by Thermo
23. March 2012 19:43
Better Than New
Dear Learned Leaper,
Why would I use rejuvenation, when I can have new cable?
Cable Guy
Dear Cable Guy-
I suspect, Cable Guy, that you’re not a circuit owner. Do you work for one of the cable manufacturers? If you were a circuit owner, you would know that money does not grow on trees and rejuvenation is almost always considerably less capital intensive than wholesale replacement. The question would have had more merit had it been asked two decades ago when the first generation of rejuvenation technology was becoming commercially important. The anticipated life of the first generation of fluid in non-demanding applications was and remains about two decades. The generally anticipated life of post 1990-vintage cables is about four decades. The 2X difference in anticipated life complicated the economic analysis of the treat or replace question. Advanced technology from Novinium can provide the same four-decades of service life, so that issue is a relic of the 20th Century.
How about post-injection reliability? In the January 31, 2012 issue of the Las Vegas Regional Journal, it was reported that NV Energy experiences about a 0.6% failure rate when it replaces cable. NV Energy reports that the older injection approach has about the same failure rate over a 12-year period. Utilizing Novinium’s state-of-the-art technology and the outstanding craftsmanship of our service delivery experts, our overall failure rate is less than 0.4%. That’s about 33% better than the failure rate of new cable. Novinium rejuvenation technology is better than new! But, here’s the really cool part, Novinium technology and delivery methodology continues to improve! In the graph nearby I am pointing at the beta value of our Crow-AMSAA analysis of all of the faults we have ever experienced treating millions of feet of cable on three continents. The value is 0.56. A value less than one indicates that the failure rate is decreasing – a one would mean that it is staying the same, and a value greater than one would indicate deteriorating reliability. To learn more about Crow-AMSAA, check out my August 11, 2011 post, “Crow.”
Novinium announced the passing of the “Better than new” milestone today. Click here to read the press release. We periodically post a transparent summary of our failure history at novinium.com/Lessons.aspx.
Better next year,
Thermo B. Frog
by Thermo
9. January 2012 13:59
The Other Real World 
In my last post of 2011 one of my local fans, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the veracity of the claims made by UTILX® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX® CableCURE® Rejuvenation Fluid.” Because that document is 17 pages long and includes so many interesting thoughts it will take me several posts to explore the entirety of that inquiry. The author of the 17 page missive, used the phrase “real world” 26 times. As my future posts unfold it will become clear that the author is almost certainly an alien, because his “real world” is not the same planet on which you and I live. Some of my critics are no doubt screaming that a talking frog is not of this Earth, but I would refer them to the literature, which is replete with references to talking frogs. If anybody wishes to meet me in the flesh, come to Novinium’s headquarters and ask to speak with the real brains behind the Novinium Masters of Reliability™. Links to the future posts, which provide analysis of specific “real world” claims will appear below as they become available.
Before we delve into the specifics outlined above, I want to go on the record as stating unequivocally that the phenylmethyldimethoxysilane (PMDMS) fluid used by UTILX works well in non-demanding cable rehabilitation applications in the real, real world. Novinium founders invented that fluid about two decades ago. Heck the spouse of one of the Novinium founders coined the “CableCure” trademark! Novinium provides Perficio™ 011 fluid, which uses the same PMDMS monomer for non-demanding applications. The Novinium Masters have made significant improvements – Perficio 011 is the perfection of PMDMS technology. To learn about those perfections, check out my post of one year ago entitled, ”Catalytic Considerations – Component II.”
I suspect that the author’s propensity to repeat the notion of “real world” is to imply that Novinium’s technology has not been tested against real world conditions. I would reply to that implication in two ways …
1. Novinium offers an improved version of what UTILX offers – same monomer, better catalyst. We also offer an even more advanced product (Ultrinium™ 73X fluid) that builds upon the prior two-decades of experience. Whether or not the data and analysis proffered by the author is representative of the real world remains to be discussed in future posts. Whether or not it is representative, the data provides the same experiential foundation to Novinium’s improved technology as it does to the two-decade-old approach. If people were not willing to try something new and improved, the earth would still be flat.
2. Novinium has injected millions of feet of cable on this real world – the planet Earth. We have aspirations to get to other planets some day, but for now the entirety of our experience is admittedly terrestrial. In the figure nearby I illustrate Novinium’s actual failure experience in the form of a Crow-AMSAA analysis. To learn more about Crow, check out my August 11, 2011 post of the same name. We publish this graph regularly and we transparently discuss our faults. Check out: “Lessons Learned” UTILX has a data analysis system similar to that of Novinium. We know this to be the case, because Novinium employees designed and programmed UTILX’s original CTS database. UTILX could end any debate about which set of technologies provides more reliable post-injection service by publishing its total failure history. If they don’t know how to do the required analysis, I will volunteer to provide the requisite lesson in statistics. Two dozen large crickets is all I will charge for an afternoon lesson in Crow.
There is undoubtedly a reason why Novinium’s post-injection performance is transparent and others choose opacity. As we shall see, the anecdotes selectively plucked from data and provided in “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX® CableCURE® Rejuvenation Fluid” are the opposite of the “irrefutable proof” claimed.
Signing off from the planet Earth,
Thermo
by Thermo
11. August 2011 16:06
Crow
Dear Frog of Knowledge,
Can you explain the Crow-AMSAA graph on Novinium’s web site at novinium.com/lessons.aspx? How do I compare Novinium’s post-injection reliability to that of UTILX?
Not wanting to eat crow,
‘raven Reliability
Dear ‘raven-
What a great play on words! My fans that compose creative questions get to move right to the front of the queue. You are justified in “c’raving” reliability. I took the opportunity your inquiry provided to update the Novinium failure statistics through August 10, 2011. I present those statistics in the chart nearby. Crow was a guy that worked for the “Army Material Systems Analysis Activity” or AMSAA. Crow developed the statistical model that now bears his name and that of his employer. Crow-AMSAA or “C-A” for short is widely recognized as a preferred model to predict the reliability of complex systems that experience multiple failure mechanisms.
The x-axis is the product of the feet of cable that have been treated by Novinium and the years that have elapsed since treatment. For example, if a 328 foot (100 meter) length of cable was treated three year ago, its contribution to the cumulative treated would be 984 feet*years. The x-axis is logarithmic. Plotted against the y-axis are the failures – 56 in total. A least squares regression of the failures provides a slope, or beta, of 0.64. A beta less than 1 means the failure rate is decreasing. Process and chemistry improvements, together with the improving mastery of the Novinium’s craft workers, make Novinium technology more and more reliable. That’s not to say that when Novinium began injection operations over six years ago post-injection performance was unacceptable. Novinium started where the old technology, invented by Novinium founders, reached a reliability plateau. When I did this same C-A analysis nine months ago (November 2010) the beta was 0.72. So, not only is the failure rate decreasing, but the rate of decrease is accelerating! About 99.4% of all the cables, which Novinium have treated, remain in reliable service. This is at least twice as good as the other guys!
With regard to how you can compare Novinium reliability with that of UtilX, I can only provide you with some frog-advice. As a circuit owner you should demand that UtilX publish its total failure statistics – not just a few select circuit owners, the whole data set. Then circuit owners would be able to make an apples-to-apples comparison. Don’t hold your breath, when NEETRAC, their sponsoring circuit owners, and other industry leaders invited UtilX to participate in a side-by-side laboratory experiment, UtilX helped craft an experiment, but withdrew their participation when the experiment actually began. By the way, that experiment is complete and included the only rejuvenation firm willing to share their post-injection results in a truly independent experiment – that would be Novinium. UtilX demurred, citing “business and commercial reasons.”
No need to crow when you can croak,
T. B. Frog
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