667SQUARE METERS

of space is needed for a farm with the capacity of 5 layers per shelf =

2.5 football fields

2SQUARE METERS

of space in the vertical farm grows enough food for one person

THE SKY IS THE LIMIT ... at least as far as Jasper den Besten is con-cerned: “Using vertical farming you can cultivate almost any food item that traditional farms grow.”


Getting Oshima on the phone isn’t easy. He’s constantly traveling around the world; there are a lot

of companies interested in the systems of these North American pioneers. “I often only see our farms through the camera feeds we’ve set up,” he says with a chuckle. Racks and racks of growing in towers, ris-ing up twelve levels.

The statistics about vertical farming seem to just gush out of Oshima, perhaps because he’s pitched them to investors so many times: “The growth cycle for baby leafy greens from seeds to harvest takes just twelve to sixteen days as compared to the thirty to forty needed on outdoor fields. In a year, that’s up to thirty produc-tion cycles as compared to just two from the field. Cultivating vegetables is success-ful without soil. The roots of the seedlings are regularly sprayed with water during the growth period. The nutrients are de-livered precisely through a water mist.”

Data analysis as practiced by Aero-Farms is also an important topic for den Besten. One of the focuses of his research at the moment is the “light recipe” for op-

timal cultivation. “Red light ensures fast and tall growth,” he says. “A high amount of blue light makes the lettuce grow a little bit smaller, but it does increase the proportion of vitamins and other ben-eficial nutrients. The flavor also changes depending on the light intensity and com-position. More blue light, for instance, makes basil noticeably more pungent.”

Den Besten has been working on the project since 2015. Where will it all lead? “Any prediction would be fortune-tell-ing,” he insists. “We’re still at the start. Vertical farming has been used industri-ally for just over ten years now. That’s practically nothing.” Then he shuts the BrightBox doors and closes the shutters. The lights stay on, of course.

Before heading back to the parking lot, Jasper den Besten sees a head of lettuce outside the BrightBox that he took out of the nutrient solution earlier. It’s too late to put it back inside. He could throw it away, but that’s really out of the question. “Good food shouldn’t end up in the trash,” he says, placing the lettuce on top of his laptop bag. “I guess I’ll be having salad tonight.”

ILLUMINATING

TÜV SÜD has been testing artificial light sources used to promote plant growth in its new Horticulture Labora-tory in the greater Shenzhen area in China since Decem-ber 2017. “We test how light systems and the light spectrum they emit affects plant growth in our labora-tory,” says TÜV SÜD special-ist Marvin Böll. “The goal is a classification system that makes it easier for consumers to select the suitable product for their particular needs.” The work in the labora-tory also checks whether the artificial lights fulfill all the statutory requirements for the respective international markets. “This is interest-ing for customers who, for example, want to convert from conventional lamps to LED systems,” Böll explains. The fact that he and his col-leagues are working on the future of food makes his work even more important to him. “Due to a variety of factors, including climate change and the scarcity of arable land, it will be necessary to find alternatives to traditional food cultivation. We want to help with finding relevant solutions.”

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MARVIN BÖLL TÜV SÜD expert


MEDIA CORNER

OPTICAL ILLUSION

Autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and smart homes—how is our world devel-oping and how is it changing our everyday lives? Andrew Weinreich takes a look at these questions in his tech podcast Predicting Our Future. He discusses future tech scenarios such as a self-sustaining household that autonomously orders more toilet paper or laundry detergent online when supplies are running low.

So, what was the PIN for your online banking again? And the password for your Twitter account? With the 1Password app, pass-words and PINs can be encrypted multiple times and securely saved. A master pass-word enables access to the app, which can also generate new and secure passwords. An additional benefit: passwords, credit card data and accounts can be shared without taking any risks.

FUTURE SCENARIO

WHO WE’RE FOLLOWING

@technologyreview Insights into tomorrow’s technologies. #takealook

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@capturingthemachine For people who love cars.

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PASSION FOR TECHNOLOGY: Multimedia Tips from the ABOUT TRUST Staff

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ABOUT TRUST may not participate in the contest. All decisions are final.

A little hint: the word we’re looking for describes the generic term for the most valuable group of metals.

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Win one of five Cooling Rod Icebars from AdHoc Design.

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ELECTRIFYING

ELEMENTS

L ong ago in Ancient Greece, philosophers and scholars were already contemplating the principles of the four elements as known throughout history: earth, water, air and fire. According

to the teachings of Empedocles, the four indestructible and unchange-able natural forces are the basic components of human life, indeed of all that exists. Without them, we would be nothing.

Although our knowledge of the world has since matured, these four elements will continue to be important in the future. The sustain-able four elements will advance decarbonization in the world and will to a great extent ensure that we have electricity, light and warmth. But since the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, we also need storage systems to be able to secure energy supplies over longer and shorter time periods. Research on various systems is on-going, with some more successful than others. “In the future will we need several different systems,” says Myriam Gil Bardají, manager of the Joint Project Energy Storage for the European Energy Research Alliance at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. “Right now there isn’t any storage technology that can by itself meet the challenges of storing regenerative energies.” The following is an overview of some of the promising approaches. Each development has its own unique appro-ach—and each is based on one of the four elements.

Why the four classic elements of nature—earth, water, air and fire—will play an

important role in energy storage for the future.Text Tino Scholz


connected by pipes to a hydroelectric plant and its basin locat-ed down the valley, 200 meters lower in elevation. Extra wind energy will be used to pump the water up to the tanks. When electricity is needed later, perhaps on a windless day, the water is sent back downhill to produce hydroelectric power. “Devel-oping new technologies is essential to master the challenges of the future,” Gil Bardají says. “That’s why such pilot programs for network integration are so important and commendable.”

This pilot project is just the start: the modular design of this water battery can be deployed as a storage solution for all types of renewable energies. Completely standardized, the water battery can become a ready-made storage power plant. Interest in this technology is already being expressed in Germany, Austria, the United States and Indonesia.

WATER

CLEVER COMBINATION

New ways of thinking are always a good idea when it comes to the future of energy storage. The concept behind the water battery in Gaildorf, Germany, is therefore an innovative step forward. The facility, inspected by TÜV SÜD, combines rene-wable wind-generated energy with a pumped-storage power plant to form a powerful energy storage facility. The water battery works over the short term to absorb energy, hold it and then feed it back into the electricity grid when it’s needed.

Up to 70 megawatt-hours, the equivalent of about four hours of wind energy, can be fed into the flexible short-term storage facility as needed, contributing to grid stability. The wind turbines are already turning, and the water battery is scheduled to become operational in summer 2019. The foun-dations of the wind turbines are used as water reservoirs,


The Gotthard Base Tunnel is an engineering masterpiece. It runs almost sixty kilometers through the central Swiss Alps, dramatically reducing travel times. And if that were not enough, a three-kilometer long tunnel near the village of Bianca, which was used as a conveyor system to remove excavated materials during tunnel construction, was con-verted from 2015 to 2017 into a testing plant for a modern compressed air reservoir.

The principle of such a reservoir is easy to explain: sur-plus solar and wind energy is used to drive compressors to con-dense air. This compressed air is stored in a reservoir, known as a cavern, and then released when needed to spin a turbine that drives a power generator. Inhale, hold your breath, ex-hale—it’s as if a compressed air reser-voir fills up with energy on every inhale and then releases it on the exhale.

However, compressed air reser-voirs are few and far between as of yet due to their disadvantages. “They’re not very efficient and require very spe-cific geological conditions,” Gil Bardají explains. The total energy outlays are

EARTH

FROM THE DEPTHS OF A MASSIF

very high, with an efficiency rate of just 40 percent. Pumped-storage power plants, the most-used storage systems today, achieve rates of around 80 percent.

In contrast to other compressed air reservoirs, how-ever, the Gotthard project has a relatively high degree of efficiency due to heat recycling in particular. The air is com-pressed in two steps and can reach temperatures of 550 de-grees Celsius. This thermal energy is no longer just released unused, but instead is collected in an additional reservoir and re-used during the conversion of compressed air into electric energy, leading to an efficiency of up to 75 percent.

At the end of the decade—the plans are still vague—the pilot project is to be followed by a commercial plant, but

many issues need to be resolved be-fore this happens. Experts warn that the technology is not yet mature, particularly with regard to thermal storage. A mountainous country like Switzerland, with many airtight cav-erns, could thus play an important role for the future of compressed air reservoirs.

Water vapor or droplets—these are the only “waste products” created when hydrogen gas is burned. When hydrogen gas combusts in the presence of oxygen, a large amount of energy is released and the two combine to form water. A cleaner pro-cess can scarcely be found. No wonder the chemical proces-sing of hydrogen gas, known as electrolysis, plays a central role in the long-term electricity storage of the future.

“Hydrogen is versatile,” says Gil Bardají. “It can be transformed into energy for stationary applications such as electricity and heat generation or in turbines, but also for mobile applications such as transportation.” However, the problem at the moment continues to be that hydrogen production through elec-trolysis uses a large amount of energy with a relatively low efficiency.

In water electrolysis, water is split into oxygen gas and hydrogen gas. The process requires electricity, best obtained from renewable sources. If the wind isn’t

FIRE

H₂IGH H₂OPES

blowing or the heavens are cloudy, the gases can be re-moved from their storage tanks and for instance combusted in a gas and steam turbine, which in turn drives a generator to produce electricity.

The world’s largest hydrogen plant, currently under construction in Linz, Austria, will demonstrate that hydro-gen can achieve a high degree of efficiency, up to 80 percent it is hoped. The stated goal is to find out whether hydro-gen can replace coal and coke on a large scale over the lon-ger term. MITNETZ GAS, a natural gas supplier in central Germany, has started building infrastructure for hydro-

gen testing at the Chemical Park Bitterfeld-Wolfen, part of the Hydrogen Power Storage & Solutions East Germany (HYPOS) project. The project’s more than one hundred mem-bers are striving to build a regional model for hydrogen in eastern Germany. The project is currently scheduled to last for two years, with TÜV SÜD providing ongoing support.

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A pilot project in Pfinztal, Germany, near Karlsruhe, is dem-onstrating the technology’s potential. A 2-megawatt wind tur-bine supplies the energy for the Fraunhofer Institute’s cam-pus there. If there isn’t enough wind, the giant battery, which is located in a specially built hangar, supplies enough power for all the connected buildings—as much as a small town with four thousand residents would need.

Its scalability is what makes the redox-flow battery attractive for use in remote areas that aren’t connected to a reliable electricity grid. Research in Pfinztal is currently looking at whether it is possible to dependably supply villag-es, small towns or companies with electricity with the help of redox-flow batteries. “A plus for the system is that it is us-able particularly for medium-term and long-term storage,” Gil Bardají says. “It still needs a lot of further development, but the batteries have already achieved a high efficiency of more than 75 percent for the overall system.”

Researchers consider redox-flow batteries to be promising solutions for large-scale electricity storage. What’s special about them: while conventional batteries—whether in cars or smartphones—are closed units with a fixed storage capaci-ty, the capacity of redox-flow batteries depends only on the amount of liquid they have. Whether one or a hundred thou-sand liters, the larger the tanks, the more energy the battery can store, making this technology interesting for industrial applications, for instance.

Redox-flow batteries—“red” for reduction = electron up-take, “ox” for oxidation = electron liberation—use fluid elec-trolytes that flow in two circuits that are independent from one another. An electrolyte is a solution that contains free-moving ions that can conduct electricity. When a charge is placed on the battery, the ions in one of the fluids take up the electrons released from the ions in the other fluid. When the battery supplies electricity, the reaction runs in reverse.P

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1. IN THE THICK OF THINGSThe former grammar school direc-tor Manfred Weller had the idea to construct technical devices out of commonplace everyday objects—such as thumbtacks, bottle stop-pers and thread bobbins—and use them for classroom teaching. This makes the TÜV Hessen Kids model not only extremely inexpensive, so that really every kid can build their

own piece of technology and take it home, but also educationally valu-able: “Technology permeates our entire life—and the children are encouraged to continue making things themselves,” Weller says.

2. A MATTER OF THE HEARTSome people can’t let go of TÜV Hessen Kids: like Lisa Forchheim. The 19-year old was one of the

first students to attend a TÜV Hes-sen Kids lesson, and today she’s studying to be an elementary school teacher and is a trainer herself. “To pass on the enthusi-asm to the next generation is a great thing,” she says.

3. MORE THAN JUST (HOT) AIRUsing disposable syringes and hollow needles, Manfred Weller constructed a model of a hydraulic lift. It’s since been built at schools around 24,000 times—taken to-gether, they could raise 300 Indi-an elephants five centimeters off the ground. It’s a shame that el-ephants aren’t allowed in schools.

4. PRACTICING UNDER PALM TREESActually, the home of the “Kids” is in Hessen. But time and again, lessons can take place in unusual locations at the trainer’s personal

... ago, TÜV SÜD Hessen—a TÜV SÜD affili-ated company—started “TÜV Kids.” The idea: to teach schoolchildren interesting facts about technical things and to encourage them to continue tinkering. An anniversary greeting with ten interesting facts. Illustration Andrea Manzati


initiative: for instance in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, around 9,500 kilometers away. 5. LIFELIKEA visit to the German Distance-Learning School in Wetzlar gave Project Director Steffen Seehars an idea: to open the TÜV Hessen Kids online learning offerings to German-speaking kids abroad, he found partners and developed an explanatory app for all the tech models. With the help of aug-mented reality, kids can build the models themselves, independent of location and time zone.

6. DIGITIZATION YOU CAN FEELThere’s one thing Manfred Weller is certain of: “If you want to get people excited about technology, you have to think digitally.” His newest project: a simple sensor network with a control module

he developed himself. What’s special: the sensors are made from common everyday objects and must be self-built. Using a simple app, kids can then net-work the sensors and users, and for instance turn on little lamps or make a windmill turn.

7. TEACHING AND LEARNINGWhile the lessons are naturally something special for the kids, they are also special for the train-ee teachers deployed by TÜV Hes-sen Kids. So along with teaching the elementary students, the ini-tiative also allows future teachers to gain hands-on experience.

8. FULLY BOOKED!From an idea to success: the de-mand exceeded all expectations from the get-go. And since the program started ten years ago, the technical experiments have

delighted and inspired more than 190,000 girls and boys—enough to fill the seats in the FC Bayern Munich Stadium two-and-a-half times over.

9. MILLIONSThe classic: no other device has been built as often as the TÜV Hes-sen Kids electrical current testing device. TÜV Hessen distributed around 1.5 million thumbtacks for it—which is about double the number of residents in Frankfurt am Main.

10. FOR THE NEXT DECADETÜV Hessen spends a mid-six-fig-ure sum for the TÜV Hessen Kids program each year. It’s a commit-ment that CEO Henning Stricker is glad to make: “If you’ve ever seen the excitement in the eyes of the girls and boys, then you know it’s worth the effort!”


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PUBLISHER: TÜV SÜD AG,

Westendstraße 199,

80686 Munich, Germany

OWNER: TÜV SÜD e.V. (74.9 %),

TÜV SÜD Foundation (25.1 %), West-

endstr. 199, 80686 Munich, Germany

PROJECT DIRECTOR AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Jörg Riedle (V.i.S.d.P.)

CONTACT: +49 89 5791-0,

[email protected]

REALIZATION: muehlhausmoers

corporate communications gmbh,

Invalidenstraße 112, 10115 Berlin,

[email protected]

Project Director and Editor: Tino Scholz;

Editor: Tanita Hecking Creative Director:

Anja Hamann; Art Direction: Áine Gib-

bons; Art Buying: Jan Steinhauer, Jack

Mawbey; Translation: Anthony B. Heric,

Editing: Penelope Krumm

PRINTING: Eberl Print GmbH,

Kirchplatz 6, 87509 Immenstadt

ABOUT TRUST (ISSN 2509-8144)

is a quarterly publication. The con-

tents of the magazine are protected

by copyright law.

ABOUT TRUST is printed in a cli-

mate-neutral manner and on paper

from responsibly managed forests.

SELF-COOLING BEER KEG

How does it work? What else would you like to know? Send your suggestions to: [email protected]

P reparations begin long before the starting whistle of a soccer game. For the teams, but also for the fans.

Particularly when it comes to cold bever-ages—which in the summer heat can quickly get warm, despite starting off ice-cold. Why not rely on a self-cooling beer keg? It has three chambers: the innermost 1 one contains the beverage to be cooled, the one in the middle 2 a water-soaked fleece in a vacuum. The outer chamber 3 contains the mineral zeolite, also in a vacu-um, which—thanks to its special crystalline structure—boasts a very large water-vapor-absorbing surface. If the vent between the middle and outer chambers is opened, the zeolite draws the water vapor from the fleece, which cools dramatically from the evaporation process 4 . The zeolite warms up as a result, emitting the heat externally, 5 , while the water remaining in the fleece freezes into ice and cools the beer down to a temperature of between 7º and 9º Celsius. After 30 to 45 minutes, the beer in the keg has reached the ideal drinking tempera-ture. Conveniently, the keg can be re-used: heating it reverses the process and makes the self-cooling beer keg ready to use again. So, cheers!

klimaneutralnatureOffice.com | DE-141-739900

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FINALLY EXPLAINED

D uring a sleepless night in the intensive care unit for premature babies, with

my newborn son, I was confronted by all the nearby life-support ma-chines in the unit. I got the idea to put together a series of pho-tographs: WILL—The Lifesaving Machines. I was thinking about

Reiner Riedler is a documentary

photographer from Austria who focusses on people and their

environment.

how all these life-support systems, apparatuses and mechanisms pre-serve life, even though they can neither understand life nor do they have a life of their own.

Over a period of four years I photographed ventila-tors, artificial hearts, dialysis machines, heart/lung devices

and artificial limbs. The pic-ture shows the CD Horizon® Legacy™ spinal system, which can be used to treat scoliosis—a condition where the spine has developed one or more abnor-mal side-to-side curves which adversely affect balance and the body’s alignment. P

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WORTH A THOUSAND

WORDS


Did you know

that TÜV SÜD also

ensures safety deep

underground?

The world is full of questions and surprises.

Be prepared—with the

ABOUT TRUST web magazine.

abouttrust.tuv-sud.com

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GROOVY GREENS - tuv-sud.co.uk · GROOVY GREENS Aside from looking good, this lettuce was grown in a very special way—namely without sunlight or soil. And it’s bringing hope for