Trip to
Nevada
International Week
Ramezi LAHBIB - Antoine HECKER
Promotion IE 02
Trip to Nevada by Ramezi and Antoine 2014
Thanks
Before starting this report, we would like to thank Mrs Baudemont who organized this tip and found
different contacts for this trip to be as efficient as possible for our training. We also want to thank Mr
Jourdan who came with us and also took part in the organisation of the trip.
Moroever, we want to thank the members fromm ITII Evreux and CFAI de l'Eure.
Sommaire
Thanks ..................................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 3
1.
Why was the Nevada chosen ?........................................................................................................ 4
2.
Prejudices about Nevada:................................................................................................................ 7
2.1.
The Nevada is only Las Vegas and its casinos.......................................................................... 7
2.1.1. Grand Canyon ........................................................................................................................ 7
2.1.2. Solar one (Invanpah) ............................................................................................................. 9
2.1.3. The Hoover Dam .................................................................................................................. 12
2.2. Las Vegas, a city where energy is wasted................................................................................... 14
2.3. Las Vegas is a city where we only celebrate............................................................................... 18
2.3.1. Nikkiso Cryo ......................................................................................................................... 18
2.3.2. Veolia environnement ......................................................................................................... 20
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 21
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Trip to Nevada by Ramezi and Antoine 2014
Introduction
Within the framework of our training in the ITII of Evreux, we made an exploratory expedition in the
Nevada for the international week which is organized every year Nevada was chosen as the diversity
of the visits which it allowed us to make and the application of our English. Furthermore, among
these visits, several of them allowed us to deepen our apprenticeship on the diverse energies.
During this week, we had the opportunity to visit several key places of the Nevada, such as the
Hoover dam, the Ivanpah solar power plant, the Grand Canyon and many companies situated in the
city of Las Vegas. Yes, contrary to preconceived ideas, Nevada limits itself not only in Las Vegas and
its wonderful decorations.
In this report, we are going to present you why was the Nevada chosen by describing all the visits we
had. Then we are going to show that all the precoceived ideas existing about Nevada and LLas Vegas
may be wrong.
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Trip to Nevada by Ramezi and Antoine 2014
1. Why was the Nevada chosen ?
The Nevada was the destination chosen because it's a state where live about 2,7 millions
people in a dry climate. We want to understand how this state in the middle of a desert can succeed
to provide energy to its inhabitants.
Figure 1 : Nevada is officially known as the "Silver State" due to the importance of silver to its history and economy.
Nevada is a state in the Western United States, bordered to the south-west to California, north
through Oregon and Idaho and to the east by Utah and Arizona.
It is the 7th most extensive, the 35th most populous, and the 9th least densely populated of the 50
United States. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's people live in Clark County, which locate Las Vegas
metropolitain area.
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Origin of the name
The name of this state comes from the range of mountains Sierra Nevada. In Spanish, Nevada means
“covered of snow”.
History
The first populations who lived in the Nevada were native American. They were first nomadic and fed
themselves thanks to the hunt or the fishing. Then, they settled and left many vestiges of their
culture.
The congress of the USA established Utah the 14th of August 1850; it was formed by these current
states: Utah, Idaho and Nevada.
On March 2nd 1861, Nevada was separated from Utah. It became the 36th state of the USA in October
31st 1864.
The gambling industry developed in the 1930’s because of the decreasing of stocks of ore or silver for
example, which made the wealth of Nevada before. Las Vegas became quickly the capital of
gambling.
Geography
Nevada is a western state of the USA, located between California and Utah. The superficy of the state
is 286,353 m². In 2010, there were 2,700,551 inhabitants living there. The capital city of Nevada is
Carson City. This state is at a mean height of 1,675 meters. The highest point is the Boundary Peak
which is 4 005 meters high in the South West of Nevada, near the Californian boundary.
The main river of Nevada is the Humboldt which is 480 km long and which flows entirely in the north
of the state. The Colorado river flows in the southern part of Nevada.
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Climate
In Nevada, the climate is dry because of the mountains which unable the wet air from the pacific
ocean to reach the Nevada. The south of the state is very dry and hot : in Las Vegas there are 104
mm of rain each year and the average temperature is 19.5 °C. However you can find snow in the
winter on the high mounts of the state (higher than 2 000 meters).
The main river of Nevada is the Humboldt which is 480 km long and which flows entirely in the north
of the state. The Colorado river flows in the southern part of Nevada.
The main issue in Nevada is the dryness, especially in the areas with lot of population, such as Las
Vegas, because there is a huge need of water.
Energy
To provide energy to its inhabitants Nevada dispose of various power plants, as the hoover dam and
the solar power plant which is named solar one.
The hoover dam was built in the 1930’s to feed the city in water. It creates the lake Mead on the
Colorado river and is almost 180 km long. The stocks of the Hoover Dam are not sufficient anymore
to feed in water other states. Moreover this dam provide a electric capacity of 2,080 MW to the
state.
The solar thermal power plant, Solar One has a maximal capacity of 75 MW and avoids the
equivalent of CO2 emissions by taking off approximately 20,000 cars of the road annually.
The Nevada plans to have 20% of renewable energy in its consumption in 2015, especially thanks to
the solar power plants installed in the desert.
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2. Prejudices about Nevada:
2.1.The Nevada is only Las Vegas and its casinos
Sometimes we hear that Nevada is limited to Las Vegas and its casinos. But Nevada is bigger
and richer from the cultural point of view. In this state, you can visit one of the most spectacular
panoramas in the world which is the Grand Canyon, and various renewable power plants such as
solar one and the Hoover Dam.
2.1.1. Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a canyon of the United States located in the northwestern Arizona. It was
carved by the Colorado River in the plateau of the same name. Founded in 1919, the park covers a
protected area of 4,927 km. It is visited annually by more than four million visitors. Natural and
landscape diversity of the region has been recognized World Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in
1979.
Dimensions
The size of the Grand Canyon are enormous: it extends about 450 km long between Lake Powell and
Lake Mead. Its average depth is 1,300 meters with a maximum of over 2000 meters. Its width varies
from 5.5 km to 30 km.
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The Grand Canyon is not the deepest or most imposing land canyons: Yarlung Tsangpo Canyon of
China, the Barranca del Cobre, located in northern Mexico and the Hells Canyon in Idaho are deeper
grooves . But the site is notable for the views offered to visitors and geological layers that appear on
the sides of the canyon, well known to geologists. Strata tell the story of the North American
continent.
History
The Grand Canyon was carved by the force of Colorado which has its source in the Rocky Mountains
and empties into the Gulf of California after traveling 2333 km. Below Yavapai Point, the river bed is
750 meters above sea level
The average flow is 650 m³ / s; However, during flood periods, it can increase significantly: before the
construction of dams, the flow could atteindre2 300 m³ / s. A hundred rapids are at the bottom of
the canyon. Several tributaries flow into the Colorado Kanab Creek, Havasu Creek, Little Colorado
and Paria River. Many rivers are temporary and dependent on rainfall and season.
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Trip to Nevada by Ramezi and Antoine 2014
2.1.2. Solar one (Invanpah)
On Tuesday morning we had the visit of the Invanpah power plant. The Ivanpah Solar Electric
Generating System, is a solar thermal power project in the California Mojave Desert, 64 km
southwest of Las Vegas, with a planned gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW). It deploys
173,500 heliostats each with two mirrors focusing solar energy on boilers located on centralized solar
power towers. This plant is composed of 3 units. There are 3.2 miles between the first and the last
unit. The first Unit of the project was connected to the grid in September 2013 in an initial sync
testing. The facility formally opened on February 13, 2014 and the three units should be fully
operational before the end of 2014.
There are 70 employees working on the 4000 acres of the power plant. Some of them are working
during the night, especially for the maintenance operations. The mirrors were designed to be cleaned
once every two weeks but thanks to the experience they're starting to have, they realized that the
mirrors would remain enough efficient even if they were cleaned only three times a year, which
makes quite a big difference from the design value. The 96 IR (infrared) cameras are daily cleaned up
so that the position of the heliostats can be optimized. The operating time depends on when the sun
rises and sets. There are about 300 days when the sunlight can be used to generate electricity, that's
the reason why the power plant was implemented there. Moreover, Invanpah is located near by a
high voltage line. However, the place is federal ; so the power plant has to be run during 30 years,
then it will be dismantled.
There are 3 Equity Investors for this project :

NRG which is the exploiting company of the power plant.
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

Google which is a big investors of the project.
Brightsource which is the supplier for all the technical devices.
The project has received a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. The total
cost of the project is about $2.18 billion. BrightSource has contracts to sell about two-thirds of the
power generated at Ivanpah toPG&E, and the rest to SCE.
The largest investor in the project is NRG Energy, a generating company based in Princeton, N.J., that
has put in $300 million. The project has also received an investment of $168 million from Google, but
in November 2011, Google announced that they would no longer invest in CSP due to the rapid price
decline of photovoltaic's, and stopped its research on the project.
We are now going to describe the functioning of the power plant.
The power generation capacity of the power plant is 392 MW and it produces 330,000 MWh of
electricity. The power plant is composed of 3 units. These units are composed of one central receiver
tower, 60,000 heliostats, one air condenser, 2 turbines (HP and LP) supplied by Siemens, one
auxiliary boiler. The radiation of the sun is reflected by the heliostats towards the central receiver
tower. This tower is 450 high. One heliostat is composed of 2 mirrors. The position of the mirrors is
given by a 2 axes control (horizontal and vertical). The position is set up by 2 parameters: the position
of the sun based on a high performance weather system (insolation matrix, satellite, ambient
weather, wind …) and the other one is the temperature of the central receiver tower given by IR
cameras.
The reflection of the radiations of the sun turns the water of the tower into steam. This superheated
steam drives 2 turbines which generate electricity. The first turbine is driven by high pressure steam
(2646 PSI and 1050 °F. The pressure of the steam is decreased. This low pressure steam drives then
the second turbine. From the outlet of the turbine, the steam enters the air condenser and is
collected as water and reused in the process. The condensers are composed of a big fan. The low
pressure steam comes from the top of the devices. The cooling air comes counter-stream to this flow
and enables the steam to come back as a liquid. These condensers enables the power plant to not
use any water to cool the steam whereas this often the solution chosen in many industries. The
efficiency of this device depends on the extern ambient temperature.
We are now going to talk about the water treatment. Each unit has a raw water tank. Minerals in this
water are then removed by the demined equipments and the cleaned up water is stored in the
demined water tank. This part of the water treatment is used to supply demined water, in case of
loss. As this part of the USA is very dry, the water network is highly controlled so that there are no
big needs of supplying water. Indeed, all the water used for the process can be reused. The
condensate are taken at the outlet of the air condenser and sent back to demined devices.
There is one auxiliary boiler for each unit. This unit aims to supply heat to the steam when the sun
radiations are not enough (during the night especially). The heat is produced thanks to the natural
gas combustion. 500 W/m² is the minimum radiation of the sun to generate steam ; when the power
plant works properly the average radiation is 920 W/m².
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Trip to Nevada by Ramezi and Antoine 2014
As a renewable energy producer, Invanpah has a limitation for the combustion of natural gas. It
should not consumed more than 328,000,000 BTU per year.
In February 2012, Ivanpah was awarded the CSP (Concentrating Solar Power) Project of the Year by
Solar Power Generation USA.
There are some environmental issues about this power plant.

There are protected species living in Invanpah such as tortoises or birds or foxes.

The limitation for the water consumption is 100 acre.feet/year.

The emissions of greenhouse gases are controlled for the auxiliary boilers.
Thanks to this project, fossil power plants using gas and coal were shut down. This power plant
enabled to not produce 400,000 metric tons of CO2.
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Trip to Nevada by Ramezi and Antoine 2014
2.1.3. The Hoover Dam
The Hoover Dam is an dam arch / weight on the Colorado River in the United States, near
Boulder City, on the border between Arizona and Nevada. It was built between 1931 and 1936 during
the Great Depression, and was inaugurated September 30, 1935 by President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers in
difficult conditions which caused the death of 111 of them. Its construction took nearly 7 million tons
of concrete.
From the early twentieth century, the Black Canyon and Boulder Canyon had been investigated for
their ability to accommodate a dam capable of regulating the flow of the Colorado, allow irrigation
and provide electricity. In 1928, the Congress of the United States approved this project. The contract
for construction was awarded to a consortium called Six Companies, Inc. (in) which began
construction in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built so far and some
techniques were in their infancy. Hot summers and lack of infrastructure near the site was a
problem. Nevertheless, Six Companies, Inc. completed construction on March 1, 1936, more than
two years before the scheduled date.
Impoundment Hoover Dam led to the creation of Lake Mead. The city of Boulder City, built to house
the workers employed in the construction, is located about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Electric
power dam provide energy for plants in Nevada, Arizona and California. Hoover Dam is a major
tourist destination and receives almost a million tourists a year.
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As the United States developed the Southwest, the Colorado
River was seen as a potential source of water for irrigation. A
first attempt to divert the river took place in the late 1890s ,
when a land investor , William Beatty built the Alamo Canal
(en), just north of the border with Mexico , the channel then
extended to Mexico before heading in a desolate area Beatty
named the Imperial Valley. Although the canal water has
allowed the rapid development of the valley, the canal proved
expensive to maintain. After a catastrophic flood in Colorado
that led to the creation of the Salton Sea , the Southern
Pacific Transportation Company spent $ 3 million between
1906 and 1907 to stabilize the waterway, but this expense
was not reimbursed by the Federal Government . Even after
the stabilization constant disputes with landowners in Mexico
made use of difficult canal.
After improving transport technologies of electricity,
hydropower potential of the Lower Colorado began to get
interesting. In 1902, the Southern California Edison sounded
the river in the hope of building a dam 12 m rock capable of
generating 7,500 kW. However, the technology of the time did not allow to transport electricity
beyond 130 km and there was little potential customers (mostly mines) within that limit.
Nevertheless, Edison authorized the purchase of land in the best locations, including future Hoover
Dam.
In the years that followed, the Bureau of Reclamation, known as the Reclamation Service at the time,
also studying the possibility of building on the Lower Colorado. Its director Arthur Powell Davis
proposed to blow the walls of Boulder Canyon, 35 km north of the future site of the dam with
dynamite. Debris would then be carried by the current and a dam could be built with the rubble. In
1922, after several years of study, the Reclamation Service rejected the concept, arguing doubts
about the method used and the fact that it would save money.
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2.2. Las Vegas, a city where energy is wasted
There are a lot of prejudices about Nevada, most of them are about Las Vegas and the clichés of this
city which are shown in the media. All the lights and the casinos of the capital of the gambling make
most of the people think that, in this city, nobody pays attention to the energy consumption.
Most people share a singular impression of Las Vegas. It is exuberant, flashy, and frenetic; a place
where fun takes place all year long. Few among its 39 million visitors per year come for an
ecotourism experience, yet green ideas are one of Las Vegas’ best kept secrets. Tourists overlook the
resource-saving mentality of the city because all the lights, limos, and late-night attractions seem
incongruous with environmental sensitivity. But much of the “real” Vegas for residents is away from
The Strip, which is technically outside the city limits, and people’s impressions are beginning to
change thanks to a number of energy conservation efforts at casinos and a push for LEED-certified
buildings, such as the new Las Vegas City Hall.
Nevada already has more square feet of LEED-certified buildings (Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) per capita than any other state, and Las Vegas is hoping to add one more
building to the list by applying for LEED Gold certification for the city hall.
On Monday morning, we went to Las Vegas City Hall. This is a LEED building. This is a reason why this
visit was very important for us. Indeed, since 2013, the city hall has the LEED certification which
compares it to other buildings al around the USA by focusing on water and energy consumption, the
materials used for the building, the greenhouse gas emissions). This city hall was built in 2012 in
order to replace the former one which was used since 1973. It also enables to give another image of
Las Vegas. Indeed, a very large majority of people in the world, and also in Nevada, is focused on the
gambling, the shows… but there’s another point of view for this city. The new policy of Las Vegas is to
save energy to be respectful for the environment. Nevada already has more square feet of LEEDcertified buildings per capita than any other state.
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The company which built this city hall is Forest City Enterprises. The cost of the project was about
146 million dollars. This building may look like a world-class casino. It was designed by Elkus Manfredi
Architects of Boston. The City Hall is located downtown in Las Vegas and is about 309,000 square
foot.
This is a highly sustainable building respectful of the environment as several devices are set up to
produce electricity; especially thanks to renewable energy. Indeed, there are 33 energy producing
solar trees (75 kW) and also rooftop solar panels (90 kW). The building produces about 290,000 kWh
of power each year.
There are about 300 days of sun per year. The solar energy provides 10% of the whole consumption
of energy of the city hall. There’s a measure of the electricity produced continuously, every 15
minutes. The production of electricity thanks to the solar panels represents 10% of the city hall
consumption.
A lot of factors were considered in order to make a high sustainable building from the energy and
environment point of view. For example, in addition to the solar devices which were installed, a
study on the glass of the windows was made. The glass chosen was Low-E glass which is a glass
chemically treated to avoid the heat to enter the building. Only the light comes in. Along the same
lines, the roofing materials were chosen with a high albedo (reflection coefficient) in order to reduce
the solar heat gain. LED (Light-Emitting Diode) were chosen for the lighting.
Compared to the former city hall, this building enables to save $400,000 each year. This is due to the
renewable energy production, the design of the building and high performance devices (such as the
conditioning system).
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In this building, there’s a high daylighting (big glasses). At 10 o’clock, the electricity network of the
city hall is shut down so that there is no device working during the night. The building is closed on
Wednesdays and every week ends.
Thanks to its design it also reduces the emission of greenhouse gasses.
Another very important point for Nevada is the water consumption. The city hall aims to show to
people the good solution for this issue. The water from the rain is collected and used for the needs of
the building. For example, this water is used to grow vegetables. Thanks to this, 10% of the water
comes from the rain ; the 90% remaining comes from Lake Mead.
This point is a serious issue for Nevada because water is over-consumed and the level of Lake Mead
is dramatically decreasing. Indeed, in 2000 this level was at 96% ; nowadays the level of Lake Mead is
at 47%.
The hall of this building is rather big. It was designed in order to remember to its visitors the Lake
Mead and the Hoover Dam. This hoover was built in the 1930’s to provide water and electricity to
Las Vegas. It was very useful during World War 2 for the aircraft industries.
Most of the energy of the Nevada comes from the combustion of Natural Gas. The remaining part
(15-17%) comes from the renewable energies such as solar, wind energy and geothermal. Nevada
aims to reach 25% in 2025.
The city hall makes investments in order to realize energy savings. The money used to save energy
comes from…energy savings which were already realized. There were will be 40 sites with solar
panels at the end of the year.
For example:
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-
A solar covered parking produces 1.95 MW of electricity and is appreciated, especially during
summer when the temperatures are high.
45,000 LED street lights (with high pressure sodium) are installed in the whole city.
Energy efficient buildings are designed in order to save energy (materials, HVAC control,
luminaries…)
Investments on the public transportation, creation of bike lanes. The energy department
gives money for the purchasing of electric vehicles.
During the visit we could learn some important piece of information:
-
The energy costs are decreasing since the end of 2009.
The part of renewable energy in the power production is increasing (3MW installed in 2011,
5MW in 2014 and the city hall hopes to have 7MW in 2015).
The water consumption is decreasing but the bill increases because of the Lake Mead getting
dryer and dryer.
The recycling rates were improved and is now higher than the national average (48% in 2012
for Las Vegas whereas it was 36% for the USA).
Another issue that Las Vegas will have to face is the increasing of its population. There were 700,000
inhabitants in the 1990’s, there are above 2 million inhabitants nowadays and there will probably be
4 million inhabitants in 2020.
.
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2.3. Las Vegas is a city where we only celebrate
We also hear that Las Vegas is a city where we only celebrate. Las Vegas is a city where high
technology is dominant. Many big companies implanted as Nikkiso and Veolia which we visited
during our trip.
2.3.1. Nikkiso Cryo
On Monday afternoon, we visited Nikkiso Cryo, a company where work a French engineer
who present us her company and exposed us her feeling about the city of Las Vegas.
Nikkiso is a Japanese group which was founded in December 1953 and started to provide pumps to
Milton Roy in January 1954. Its headquarter take place in Tokyo and it employed more than 5,200
employees.
Nikkiso’s customers are mainly world leaders in the petrochemical, energy and engineering fields.
The businesses of Nkkiso are manufacturing, sales, installation, maintenance, and consulting service
for water conditioning systems for power plants, Custom-designed chromatography systems,
effluent treatment systems, various analysing devices and software, and various testing devices.
The group also works in sampling systems and chemical feed systems such as water treatment
systems for boilers.
Nikkiso manufactures and sells particle analytical equipments and electronic components production
systems for various fields (measurement devices, war isostatic laminators …).
Nikkiso has also an aerospace division and supplies products in carbon fiber reinforced plastic for
aircraft, space and satellites components.
Nikkiso’s corporate philosophy is to contribute to the world using its proprietary technologies,
focusing on “human life” and “environment.” Nikkiso aims to contribute to the sustainable
development during all its processes. Nikkiso has adopted a PDCA process (Plan - Do - Check - Act) to
realize ongoing improvements to the environment via the environmental management systems
detailed below :
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Nikkiso Cryo, Inc is the global leader in development, engineering and testing of cryogenic pumps.
Nikkiso has more than half a century in fluid technologies and produces high quality pumps which are
able to pump liquid with high or super low temperature and high pressure.
The cryogenisation is the best solution to reduce the volume of the gas, because the density of the
liquid is bigger than the density of the gas. But to turn the gas into liquid, we have to cool it at 160°C, this is why it's named cryogenic pumps, because the liquid is very cold.
Moreover, the produced pumps are submerged to avoid explosion, because there is no oxygen near
the motor of the pump. Theses pumps produced are composed of one to twenty stages. The more
there are stages, the more the capacity of the pumps is high.
3 different models are produced by this branch, the in line pumps, the pumps in the tank and the
removable pumps which are installed in a column so that it can be easily changed.
The pumps which installed in the tank are the less expensive, because their are sometimes the
smaller and their using is the less critical. Their price is about 100,000 $.
The pumps which are installed in a column, are used in very big tanks. Their installation in a column
avoid producers to have the tank empty to change the pump. The column detects the presence of
the pump, and if the pump is not here, it blocks the flow to avoid fluid to enter in the column. This
type of pump cost about 1,000,000 $.
This Japanese group’s site in Nevada was founded in Las Vegas in 1996. There are currently 80
employees working there. This plant ensure the design, the production, the sold and the
maintenance of the pumps for the group. But all of the pieces are provided by other companies,
Nikkiso assemble only the different parts.
This site provide the customers of all over the world except the Japan, which is provided by the site
of Tokyo.
Moreover, to succeed in providing their 200 pumps per year, this plant disposes of the only stand
test of the group. And one of the two only similarly stand in the world. The second is the propriety of
Ebarra one of the concurrent of the company.
The unit in Las Vegas is certified ISO 9001 which shows the quality of their products and the will to
always get better process.
Mrs Beauvais, the engineer who presented us this plant is French. She exposed us her feeling for
different points such as the importance of the English in professional life, the life of an immigrant in
Las Vegas and the importance given to the environment by the inhabitants of the city.
Mrs Beauvais said to us that it's rare that French companies work only with other French companies
and then is primordial to always improve his English.
She has been being in Nevada for now 3 years. Before she arrived there she thought English would be
quite easy for her because her level was already high. But after these 3 years, she had to admit that
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she's still not bilingual because at school she only learned technical English. So she met difficulties in
daily English.
She told us that in her opinion flexibility is an important skill for engineers. She thinks that if you
want to do the job that you dream about you have to be ready to travel. In these conditions, English
is necessary to communicate.
She told us that she integrated easily to the American way of life. Despite, she spends many time at
work (50-60 hours per week, 2 weeks of holidays) there are many advantages by living there. The
cost of the life is much lower than in France, Las Vegas is a great city and its inhabitants are used to
foreign people.
The last point we talked about with her was about the water consumption in Nevada. She is worried
about that, because in her opinion people absolutely don't mind about their water consumption and
the fact that the level of Lake Mead is dramatically decreasing.
2.3.2. Veolia environnement
On thursday morning, we visited all the equipments managed by Veolia Energy in the Venetian Hotel.
Veolia Environnement is a French multinational, world leader in community services. Veolia
Environnement offers its customers, local communities and businesses, expertise in four
complementary areas:

Management of the water cycle ;

Energy management ;

Management and recovery of waste ;

Passenger transportation.
During our trip, we had the opportunity to discover the energy branch located in Las Vegas.
The main tasks of this branch are :




The choice of the most suitable energy ;
The improving of energy efficiency for tools production and processing ;
The maintenance and proper management of network ;
The development of CO2 savings.
In the hotel we visited, Veolia manages the different energies, such as water, domestic hot water, air
conditioning and air treatment. To do this, the agency has 40 people working continuously to allow a
continuous supply of hotel. Four teams have been put in place to effectively monitor facilities. The
first of them is responsible for the supervision of the facilities via a centralized technical
management. 3 other maintainers facilities cold, heat and air treatment.
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Conclusion
This international week was a benefit for us in our training. Indeed, on the one hand, it enabled us to
improve our skills in the energy field thanks to visits such the solar power plant, the dam and the city
hall of Las Vegas. On the other hand, it also enabled us to compare the functionning of amercian
company and the companies where our training is taking place thanks to the meeting we had with
Mrs Beauvoisin in Nikkiso. Eventually, this trip allowed us to practice english and discover a new
culture by visiting Las Vegas or the Grand Canyon.
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