Avatar Archives - Artemis Water Strategy

Jul 23 2010

Calera Captures Carbon in Concrete, Produces Clean Water

In Gimhae, South Korea, concrete apartments extend to the horizon. / Photo: oceandestoiles on flickr

Concrete. There’s a lot of it on earth. Pretty much every paradise has its parking lot. And its big-box store, high-rise condos, sidewalks, stadiums and office parks. Bridges, tunnels, jetties, locks, canals, station platforms: all require concrete.

Concrete is the second most consumed substance on earth (pdf), after water: three tons of it per year, per person on earth.

Manufacturing all that concrete is the second largest source of carbon emissions in the world, after energy generation, accounting for 5% of world CO2 emissions.

But a Californian company, Calera, has developed a solution.

Calera’s process, called Mineralization via Aqueous Precipitation, makes producing cement – the binding ingredient in concrete – remarkably efficient, by tackling multiple problems in one play.

[Read more…]

Jul 21 2010

Ostara Gets Three With One Blow

Toxic cyanobacteria Bloom on Lake IJsselmeer / Photo: Stefe on flickr

At The Artemis Project, we tend to prefer solutions that solve multiple problems at once. Hence we love Ostara‘s nutrient recovery technology. (And we like no-mix toilets.)

The Problems:

Peak phosphorous
Struvite scaling
Eutrophication

Peak Phosphorous

Peak phosphorous is the dilution of necessary-to-all-life phosphates and the exhaustion of concentrated caches. Estimates give us 30-40 years.Peak phosphorous more important to human life than Peak Oil: whereas there are alternatives energy sources, there is not an alternative to phosphorous. Phosphorous is created when two oxygen atoms fuze above 1,000 megakelvins (that’s 1.8billion Fº), so humans can’t make any more of it.Five countries own 90% of the known phosphorous deposits. Yet, most well-fed countries have a consistent source of the element: wastewater. That’s where Ostara steps in. [Read more…]

Jun 21 2010

Water Prices to Increase by 8% in WA

Cracked earth in Midland, Western Australia just east of Perth

Between 1997 and 2007 water supplies in Perth, the capital and largest city in Western Australia, decreased by 65%, leading Perth to commission the Kwinana desalinization plant in late 2006. The plant provides 130 million litres of water a day, and runs on renewable energy supplied by the Emu Downs Wind Farm.

Public pressure compelled the Western Australia Water Corp to utilize renewable energy. Pressure exchangers from Energy Recovery, Inc, an Artemis Top 50 company, save the plant 15.6 MW of energy, reducing energy usage at the plant to 180GWh a year. That’s only 66% of Emu Downs’ 270GWh a year produced from wind.

But the price of water throughout Western Australia continues to climb. The estimated 8% increase in Western Australia, announced today by Opposition Leader Eric Ripper, would complete a 40% increase in the cost of water to households in the past three years.

With their vast coastlines and open spaces, Western Australia can look to the seas for further partnerships between advanced, efficient water technology and sustainable energy like wind and solar.

Leaders in Western Australia seem to be thinking likewise. As Gary Crisp of Western Australia Water Corp said, “I predict that desalination will account for at least half of Perth’s water in the next 30 years.”

Photo credit: Aleatoric Consonance on Flickr

Jun 15 2010

Make Electricity, Not Sludge

Electrogenic Bacteria with Nanowires

The Cost of Waste

Treating wastewater is expensive. Yet, 70% of the cost to run a wastewater treatment plant is in two elements: electricity to power the aeration blowers and residual sludge treatment. An emerging technology promises to eliminate those costs. [Read more…]