Simplifying things by using unmanned tools

Interesting piece from Sam LaGrone at USNI News Navy Wants 100 Unmanned Ships Monitoring Middle East Waters by Next Year

The United States and its allies want a force of 100 unmanned surface vessels patrolling waters from the Red Sea into the Persian Gulf by next summer, the commander of U.S. 5th Fleet said on Tuesday.

“We’ve established a goal to have 100 unmanned surface vessels available for patrol in waters around the Arabian Peninsula by the end of the summer of 2023… with a majority of the systems coming from our international and regional partners,” U.S. 5th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Brad Cooper said during an address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

For the last year, U.S. Central Command has been the test bed for an experimental force of long-endurance unmanned systems at sea married with artificial intelligence tools on shore to look for military threats or illegal activity. Unlike some of the high-end drones used by the U.S. military, the information and sensors for each individual system are unclassified, with their output beamed back to a maritime operations center for a human to make a decision when the AI system detects something out of the ordinary. The effort is known as Task Force 59.

We're talking sensor here, not armed units. But these sensors ease the burden on manned units by being out there 24/7 and constantly reporting back to base, at which decision about any action required can be made. The more units out there, the harder for "bad guys" to hide what they're up to.

Oceans of Drones

Interesting piece from the Economist on expanding ocean surveillance in a variety of causes, including military Avast, me hearties: How aquatic, autonomous robots could reduce lawlessness at sea

As the cost of building and operating such vehicles drops, satellite communications systems provide cheaper and faster connectivity, and machine intelligence improves, drones could provide a powerful means of policing illegal activities that take place, unseen, at sea. Powered by wave action, wind power or solar panels, drones could operate for months or even years at a time, scanning large areas in swarms, monitoring environmental conditions and alerting human overseers when something looks amiss. If drones ruled the waves, fisheries would be more sustainable, pollution would be reduced and human trafficking would be harder to get away with. Even if drones can monitor only a small fraction of the ocean’s surface, their presence could be a powerful deterrent.

We touched on the use of AI and drone assets in our last Midrats - especially in the building of databases through which anomalous behavior can be detected and tracked, about 48 minutes in, though the discussion that preceded got to that point.









Hat tip to Lee.

Modern Science: Cooperative Swarmboats

Back in the day, port and harbor defense units were a cooperative venture between manned surveillance units (Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Units or MIUWUs) and manned boats - sometimes Coast Guard Port Security Units (PSUs), sometimes Navy Inshore Boat Units. While the manned boats have proven their worth, they do expose crews to the variety of dangers of both normal operations as well as risks posed by an aggressor.

Now this mission may be assigned to elements of the Naval Maritime Expeditionary Force. In any event, as as been noted here before, the Navy's Office of Naval Research has been pursuing the use of unmanned platforms to take on part of the water work and the capability seems to be getting smarter, as reported by ONI in "Autonomous Swarmboats: New Missions, Safe Harbors":

(Photo by John L. Williams)

Using a unique combination of software, radar and other sensors, officials from the Office of Naval Research (ONR)—together with partners from industry, academia and other government organizations—were able to get a “swarm” of rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) and other small boats to collectively perform patrol missions autonomously, with only remote human supervision, rather than direct human operation, as they performed their missions.

“This demonstration showed some remarkable advances in autonomous capabilities,” said Cmdr. Luis Molina, military deputy for ONR’s Sea Warfare and Weapons Dept. “While previous work had focused on autonomous protection of high-value ships, this time we were focused on harbor approach defense.”

The autonomy technology being developed by ONR is called Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing, or CARACaS. The components that make up CARACaS (some are commercial off-the-shelf) are inexpensive compared to the costs of maintaining manned vessels for some of the dull, dirty or dangerous tasks—all of which can be found in the work of harbor approach defense, experts say.

“The U.S. Navy knows our most important asset, without question, is our highly trained military personnel,” said Dr. Robert Brizzolara, the program officer at ONR who oversees the effort. “The autonomy technology we are developing for our Sailors and Marines is versatile enough that it will assist them in performing many different missions, and it will help keep them safer.”
***
During the demo, unmanned boats were given a large area of open water to patrol. As an unknown vessel entered the area, the group of swarmboats collaboratively determined which patrol boat would quickly approach the unknown vessel, classify it as harmless or suspicious, and communicate with other swarmboats to assist in tracking and trailing the unknown vessel while others continued to patrol the area. During this time, the group of swarmboats provided status updates to a human supervisor.

“This technology allows unmanned Navy ships to overwhelm an adversary,” added Molina. “Its sensors and software enable swarming capability, giving naval warfighters a decisive edge.”

Naval leadership in recent years has emphasized a blended future force, leveraging the synergy of using manned and unmanned systems to complement each other while accomplishing missions. In the near future, unmanned boats can take on some dangerous missions, thereby protecting the warfighter, and they can do that in great numbers at a fraction of the cost of a single manned warship. Furthermore, these small boats are already in the Navy’s inventory (as manned craft) and can quickly and inexpensively be converted to an autonomous boat via the installation of a CARACaS kit.

Smart, safer for crews and not expensive. I would think of several iterations of this technology that would be major force multipliers. See U.S. Navy: Bring Out the Swarmbots!

Nice.

And so 21st Century.

A 2015 article from ONR's Future Force sets it all up The Swarm: Autonomous Boats Take on Navy Missions.

Fast, Heavily Armed Littoral Combat Ships

Sometimes you kill a platform too soon. Sometimes you don't.

Take the patrol hydrofoil ships that the Navy once had, for example. Fast, well-armed anti-surface ship hydrofoils meant to play in the littorals. Pretty reliable, too, and minimally crewed. Four officers, 17 enlisted. Eight Harpoon missiles, small gun (76mm) up front, 48 kts (55 mph). See here.

The downside? Well, according to this Popular Mechanics piece, When the U.S. Navy Had Tiny Hot Rods That Flew Over the Sea:The Pegasus class hydrofoils were a ship in search of a mission.

The six ships of the Pegasus class—Pegasus, Hercules, Taurus, Aquilla, Aries, and Gemini—could certainly sink big ships. But the Navy soon realized that was pretty much all they could do. They couldn't operate with the rest of the fleet, hunt submarines, shoot down enemy aircraft, or do all the other things corvettes, frigates, and destroyers could. Pegasus was a one-trick pony, and her trick could be done by other platforms, including missile-carrying aircraft that the U.S. Navy already had in the hundreds.

Hmmm.

Couldn't do ASW? Couldn't do AAW? Perhaps not in the days the PHMs were designed, but they weren't designed for those mission. Nothing in the rule book says that you couldn't lay patterns of sonobuoys from a PHM and receive signals from them in an "ASW-configured" PHM with some torpedo tubes. Nothing said you couldn't provide anti-air missiles on "AAW-configured" PHMs. You could probably even have other platforms that could operate helicopters or unmanned aircraft from their decks. And perhaps have PHM tender lurking about to do the work that tenders used to do in the absence of shore bases.

A counter-argument to the PM piece from the Christian Science Monitor in 1983 The US Navy's daring new ship: Will six be enough?:

''They [the PHM vessels] can be a better use of resources,'' enthuses retired Capt. Gil Slonim, now president of the Oceanic Education Foundation in Falls Church, Va. ''Should the Navy assign a 3,000- to 10,000-ton ship costing $500 million plus to carry out a task which could be accomplished by a 250-ton ship costing $100 million and with far fewer people? In that context, there is a place for hydrofoils.

''You can't just think single-purpose ships. You have to think mission, the total fleet mission of controlling the seas and projecting power overseas for our island nation,'' Mr. Slonim continues. ''Hydrofoils point the Navy toward 21 st century technology.''

Nothing said you couldn't have squadrons of these things operate together in teams consisting of ASW, ASUW, and AAW units working together depending on the perceived threats in littoral and archipelago areas. Like, say, the Philippines . . . From Navysite:

The PHM project was started in early 1970 by CNO Admiral Elmo Zumwalt in an effort to increase the Navy's number of surface combatants. The project called for a cost-effective hydrofoil boat designed to operate in coastal waters and equipped to fulfill the missions of destroyers and frigates in those areas so that these larger ships could be deployed to areas where they are needed more. These missions included surface surveillance as well as immediate responses (SSM missiles for example) to any hostile actions conducted by enemy navies. (emphasis added)

Lack of imagination, I suppose, coupled with the aviation bias and big gray hull bias of "Big Navy." At any rate, instead of modifying the design to change "one trick" into "several tricks," PHMs died.

Too soon.

So 40 years later we screw around with much bigger, far more costly hulls which still await technology that will allow them to be AAW, ASUW and ASW competent, except for their main weapon system, the attached helicopter/Fire Scout detachment.

Too late.

Nice PHM history article at Hydrofoil World.

A Smarter Force in the Littorals? Two essays to read

Well, well, well, someone else is beating the drum of being smarter in the way we spend our money on naval forces for the littorals - the area where most wars are fought by the way - right near the coasts - "inshore" as we nautical types might say - here in a UNSI Proceedings article, CDR Phillip Pournelle discusses The Deadly Future of Littoral Sea Control

The U.S. Navy is building a fleet that is not adapted to either the future mission set or rising threats. It is being built centered around aircraft carriers and submarines. Surface ships are being constructed as either escorts for the carriers or as ballistic-missile-defense platforms. While the littoral combat ship (LCS) was originally intended for sea-control operations in the near-shore environment, its current design is best employed as a mother ship for other platforms to enter the littorals. The result of all this is a brittle—and thus risk-adverse—fleet that will not give us influence, may increase the likelihood of conflict, and reduce the range of mission options available to the national command authority.
***
Sea Control is the raison d’être for a navy. The littorals have become and will increasingly be critical to the global economy and joint operations. To be relevant a fleet must have the ability to secure the littorals, dispute them, or just as importantly exercise in them in the face of an enemy who will contest them. Different platforms perform each of these tasks, some more effectively than others, which should drive fleet architectures. As the proliferation of weapons changes the littoral environment, the U.S. Navy will be forced to reexamine fleet architectures and make some significant changes to remain viable. This is due to the poor staying power of surface vessels in relation to their signature in the face of these rising threats. This new deadly environment will have tactical, operational, and strategic implications for the fleet and require significant changes if the fleet wishes to remain effective.
***
. . . As the precision-strike regime, ironically created by the United States, propagates around the world, ASCMs {anti-ship cruise missiles} and other threats to surface ships will expand. The speed of this proliferation may accelerate as new low-footprint manufacturing capabilities spread. 6

Tamil Tiger Improved Manned "Torpedo"

This will greatly change the security environment, particularly in the littorals, as it will greatly increase the lethality of smaller vessels and shore batteries. 7 This will in turn profoundly alter the security landscape. The Tamil Sea Tigers tied the Sri Lankan navy in knots through the use of small attack boats and suicide explosive vessels. 8 Had they possessed ASCMs they could possibly have won. Similar challenges may arise in an ally’s conflict with irregular forces such as Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines’ archipelagic environment. Closer to home could be the arming of semisubmersible platforms with ASCMs or other PSR weapons. The greatest threat will be to amphibious operations into places with conditions like Lebanon’s. 9

The good Commander has followed up his article with a blog post on the USNI Blog, Combined Arms in the Littoral Environment:

One of the most dramatic impacts of modern electronics is the increasing ability of smaller platforms to conduct scouting. Aerostats, towed kites, and small UAVs such as Scan Eagle give small platforms capabilities similar to larger platforms operating helicopters, etc. These smaller platforms have no need for the large flightdeck and hangar required for normal helicopter operations. They just need a small flat surface and storage area for rotary drones, nets and launchers for UAVs, or the UAVs can be designed to be recovered from the water. The MQ-8B could potentially be operated from a small flight deck with a small maintenance and storage hanger. This will drive the displacement requirements (and the resulting signature) for such platforms down considerably. Flotillas can then be further augmented in their ocean surveillance (“scouting”) missions by the use of land based aircraft, UAVs, Aerostats, etc. as well as carrier based aircraft operating further back.
Corvettes enabled in this manner can have the same surveillance capacity as any destroyer or frigate. By employing an aerostat or towed kite the corvette would have the ability to suspend a radar system at altitude. Because the power generation is on the ship, the aerostat or kite can have a very capable radar normally seen only in the largest UAVs or on helicopters. Further the greater altitude also provides the ability to control light weight visual sensor

Scan Eagle on Mk 5 SOC Boat

enabled UAVs like the Scan Eagle at far greater ranges. Combining the two systems grants the Corvette the ability to conduct surveillance on a large area with the radar locating contacts and the scan eagle visually identifying them. Thus we have gained the same capability which in the past would have required a large flight deck on a destroyer or frigate.

Complementing their scouting capability smaller platforms increasingly will have lethal

Aerostat on a CG leased vessel

firepower. The capabilities of anti-ship cruise missiles continue to improve. The distribution of firepower across multiple platforms will mean an enemy has very little opportunity to eliminate such a force without response. Similarly, defensive systems are becoming smaller and more effective. Thus the flotilla force is the littoral element of the Distributed Lethality concept designed for this deadly environment. The limiting factor for the size of corvettes is becoming less dominated by the weapons and more by endurance. Thus it would appear the knee in the curve between competing factors of size, endurance, signature, defensive weapons, offensive weapons, scouting capacity, etc. is between 350 and 800 tons.

Yes!

Maybe you remember Department of Crazy Ideas: How about a cheap inshore fleet? and its sister How to Make the Navy Bigger, Sooner, Cheaper or Galrahn's The Push For Littoral Strike Groups? Or maybe The Small Ship Navy: Numerous and Expendable? Why not? or a contribution CIMSEC's "Corvette Week" Cheaper Corvettes: COOP and STUFT Like That?

Of course many of my rants were not based on the foundation CDR Pournelle had built so far. He makes compelling arguments and I recommend his work to you.

Smaller, Cheaper Close Air Support: "Bronco 12 Cleared Hot"

For some time I have been an advocate* for "basic" aircraft for close air support of our forces in the field - and now there's an interesting piece discussing that topic in the latest U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings by Captain Andy Walton, USN, "Bronco 12 Cleared Hot"

Fighting a low-end war with high-end supersonic aircraft has put a heavy burden on the Department of Defense’s fourth-generation fighter and attack fleet. Sustainment of aging fourth-generation and acquisition of fifth-generation aircraft have left the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps with little interest in adding low-end light-attack airframes to their inventories and quieted the debate over light attack for U.S. special operations forces (SOF) and general purpose forces (GPF).

From as early as 2002, advocates of “low-cost irregular warfare aircraft” such as the AT-6, A-29, AT-802, OV-10, Scorpion, and others argued the overall cost savings in fuel, maintenance, and manpower were worth exploring. They proposed that even small numbers of these forward-deployed expeditionary aircraft could ease the flight-hour and service-life strain on fourth-generation aircraft performing low-threat armed reconnaissance (AR), air interdiction (AI), and close-air-support (CAS) missions, the airborne tankers supporting them, as well as the number of fuel convoys traveling to air bases in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and Iraq.

The recent OV-10 deployment, named Combat Dragon II (CD II), provides a template for how adaptable, flexible, innovative, forward-thinking people can produce ideas easily applied to the combatant commander’s capability shortfalls. If adopted, it would ease service topline budget pressure and position the DOD to be prepared for the range of missions it may face in the future. The CD II deployment also demonstrated how gaps in our current strategy can be filled with repurposed or off-the-shelf hardware.

It's in the "open to the public" part of the on-line magazine, so please read it.

*See The Legacy of Lex: A Common Sense Call on the F-35 for example.

Oh, and the Bronco can do carriers and ships like LHAs:



UPDATE: More info on the "amazing" OV-10 here. And a look at another CAS aircraft effort and "Imminent Fury" here.

U.S. Navy's Asymmetric Payloads: "Mine and Undersea Warfare for the Future"

An interesting free article from the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings, Mine and Undersea Warfare for the Future by Joshua J. Edwards and Captain Dennis M. Gallagher, U.S. Navy:

Vice Admiral Conner recognizes that the United States’ and its allies’ current and future interests in national security will depend on a survivable, lethal undersea force. Such a force will consist of smart payloads and unmanned vehicles in an affordable manner to satisfy financial and industrial constraints. Technical advances have opened a floodgate of possibilities for asymmetric solutions, and clandestine, unmanned offensive mining is just the beginning. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has invested in an affordable idea to minimizing risk and task to traditional forces.

The Advanced Undersea Weapon System (AUWS) is a group of unmanned systems (sensors, effectors, communications, and vehicles) that can be pre-positioned to autonomously and persistently influence the adversary at a time and place of our choosing. The ONR capabilities are specific components of the AUWS program currently being developed in conjunction with a large unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV), a relatively few miniature torpedoes, and many distributed mine sensors to address the threat of adversary ships and submarines. The AUWS will give commanders the ability to deploy sensors and weapon nodes as a minefield while maintaining the capability to remotely activate and deactivate the weapons. It will also maintain positive control of lethal weapons throughout the operation to ensure the ability to recover unused weapons when desired. The AUWS is a lower-cost force multiplier that will force adversaries to invest in mine-countermeasures capabilities.

This concept provides asymmetric clandestine solutions that will free traditional platforms to be more effectively employed in a capacity for which they were designed. The AUWS provides commanders with unique operational and tactical options in contested waters without regard to air superiority or water depth, freeing them to act aggressively with autonomous inexpensive tools. Its modular design will allow operators to integrate a wide variety of sensors and weapons, thus tailoring the system for specific missions. Sensors of choice may include short-, mid-, and long-range devices. Kinetic options include submarine-launched mobile mine (SLMM) warheads, torpedoes (CRAW or Mk-54), AIM-9X missile, and projectile explosives. Commanders may also apply deliveries to distort an adversary’s tactical picture through deception (decoys, noisemakers, etc.), ISR packages, and real-time intelligence. The AUWS may be delivered from surface ships, submarines, or aircraft, or it may self-deploy from a friendly port within range. Unmanned vehicles to transport AUWS deliveries may be reusable or expendable.

While the initial focus will be offensive mining, future AUWS missions will include defensive mining, antisubmarine, antisurface, and antiair warfare, intelligence, surveillance. and reconnaissance, pre-positioning of electronic-warfare and strike assets, supporting protective safe havens for resupply, and political leverage through deterrence. This modular architecture allows warfighters, military planners, and engineers to work symbiotically to maximize current capabilities while simultaneously developing new configurations of the AUWS.***

There is discussion of a DARPA approach here:

No matter how capable, even the most advanced vessel can only be in one place at a time. U.S. Navy assets must cover vast regions of interest around the globe even as force reductions and fiscal constraints continue to shrink fleet sizes. To maintain advantage over adversaries, U.S. Naval forces need to project key capabilities in multiple locations at once, without the time and expense of building new vessels to deliver those capabilities.

DARPA initiated the Hydra program to help address these challenges. Hydra aims to develop a distributed undersea network of unmanned payloads and platforms to complement manned vessels. The system would innovatively integrate existing and emerging technologies to deliver various capabilities above, on and below the ocean’s surface. By separating capabilities from the traditional platforms that deliver them, Hydra would serve as a force multiplier, enabling faster, scalable and more cost-effective deployment of assets wherever needed.

Hydra intends to develop modular payloads that would provide key capabilities, including Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Mine Counter-Measures (MCM). Each payload module would plug into a standardized enclosure that would securely transport, house and launch various payloads, while sustaining payload functionality for weeks to months. The Hydra system would emphasize scalability, rapid reconfiguration and maximization of payload. Naval forces could deliver the Hydra system by ship, submarine or airplane to littoral ocean zones (shallow international waters near shorelines).

More here:

“The climate of budget austerity runs up against an uncertain security environment that includes natural disasters, piracy, ungoverned states and the proliferation of sophisticated defense technologies,” said Scott Littlefield, DARPA program manager. “An unmanned technology infrastructure staged below the oceans’ surface could relieve some of that resource strain and expand military capabilities in this increasingly challenging space.”

Not every dangerous weapon needs to be . . . large, expensive and . . . dumb.

UPDATE: A NAVSEA presentation:

Developments in Mining by lawofsea

A Fighting Small Boat Swarms Idea

Raytheon photo

Robert Wall, an Aviation Week reporter blogs from the Dubai Air Show on an approach to fighting small boat swarms here:

Raytheon and Emirates Advanced Research and Technology Holding (Earth), its UAE partner, see potential application of the Talon laser-guided rocket to take on small boats.

Raytheon's TALON Laser Guided Rocket site:

AH-64D Apache (Boeing photo)

TALON is a low-cost, semi-active laser guidance and control kit that connects directly to the front of 2.75-inch unguided rockets currently in U.S. and international inventories. It has been designed to fill the critical operational gap between unguided rockets and guided heavy anti-tank missiles.

TALON provides an effective weapon against soft to lightly armored point targets while reducing potential collateral damage. Moreover, its precision standoff range results in improved platform survivability.

Cessna Grand Caravan

These rockets were designed for the AH-64 Apache, but it seems that Raytheon and its partner are thinking it could work on other platforms, too, as well as being capable of targeting small boats instead of just armor and land stuff.

See here where the Cessna Caravan and the AT-802U Air Tractor are mentioned. The latter is an interesting aircraft for anti-small boat ops - long linger time, reasonable pay load. As the Air Tractor site says:

Air Tractor photo of AT-802U

Particularly well suited for force application and situational awareness roles in asymmetrical warfare theatres of operation, the AT-802U is both economical and effective. Like a truck, the aircraft is utilitarian in nature: tough, powerful, and configurable to simply get the job done. It can maintain very long endurance over target and can employ a wide range of weapons simultaneously, with a high degree of accuracy to minimize collateral damage.

With its balloon tires and rugged landing gear, the AT-802U is built to land and operate off unimproved airstrips – even dirt roads – providing unprecedented direct support and coordination with ground troops. The AT-802U can fly in extreme heat and dust conditions and with its massive fuel reserves, loiter over target to find, fix and finish when other fighters have to return to the tanker.

Pilot and sensor operator on the AT-802U. Wonder how they'd do off and on a small flight deck?

Advertising from Air Tractor (and no, I don't own any shares in it or Raytheon or Cessna):
Air Tractor At-802u Brochure

How to Save Lives and Much More

AltelaRain® 600

A nice bit if inventing reported in Ocean News and Technology Magazine, September 2011 issue:

New technology brings water treatment to the masses

For over 100 years, the removal of salts from water required high pressure, large factories, metal parts susceptible to corrosion and massive amounts of electricity. All of this cost a bundle and led to the creation of huge desalination plants usually on the ocean somewhere. “Desal,” as it's called, meant only the richest countries could afford the factories.

Because the desal technology was too cumbersome and not available to water treatment facilities across the nation, the salt byproducts, such as total dissolved solids (TDS's), and other hazardous chemicals from industrial uses, have found their way into our rivers and drinking water. A new desal technology has emerged that not only can desalinate water at an affordable cost, but can also simultaneously remove harmful chemicals and disease microbes from the water.

It all started years ago when a scientist working in a small lab at a university in Arizona, had an idea. Dr. Jim Beckman, a professor at Arizona State University, asked these questions: Why couldn't desalination technology avoid using pressure, metal parts, and large amounts of electricity? Why couldn't the technology use no pressure and instead rely on plastic parts to avoid corrosion, and thus use almost no electricity? So Beckman went to work – and after years in the lab, he produced a system that can do just that. In order to treat the water, Altela technology uses the simplest of Mother Nature's processes, making rain. The mechanics are simple: each AltelaRain® tower is composed of two chambers. Steam and hot air taken from a heat stream or waste heat, circulate throughout the two chambers. As brackish water enters one chamber, it evaporates by passing through the steam. The water's contaminants fall to the bottom and exit the chamber. Next, dry air is pumped into the bottom of chamber, which carries the evaporated water molecules into the other chamber. From there, the water is condensed into clean water droplets. As the water condenses it becomes colder and emits heat that re-enters the other chamber and evaporates the brackish water.

Altela manufactures small, portable units that can be set up anywhere. That means the technology can remove salt and all harmful chemicals at any site in the country easily, cheaply, and with 90% less energy than other water treatment systems. An AltelaRain® module could run off of solar energy, enabling it to treat water from a village in Africa to the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania.

What does this mean, in practice? It means that all water coming from the Marcellus Shale natural gas wells, known as “frac water,” can be made cleaner than drinking water before going into the river. It means that runoff from a landfill, water that pollutes the streams, rivers and oceans ultimately can be treated on site before it is released. And it means that every village in Africa can have a small water treatment plant to stop the deaths of 3.5 million people every year from a lack of safe drinking water.

In fact, Altela's facility in Albuquerque is busy churning out modules to do just that. Its AltelaRain® 600 systems have also been installed in Pennsylvania and are processing water from natural gas wells to keep the industry going, despite new regulations, and sustaining 156,000 jobs in Pennsylvania alone.

“We set out to revolutionize the desal treatment, and we ended up finding a solution to water treatment all over the world, from the Marcellus Shale, to the smallest village in Africa,” said CEO Ned Godshall. “Pennsylvania is the beginning, but now we are poised to provide clean drinking water for the planet and stop the needless deaths of 3.5 million people every year.”

Good for people, good for the oil and gas industry, good for clean water.

Nice. Well done, Dr. Beckman!

UPDATE: No, I don't own any stock in Altela nor is this meant to be investment advice. If you are taking investment advice from me, you are not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, are you?


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