City of Sydney plans recycled water network

Clover Moores Sydney city council seems to be plotting a slow secession from the electricity and water grids. The SMH has a report on an interesting plan for storing recycled water in local aquifers - City of Sydney plans recycled water network.

THE City of Sydney council is finalising plans for a recycled water network to be established throughout much of the city. It will include use of the Botany aquifer which extends from Redfern and Surry Hills, through Centennial Park and on to Botany Bay.

The rethink of the citys water supply comes as the council finalises plans to decouple the electricity network from the statewide supply grid, instead using a new network of power generators throughout the CBD which will provide cheaper and more reliable power to the city. If youre digging up the streets to put in the new trigeneration [electricity, heating and cooling] system, thats the golden opportunity to put in a recycled water network, the councils chief development officer for energy and climate change, Mr Allan Jones, said.

Sixty per cent of the cost of the infrastructure is in the trenching and traffic management. Thats why were also looking at automated waste collection.

The council recently outlined plans for an automated waste collection system, which remains under study. Piping water into the city and only drinking 2 per cent of that is just crackers, Mr Jones said. Taking into account cooking, and any possible way of ingesting water, no more than 20 per cent of the citys water needed to be of drinking quality, he said.

Central to the plan will use of recycled water and stormwater at new developments such as Barangaroo and Green Square.
Barangaroo will generate a surplus of recycled water which is expected to be used in water cooling towers and similar structures in other parts of the CBD.

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Biofuels Production Has Unintended Consequences on Water Quality and Quantity in Mississippi

Science Daily has a look at the impact of biofuel production on water quality in the Mississippi river - Biofuels Production Has Unintended Consequences on Water Quality and Quantity in Mississippi.

More water is required to produce corn than to produce cotton in the Mississippi Delta requiring increased withdrawals of groundwater from the Mississippi River Valley alluvial (MRVA) aquifer for irrigation. This is contributing to already declining water levels in the aquifer. In addition, increased use of nitrogen fertilizer for corn in comparison to cotton could contribute to low dissolved oxygen conditions in the Gulf of Mexico.

These are some of the key findings from a study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to assess water quality and quantity in the Mississippi Delta, in relationship to biofuels production.

"Because corn uses 80 percent more water for irrigation than cotton, exchanging corn for cotton will decrease water-levels," according to Heather Welch, USGS Hydrologist and author of this USGS Report. Declining water levels in the MRVA aquifer are particularly significant in the Mississippi Delta, where the infiltration of rainfall to replenish the aquifer is low. "This is a low flat area. When it does rain, much of the precipitation is lost through evapotranspiration and to streamflow, so the rainwater never reaches the aquifer," explains Welch.

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Energy Biomass Program implemented the Biofuels Initiative. The initiative calls for the replacement of 30 percent of gasoline levels by ethanol by 2030 and the reduction of ethanol costs to prices competitive with gasoline by 2012. In the Mississippi Delta, implementation of this initiative resulted in a 47-percent decrease in the number of acres dedicated to producing cotton, which resulted in a corresponding 288-percent increase in corn acreage in the region from 2006 to 2007.

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Oil and water

Reuters has an article on Saudi Arabia’s water troubles and the increasing percentage of oil production going towards running desalination plants - Oil and water - Saudi Arabias Resource Puzzle

Water use in the desert kingdom is already almost double the per capita global average and increasing at an ever faster rate with the rapid expansion of Saudi Arabias population and industrial development.

Riyadh in 2008 abandoned what was in retrospect clearly a flawed plan to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat and aims to be 100 percent reliant on imports by 2016. "The decision to import is to preserve water," said Saudi Deputy Minister of Agriculture for Research and Development Abdullah al-Obaid. "Its not a matter of cost. The government buys wheat at prices higher than in the local market."
…

Agriculture is the single biggest user [of water], absorbing 85-90 percent of the kingdoms supplies, according to Saudis deputy minister of agriculture for research and development. Of that, almost 80-85 percent came from underground aquifers.

With average annual rainfall around 100 mm (4 inches), Saudis ancient underground aquifers are its lifeblood.

But just as peak oil theorists believe the worlds conventional oil supplies are at or near their peak, proponents of the peak water view have said the resource has been irreversibly drained.

Booz and Company has said some of the regions aquifers -- also referred to as "fossil water" as they contain rain that fell thousands of years ago -- have become too salty to drink.

Injecting water into oilfields has also had an impact, although sea water is now generally used to maintain reservoir pressure.

The alternative to desalination -- the energy-intensive process of converting salt water to fresh water -- robs Saudi Arabia of its other precious resource, oil, by eating up both fuel and fuel revenues.

Saudi Arabias Saline Water Conversion Corp (SWCC) produces 3.36 million cubic meters of desalinated water per day, a daily cost of 8.6 million riyals based on the SWCCs 2009 figures -- the latest available -- when the cost of producing one cubic meter of desalinated water was 2.57 riyals. Transporting it added an extra 1.12 riyals per cubic meter.

Analysts and industry leaders say the authorities need to pass on more of the costs to the end-user to curb demand and reduce waste -- an argument that holds true for power and fuel but which requires very careful handling in the case of water.

"It is necessary to raise water tariffs," Isao Takekoh, a director at the U.S.-based International Desalination Association, said. "But it should be conducted very carefully and step-by-step because water is, needless to say, indispensable for human life."

By burning up energy, desalination reduces the amount of crude available for lucrative export markets. Takekoh estimated energy represented between 45 and 55 percent of unit production costs.

The International Energy Agency and analysts at HSBC bank estimated Saudi Arabias rate of direct crude burning more than doubled from 2008 to 2010 because of a rapid rise in power demand and a shortage of natural gas. How much of that went to desalination is not known but experts believe it is significant.

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Nordic Awarded exclusive mandate to raise funds for Bio degradable bottle water company

The global bottled water market valuation grew by 7% in 2006 to reach a value of $60,938.1 million. The volume of bottled water grew by 8.1% in 2006 to 115,393.5 million liters. In 2011, the market is forecast to have a value of $86,421.2 million, an increase of 41.8% since 2006. In 2011, the market is forecast to have a volume of 174,286.6 million liters, an increase of 51% since 2006.

The global rate of consumption more than quadrupled between 1990 and 2005. Purified water is currently the leading global seller, with U.S. companies dominating the field, and natural spring water, purified water and flavored water being the fastest-growing market segments.

Effects of bottled water

A large pile of Poland Spring bottles

Wasted material

The major criticism of bottled water concerns the bottles themselves. Individual use bottled water is generally packaged in Polyethylene terephthalate (PET). According to a NAPCOR study, PET water bottles account for 50% of all the PET bottles and containers collected by curbside recycling, and the recycling rate for water bottles is 23.4%, an increase over the 2006 rate of 20.1%. PET bottled water containers make up one-third of 1 percent of the waste stream in the United States.

The International Bottled Water Association also reports that the average weight of a plastic bottle water was 13.83 grams in 2007, compared to 18.90 grams in 2000, representing a 26.7% decline. Pepsi-Co has since introduced a bottle weighing 10.9 grams and using 20 percent less plastic, which it says is the lightest bottle of its kind that is nationally distributed.

An estimated 50 billion bottles of water are consumed per annum in the US and around 200 billion bottles globally.

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Move Over Electricity Gas and Water Meters Are Getting Smart

Greentech Media has a report on the expansion of smart metering to water and gas - Move Over, Electricity: Gas and Water Meters Are Getting Smart.

For all of the chatter about smart meters, the conversation rarely wanders far from the realm of electricity. But action is starting to heat up in the smart gas meter market, and water isn’t far behind.

Last week, consulting group Capgemini announced it was chosen by Southern California Gas Company (owned by Sempra) to install more than six million smart meters in the next five years, the largest gas-only utility smart meter project in the U.S. SoCalGas’s project is part of a nearly three-fold increase in the penetration of smart gas meters worldwide estimated by Pike Research between 2010 and 2016.

“The gas grid is certainly a different animal,” said David DuCharme, vice president of Utility and Smart Energy Services at Capgemini. “The largest issue is safety and management.”

In Europe, there is already more activity in the gas market; the U.K. government has mandated dual gas and electric smart meters for every home and business by 2020. Italy will install smart meters for all of its commercial gas customers and most residents by 2016.

Yet in the U.S., gas metering has not received as much attention -- or as many federal dollars -- as electric smart metering. However, the challenge of managing gas smart grid data can be less complex than electric meter data management, according to DuCharme. As prices continue to drop for the smart meter market, this will benefit the gas market, as well.

Like their electric brethren, gas utilities have struggled with integrating IT and OT when implementing the new metering systems. Capgemini, which has doubled its accounts in the smart energy space to 40, is finding increasing success with gas utilities. In the case of SoCalGas, about 30 different vendors will provide the meters; Aclara is providing the MDM system.

Water is also on the horizon. “The cost of efficiently managing infrastructure in the gas and water industry is extremely important,” said DuCharme. For those who think the electric grid in the U.S. is aging, the water infrastructure in much of the world is downright elderly. One study from Frost & Sullivan estimates the European smart water meter market will be worth $20 billion by 2020 and will see double-digit growth in the next decade.

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Feds Link Water Contamination to Fracking for the First Time

ProPublica has a look at a new study of fracking fluids contaminating underground water in the US - Feds Link Water Contamination to Fracking for the First Time.

In a first, federal environment officials today scientifically linked underground water pollution with hydraulic fracturing, concluding that contaminants found in central Wyoming were likely caused by the gas drilling process.

The findings by the Environmental Protection Agency come partway through a separate national study by the agency to determine whether fracking presents a risk to water resources.

In the 121-page draft report released today, EPA officials said that the contamination near the town of Pavillion, Wyo., had most likely seeped up from gas wells and contained at least 10 compounds known to be used in frack fluids.

“The presence of synthetic compounds such as glycol ethers … and the assortment of other organic components is explained as the result of direct mixing of hydraulic fracturing fluids with ground water in the Pavillion gas field,” the draft report states. “Alternative explanations were carefully considered.”

The agency’s findings could be a turning point in the heated national debate about whether contamination from fracking is happening, and are likely to shape how the country regulates and develops natural gas resources in the Marcellus Shale and across the Eastern Appalachian states.

Some of the findings in the report also directly contradict longstanding arguments by the drilling industry for why the fracking process is safe: that hydrologic pressure would naturally force fluids down, not up; that deep geologic layers provide a watertight barrier preventing the movement of chemicals towards the surface; and that the problems with the cement and steel barriers around gas wells aren’t connected to fracking.

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