4 minutes with…Oleg Padalko, Director, N-f-P Partnership

Tell us about your organization and it’s role in the advanced bioeconomy.

The partnership has been founded in 2001 by 11 founders.Main areas of activity:waste minimization programs for industrial enterprises planning and implementation,MSW flows,incl. landfills, analytical description and management programs, pyrolysis, gasification and hydrothermal liquefaction of waste and not usable biomass for CHP production.

Tell us about your role and what you are focused on in the next 12 months.

Next 12 months the Partnership will be working on the problem of social-economic development of remote territories/objects (T/O) of the RF on the base of autonomous energy securing for these T/O. Resources of local biomass,wood and peat first of all, and non-incinerating technologies for biomass transformation into fuel will serve as technical and economic essential principles of appropriate projects.The work is at the beginning stage now and will be realized within the frame of BIOENERGY Technological Platform.So we are interesting in foreign partners having interest and experience for different aspects of such projects.Russian market in this sector is huge.

If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the Advanced Bioeconomy, what would you change?

For the Russian bioeconomy:reluctance of investors, the political instability, the slow opening-up of innovative technologies/equipments

Of all the reasons that influenced you to join the Advanced Bioeconomy industry, what single reason stands out for you as still being compelling and important to you?  

The first is the huge Russian biorsources potential and the second – the opportunity to use my metallurgical and metals treatment experience for the new area of activity.

Where are you from? 

I’m from Moscow, as to birthplace, childhood,university (Moscow Institute for Aviation Technology – Ing.- Metallurgist for Metal Science and Metals Heat Treatment)

What was your undergraduate major in college, and where did you attend? Why did you choose that school and that pathway? 

Undergraduate Major:Boris Voschedchenko, awell known Russian specialist for special steels, intermetallic compounds and titanium alloys metal science and heat treatment.

Who do you consider your mentors. What have you learned from them?

My scientific and technologies mentors are Michael Balshin and Sergey Kiparisov, both Dr.Sci. for powder metallurgy and Abram Livshits for Electro-Discharge Machining.

What’s the biggest lesson you ever learned during a period of adversity?

Never surrender!

What hobbies do you pursue, away from your work in the industry? 

Speleology, 30 years, but the last expedition has been finalized in 2003 – age, however!

What 3 books would you take to read, if stranded on a desert island?

12 Chairs; Gold calf (I. Ilf & E.Petrov) both);Poushkine’s Poems

What books or articles are on your reading list right now, or you just completed and really enjoyed?

E- and printed literature for biomass utilization as of raw material for further processing and different kinds of processing themselves.

What’s your favorite city or place to visit, for a holiday?

My small villa near Moscow.