When you live with 5 million other people on a relatively small island, finding ways to live more sustainably isn’t so much a luxury as a necessity.

That’s why Singapore—which has the third greatest population density of any sovereign state in the world—has become something of a pioneer in finding ways to live in a more sustainable manner.

Start with water. For years, Singapore has relied on imported water from Malaysia to provide 40 percent of its water supply.

To become more self sufficient, Singapore has invested billions of dollars in membrane filtration technologies that allow wastewater to be reclaimed, filtered, and transformed into high purity potable water called NEWater. This is in addition to heavy investments in desalination plants and rainwater-catching reservoirs that further reduce its reliance on imported water.

Another area where Singapore excels is building efficiency—an area with huge potential impact, given that an astounding 90 percent of the population lives in some form of high-rise condominium. Singapore has set an ambitious target of greening at least 80 percent of its buildings by 2030, including existing stock.

Clean technology advancements are also allowing Singapore to make great strides in transportation, particularly around the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). Since roughly 85 percent of Singapore’s power supply comes from natural gas, EVs provide a cleaner solution compared with conventional oil burning vehicles.

And while EVs typically travel a shorter distance compared with conventional vehicles, that’s not really a concern on a 26-mile wide island.

Singapore-based clean tech company Greenlots is developing the best way to charge these EVs. Since 2008, the company has been committed to designing and delivering hardware and software to enable utilities, municipalities, electric vehicle manufacturers and distributors and other private businesses to install, own and operate their own EV charging network. Already, Greenlots has established charging stations in major parking lots in the city, including those at Bedok Point Shopping Centre and Kovan Residences.

By investing in clean technology innovations, Singapore is able to tackle multiple areas that impact its future. Its forward-thinking design solutions to environmental problems are sure to yield benefits both today and tomorrow.

Susan Gladwin leads the Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program, which provides clean tech innovators powerful software and opportunities to help them develop solutions that address our most pressing environmental issues. In North America, Europe, Japan and Singapore, the Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program offers $150,000 of Autodesk software for $50 (JPY 10,000 in Japan).

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Israel has earned a leadership status in the international water arena, but to stay at the forefront innovation must keep pushing forward. A joint project by Israel NewTech, the Neaman Institute and the Israeli Export Institute has been launched in order to map out the needs for new water technology innovations in the largest industries in the world. The preliminary results will be presented in the beginning of next month at a conference at the Israeli Export Institute.

“Israel’s water sector must be very cautious not to rest on its laurels, but to continue to act to cement its leadership,” said Dita Bronitzky, CEO of Ormat, a leader in geothermal energy, at a recent conference run by The Marker magazine on environment and industry.

Israel NewTech, The Israeli Export Institute and the Samuel Neaman Institute for national policy research, are also thinking about how Israel can further leverage its success in the water sector, that’s why they have joined together to work on improving the competitiveness of Israel’s water sector. One of their joint projects maps different industrial sectors with high water use, which need technological innovations to increase efficiency, and even to survive in their competitive markets.

This joint research project was launched in July 2011 and is meant to stretch out over a year, led by Dr. Gilead (Gili) Fortuna, head of the Center for Industrial Excellence, and a senior research fellow from the Neaman Institute. Fortuna brings with him rich experience in Israeli industry, having held senior management positions in the past at TEVA and Israeli Petrochemicals, and he is also one of the entrepreneurs behind the successful water purification company Aqwise. Aiding in the project is Shiri Freund Koren, his research assistant.

“We examine international industries which are heavy consumers of water and whose growth rates can be significantly impacted by improved innovative water technology,” explains Fortuna, “For example the gas and oil production industries. Today their need for vast amounts of water greatly impacts production. The deeper the well the more water they need to consume in order to produce the gas or oil. The world always turned to the cheaper sources for gas and oil production, but today the situation necessitates turning to the more expensive source. One of the main reasons for this high cost is the huge expenditure on water use and treatment that the process demands.”

The research outlines seven industrial sectors which are heavy consumers of water and in need of innovative water technologies to make their processes more efficient:
1. Gas and Oil
2. Mining
3. The pharmaceutical industry
4. Heavy metal processing
5. The semiconductor industry
6. Food Industry
7. Tourism industry (hotels, swimming pools, spas, sites that serve global tourism)

The project is meant to bring a deeper understanding of each sector’s needs, while pinpointing the challenges that require solutions. In other words, the objective is to map needs in different industries in order to create market-focused Israeli solutions, which will be in demand globally.

In order to support the research endeavor the Samuel Neaman Institute is cooperating with Israeli academics, under the supervision of the noted water expert from the Technion (Israel’s leading technology university), Professor Raphael Semiat.

The first two chapters of the project, on the gas and oil production industries and the mining industry, will be presented to a list of “who’s who” in Israel’s water industry at a conference which will take place at the Israeli Export Institute on February 7th, under the title: Water Challenges in Industry – Leveraging your Technology. Dr. Fortuna emphasizes that his motivation to hold the conference now is to create an open ongoing dialogue with Israeli water companies and get their feedback and guidance. “This will make our work more business oriented to the industry’s real needs and its abilities to implement.”

In parallel to the research, practical steps have begun to be taken to implement the initial learnings, and thus Israel NewTech and The Israel Export Institute have begun to create connections and mediate with the mining industry. An Israeli delegation visited Chile recently, where there is a large mining industry which is in need of technological solutions (click here for the post on this visit).

In addition, the three bodies responsible for the research project are working on identifying local partners in the different target countries, in order to facilitate the penetration of Israeli water companies to those industries which were mapped out in the research as needing innovative technologies. Likewise, in each sector a consultant with practical experience on the ground is employed. For example, for the pharmaceutical industry Meirav Avigdor, who manages the ecological department at TEVA, will provide consulting. The project begins with research, but will result in successful business implementation.

Article by Israel NewTech.

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To produce $1 of sugar, manufacturers use 270 gallons of water. A dollar of pet food takes 200 gallons of water. These figures include the sourcing of raw materials, processing, packaging, and shipping, according to Carnegie Mellon University scientists. A 2010 study published in Environmental Science and Technology, leveraged computer models to estimate water usage by 400 industrial sectors. No surprise, it was discovered that the food and beverage industries account for about 30 percent of what’s being called the “water footprint” or consumption of water during the entire product life cycle.

While water doesn’t get the high-profile attention in conservation that fossil-fuel energy sources enjoy, it is as critical a resource for survival of planet earth and the people on it. Warnings come from diverse sources such as the Second UN World Water Development Report that there will not be adequate water for human, industrial, and agricultural use. Some set the date of 2025 for a kind of Armageddon. That’s when it is anticipated that two-thirds of the global population will be water-short.

The causes are many and they intersect, compounding the possibility of disaster. They include:

• increased industrial activity especially among emerging economies;
• climate change;
• more irrigation;
• intensive dam construction;
• simple waste, usually a result of ignorance or indifference; and, of course,
• increased demand because of population growth.

It’s no surprise that companies, especially multi-national ones, have responded in shrinking water consumption, according to GreenBiz.com. They range from Coca-Cola to General Electric. Part of the concern is, of course, cost-related because failure to be water conscious translates to being fiscally reckless. Further, companies need to comply with regulations around the world about water efficiency, reports demanded by consumers, investors, and activists about the size of the water footprint, and the risk to the brand of being perceived as a kind of water “hog.”

Coca-Cola is typical of how companies are going about becoming water savvy. Frequently, companies, like Coke, team with a third party such as the World Wildlife Fund to identify consumption patterns and how efficiency can be increased. Then, they set a target for achieving their goal. In 2004, Coca-Cola set out to reduce water consumption by 20 percent by 2012. With that deadline approaching, Coca-Cola Enterprises is setting out to reduce production consumption regarding water by an additional 20 percent by 2020.

In addition, Coca-Cola is going the extra mile by investing in ensuring the quality of drinking water in the nations in which it conducts business. For example, it donated $12.7 million to the Water and Development Alliance.

One thing is certain; we don’t know what we don’t know. While companies are focused on reducing water consumption, the first step has to be finding out what they are currently using or, in many cases, wasting. Leaks and faulty systems can wreak havoc on utility bills and consumption totals. The solution is simple. Manage energy usage by measuring it. It’s the only true way to know how much water – and money — is going down the drain.

Article by Bari Faye Siegel, a technology writer and marketing consultant at Noveda Technologies, an innovative leader in real-time, web-based energy management, solar PV monitoring and water management. Noveda also offers real-time collaboration tools that leverage social media to educate and empower stakeholder communities and make the smart grid a reality today. For more information, visit www.noveda.com.

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One of the biggest challenges in the water arena is lowering the cost of wastewater purification, which is a heavy consumer of energy. Israeli start-ups Diffusaire and Mapal have developed technologies which bring dramatic cost-savings to wastewater treatment facilities.

Wastewater Treatment – Background

In advertising for home water purification systems we’re used to seeing pure, crystal clear water, but in reality the water only stays looking like this for a very short while, and actually all the water we use quickly turn to sewage water – drinking water, bath water, water used in industry …everything. Wastewater treatment is a very central activity in the water arena. Wastewater treatment uses up 1.5% of all the energy consumption in the U.S., so we’re talking about a big guzzler of energy.

Wastewater that remains untreated goes on to contaminate land and water sources. It is absolutely essential to treat wastewater, and in most of the world wastewater is converted into water for agriculture (Israel holds the #1 position in the world with 75% of wastewater reclaimed).

Wastewater is treated in wastewater treatment facilities which can be divided into two main types: open basins, large and shallow, situated in cheaper land outside residential areas, and the smaller, deep concrete pools, located in urban areas, on more expensive, more crowded land.

The purification of the contaminants that are dissolved in the water is done through bacteria which gobble them up (“biological purification”) and just as in fish tanks there need to be water bubbles so that the fish get oxygen, it’s also necessary to supply the bacteria with oxygen so that they can go on doing their job. Therefore, wastewater treatment facilities include aeration systems, which function is to bring oxygen into the pool. Today, the fine bubbles diffusers systems, which use advanced systems to insert small oxygen bubbles into them facility, are becoming more and more popular.

The diffusers are pipe systems which bring bubbles from the bottom of the facility pool. It’s possible to install such systems only in facilities with a concrete floor and not in open air pools. Open pools usually have a mechanical top layer device installed, and this system uses up a lot more energy, because it necessitates ongoing, costly maintenance. Therefore, the industry prefers bottom pool systems. Either way, we’re talking about an energy guzzler – about 50% of the energy expenditure of the entire facility.

Two Israeli start-ups are showing excellent progress in the race to develop winning solutions to make airing of wastewater facilities less costly: Diffusaire and Mapal. Diffusaire has developed a next generation diffuser, an innovative under-floor airing system for wastewater facilities with a concrete floor, and Mapal developed a technology for covering and upgrading existing diffusers, in order to utilize them in places where before it was impossible to do so (open air basins without a concrete floor). The bottom line is that both companies’ solutions bring dramatic reductions in operational costs.

First steps in the market:

Diffusaire works out of the water incubator Kinrot Ventures. The technology that the Company developed multiplies the length of time that the bubbles stay in the wastewater, thus significantly increasing the oxygen supply in the process. According to the Company, this creates a 25% reduction in costs in comparison with other diffusers.

According to Yuval Suskind, Diffusaire’s CEO, the Company has completed testing and is now signing first agreements with two Israeli water utilities – the “Tkua” utility in the Judean area, and the “Mei Reket” utility in Tiberius. Up until this point the Israeli government has invested about half a million dollars in the Company, which is entering its third year of activity in the Kinrot incubator and is seeking out private investment of $2 million. The objective of the investment is to finance the projects in Israel, as well as to market the solution in Europe, North America and India.

The second Israeli company active in this sphere, Mapal, targets a different kind of wastewater treatment facility, the open air basins, in which as mentioned, it’s not possible to install under-floor systems. Mapal enables use of diffusers in open air basins, using a patented covering of the basin. Its solution makes it unnecessary to build pools with a concrete floor in order to use the gentle bubbles system, thus enabling dramatic cost-savings.

“In this way we reduce energy consumption by almost 70% in comparison to top layer airing systems,” says Zeev Fisher, one of the founders and the VP Business Development of Mapal. The Company’s technology is installed in the wastewater treatment facility in Israel’s Ramat Hasharon, which treats 10,000 cube meters of wastewater every day, “And there we achieved an energy saving of almost 40%,” says Fisher. Additionally, the Company has systems installed in Netanya, which treats 40,000 cube meters per day, and is in the final stages of an agreement with a large water utility in the UK, as well as in negotiations with a facility which treats 200,000 cube meters per day, and negotiations for the upgrading of 18 facilities in Lima, Peru.
Up to date, Mapal has raised about $3 million in investments, more then half a million of which was invested by the founders, and is today entering a third round of investment, of $5 million, in order to fund projects.
Both of these companies target different segments in the wastewater purification arena, but they have an important common ground. For one thing, both claim that their solutions can be implemented on working facilities, without the need to suspend activity, and with the existing systems staying on as backup for some time.

The second thing they have in common is the method of financing. Both companies have selected a financing system in which the companies themselves fund the system for the facility, getting their pay through the savings that the new solution brings to the facility. In this way the facility is saved having to raise funds to upgrade its system.

These two approaches make entry into agreements with water utilities, which are often conservative and risk-averse, much easier and smoother.

Article appearing courtesy Israel NewTech.

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This is the second part of my blog on produced water (you can read the first part here) which will look at the market – the players and technologies – in some more detail.

Produced water is a term used to describe the wastewater that’s brought to the surface during the oil and gas production process. For conventional oil and gas (onshore and offshore), it refers to the water that already exists in the oil reservoir and the water that’s been injected to force more oil to the surface. In unconventional oil and gas projects, such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking), coal bed methane (CBM) and oil sands, it refers to the wastewater produced by the fracking process (flowback water) and the process water used to recover bitumen from the oil sands.

Produced water is a hazardous waste stream. Broadly, it’s highly saline and contains hydrocarbons and other chemicals and it must be managed in line with local regulations which can differ greatly between states and countries. But its exact nature differs depending on the type of oil and gas field it has come from.
Most produced water has typically been disposed of (after treatment) through reinjection into deep aquifers because that’s been the cheapest and easiest option. But a number of factors including technological innovation, water scarcity and rising costs of disposal (if the water needs to be disposed of offsite), mean that for many projects, it’s becoming increasingly cost effective to treat it to a level where it can be reused or recycled.

The treatment market can be categorized into three main sectors: primary, secondary and tertiary.
The technologies used in the primary stage separate the oil from the water. Those used in the second stage remove smaller droplets of oil. Tertiary filtration reduces the amount of oil in the water even further.
These first two markets are well established and, unsurprisingly, mostly dominated by a handful of big companies, such as Cameron, GLR/Exterran, Veolia and Siemens. (Processes used at these stages are not overly complex though so smaller, local players, particularly in emerging markets such as Brazil, are gaining traction.)

Where the real growth is forecast is in an emerging fourth category – advanced treatment and desalination.
By reducing salinity, the water can be reused in fracking fluid or customized to enhance oil recovery (EOR). Customizing it for EOR means creating a specially formulated water which is injected into a maturing well. The water peels oil away from the clay, further increasing the recovery rate. In both cases it reduces the amount of fresh water that needs to be taken from local sources. And it means this wastewater becomes a valuable resource to be recycled and reused, rather than disposed of.

Desalination is a highly energy intensive process though (and therefore expensive). To be viable, it must be competitive with costs of disposal. Technology providers need to deliver solutions which offer superior water recovery rates (little or no waste liquid), but at the lowest capital and operational cost. Leading technologies include reverse osmosis (RO), forward osmosis (FO), High Efficiency Reverse Osmosis (HERO™), Optimized Pretreatment and Separation (OPUS™), thermal distillation, crystallizers and brine concentrators,. Brine concentrators are used to concentrate the reject produced water following RO, FO or HERO™ (as OPUS produces very little reject water) treatment.

As a less established market, there are no clear leaders yet. Several of the larger players, Veolia, GE Water and Siemens have entered the market through acquisition rather than organic growth. Smaller companies are developing and providing innovative and competitive solutions alongside the larger players. There’s not yet a one-stop shop provider of treatment services at all levels. And as a market that’s projected to grow at more than 20% annually, and with a host of new technologies on the market, it’s one of the most promising areas for investors and corporations operating in the oil services sector to expand their service offering and secure a piece of the action.

As far as the big players go in produced water treatment, Cameron is the largest as a result of an aggressive consolidation strategy, but it doesn’t have a lot to offer in tertiary and advanced treatment technologies.

Veolia and Siemens on the other hand are stronger in tertiary and advanced treatment with good technology portfolios but they offer little in the way of primary and secondary treatment services. Veolia is the developer of one of the leading desalination systems, OPUS. OPUS has low energy consumption, produces low waste volumes and can handle variations in feed water quality.

The main competing tech to OPUS is HERO, which is provided exclusively by GE Water outside the US, and mid market player, Aquatech, in the US. HERO is another highly efficient technology which can handle the nature of produced water much better than standard Reverse Osmosis. Though it is saline, produced water differs greatly from seawater. This is one of the reasons why companies with seawater desalination methods won’t always have an easy route into a new market such as produced water.

Heckmann Corporation is an industry consolidator with deep pockets looking to buy produced water disposal operations and reducing costs by introducing pipelines, recycling and reuse.

Nalco is a leader in water chemistry as well as oil field chemistry, Nalco is well positioned to take advantage of the growing volumes of produced water and the challenges of new, unconventional resources.
There are also a host of smaller private and quoted companies.

The aforementioned Aquatech, the exclusive holder of the HERO license in the massive North American market, also has other relevant thermal and membrane expertise and has made external tech investments of its own. It also has operations outside the US.

212 Resources uses a patented vapour compression flash evaporation systems to recover clean water and other valuable byproducts from produced water. The system is mobile and claims to be cost effective.

Filterboxx is a Canadian packaged water treatment company offering relevant technologies to oil sands operators on and equipment sale or rental/design-build-own-operate basis.

Aqua Pure, listed on the TSX venture exchange, owns Fountain Quail which has a strong technology and service portfolio. The company offers patented evaporator technology to recycle flowback and produced water into fresh water for re-use.

Hydration Technologies Inc manufactures forward osmosis membranes for produced water, desalination and industrial applications.

Water Standard Company is a start-up which is probably the only treatment specialist to have locked on to the opportunities in desalination for enhanced oil recovery.

Altela uses a new energy-reuse water desalination product that operates unattended in remote locations, such as oil and gas wells.

WaterTectonics uses a technology known as ‘electrocoagulation’. It passes pressurized water through a tank where electricity is applied, separating contaminants into a sludge that can be filtered away.
Fundamentally, water is crucial to the oil and gas industry and how it manages its water will be central to future production. These companies will be ones to watch as the market heats up.

Article by Tom Whitehouse. Tom is the Chairman of the London Environmental Investment Forum (LEIF), a conference platform which connects environmental innovation with capital, and the Founder and CEO of LEIF’s Initiating Partner, Carbon International, a corporate finance and investor communications consultancy for environmental and cleantech industries.

Thanks to our partner and industry expert Global Water Intelligence for providing us with its report on Produced Water. We will be holding our ‘Investing in Water’ conference on 25 May 2012 which will explore this topic in more depth through industry insight and discussions with leaders and innovators. If you’re interested in partnering with us for this event, please contact us. Find out more about LEIF at www.london-eif.com.

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• Investment Opportunities in Water: Produced Water – Part I
• Investment Opportunities in Water
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We all remember sights of people lined up for clean water in Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010, or in Japan last year after the great tsunami hit with horrific consequences. Large scale natural disasters will unfortunately continue to be a global threat. Beyond the initial loss of life and home, they also wreak havoc on basic infrastructures putting food, clean water, and electricity out of reach, for as long as months in their aftermath.

While preventing natural disasters is next to impossible, providing for populations in need following such disasters is most definitely not, and can mean the difference between a few casualties and thousands. One Israeli company, in particular, has developed a unique product ideal for such situations.

EZPack, formed in 2010 by Danny Cohen, Alex Harel and Ohad Zecharia, has created a unique way to transfer clean, drinkable water to disaster areas and other emergency zones, while still maintaining its quality and purity. The start-up makes use of innovative pillow bladder tanks which consist of a PVC outer layer, and “food-graded” material within. This dual-layer system creates a highly durable transportation apparatus while allowing the transferred water to remain clean, drinkable and uncontaminated for extensive periods of time.

While EZPack has not yet had the opportunity to put their product into action in disaster areas, it has already been deployed with great success for homes and remote locations (pillow bladder tanks serve as ideal low-space water storage for both homes and off-site projects such as oil rigs) and has been approved by the Israeli Water Authority for water distribution in emergency situations.

EZPack’s unique solution represents what is hopefully a growing trend in cleantech, an effort to use “green technology” to provide relief in emergency situations. As the world grows ever more connected, international crises, whether in Haiti, Japan, China, Chile, or elsewhere, must be responded to by global, technologically advanced solutions, and cleantech might be just the industry to create them.

Article appearing courtesy Israel NewTech.

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The deployment of sensors in 15 regions of the world’s oceans shows an extremely wide variation in how rapidly waters are becoming acidified, according to research conducted by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Scripps scientists have deployed more than 50 of the sensors, which measure pH and temperature in the top 230 feet of the ocean, as part of a continuing study to see how rising atmospheric CO2 levels are impacting the world’s oceans.

Initial findings show great variation in ocean acidification. Around Antarctica and the Line Islands of the South Pacific, for example, there is limited variation in pH. But in regions where large upwellings bring CO2-laden water to the surface from the deep, such as off the coasts of California and the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the waters are more acidic.

Indeed, in some regions, Scripps scientists measured levels of acidity that were not expected to be reached until the end of the century, according to the study, published in the journal PLoS One. Acidic waters can inhibit organisms, such as oysters and coral reefs, from forming shells. Scripps scientists said their long-term study will help document how marine organisms are responding to changes in ocean pH.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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The water industry is renowned for being risk averse and conservative. It’s understandable. No one wants people to experiment with their water.

But as fresh water becomes more and more precious and the cost of energy to get fresh water keeps on rising, the challenges of the water-energy nexus are getting bigger. The industry needs innovative solutions but with innovation comes risk. This blog series will put the spotlight on technologies addressing some of the challenges and take a closer look at their markets and growth prospects ahead of our next water conference.

The water industry and the energy industry are fundamental to one another. The water industry needs large amounts of energy to transport, store and treat water. The energy industry needs large amounts of water (for boilers and cooling) to generate and distribute power. Head upstream to the oil and gas industry and the problem is there too – the industry is producing increasing amounts of wastewater, and needing more and more energy to treat it.

This last area – the treatment of wastewater produced by the oil and gas industry (known as ‘produced water’) – is one we think has particularly strong growth prospects, especially at the high level end of the process. Using advanced desalination technologies, water can be treated to a standard whereby it’s no longer a waste product to be disposed of, but a resource which can be used again. But treating water to this level is expensive. It can only work if it’s cheaper than the alternative or if the water can be sold on at the right price. Technologies that can deliver the quality of water required while driving down energy costs are on the money.

This market looks set for strong growth for several reasons. Conventional oil and gas extraction – which refers to the resources we have typically produced using onshore and offshore vertical wells – has likely peaked in some regions, North America being one of them. Large quantities of water are present in oil reservoirs and are brought to the surface along with the oil during the extraction process. As an oil field matures, there is more water in the reservoir and less oil, which means even more water is brought to the surface as the water to oil ratio increases.

Alongside the growing maturity of conventional onshore oil fields, we’re also seeing sharp growth in ‘unconventional’ energy – shale gas and tight oil, oil sands and coal bed methane. Once too difficult and too expensive to exploit, widespread adoption of technological innovations such as hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) and horizontal drilling means these ‘new’ sources of energy are now very much commercially viable. They might be providing a real boost to supplies but they are using a lot more fresh water, and therefore generating a lot more wastewater, often in regions that are already water stressed. Shale projects use large quantities of water in the fracking fluid and oil sands also use huge amounts in processing.

This water from both conventional and unconventional processes isn’t lost, but it does become a highly varied, and growing, waste stream. On average, for every barrel of oil currently recovered, eight barrels of wastewater are also generated. That’s quite a statistic, and probably one not many people outside the sector are aware of. Over the next 15 years, this oil-to-water ratio is forecast to increase from 1:8 to 1:12 and the size of the market (in the US) is set to double to $10 billion. So it’s not hard to see that this is an industry which is becoming as much about water as it is about energy. On top of all that there’s the global issue of water scarcity. If all this produced water can be treated to a level where it can be reused – either within the industry, or sold to another, such as agriculture, that’s a big opportunity.

“The gas associated with CBM is one of the major players at the moment for future gas supply. There are a lot of these activities at the moment where you get a lot of water on the surface, which is on the one hand a waste but if you look at it could be used as a resource and that is a big opportunity.”
Joppe Cramwinckel, Shell

Part 2 of this blog will look at the technologies in more detail and some of the key players.

Article by Tom Whitehouse. Tom is the Chairman of the London Environmental Investment Forum (LEIF), a conference platform which connects environmental innovation with capital, and the Founder and CEO of LEIF’s Initiating Partner, Carbon International, a corporate finance and investor communications consultancy for environmental and cleantech industries.

Thanks to our partner and industry expert Global Water Intelligence for providing us with its excellent report on Produced Water. We will be holding our ‘Investing in Water’ conference in Q2 2012 which will explore this topic, among others, in more depth. The event will feature industry insight, presentations from tech innovators and panel discussions. If you’re interested in partnering with us for this event, please contact us. Find out more about LEIF at www.london-eif.com.

Related posts:

• Investment Opportunities in Water
• Investment Opportunities in Water: Produced Water – Part 2
• Chile Launches Initiative to Measure Water Footprint of Companies
• Water Sector Startups Innovate Efficient Use And Supply
• Tiny Bubbles Used to Clean Oil-Contaminated Water and Soil

Earlier this year Ontario’s Greater Peterborough Innovation Cluster (GPIC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Regional Development Agency East Netherlands to develop opportunities and advance research in the water technology field. Energy Refuge recently caught up with Lisa Saroli, from Ontario’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade Investment Division, who spoke to us in the wake of International Water Week conference in the Netherlands, which took place in Amsterdam in early November.

ER: In terms of strategy, what can the partnership achieve?

LS: The purpose of the MOU is to share knowledge, experience and technologies in their respective jurisdictions to enhance our capabilities to address environmental issues in their respective jurisdictions. The MOU covers water issues such as source water protection and sustainable water use, as well as several other environmental issue of interest to both jurisdictions such as climate change, waste management, clean energy, urban planning and research and development.∙

ER: So far, what results has the partnership yielded?

LS: There has been a series of meetings between the Delta Program, the Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP) and Netherlands Consul-General and Ministers and senior officials from the Ontario government, the Ontario Clean Water Agency and WaterTAP for the purposes of information sharing. Besides, representatives from the Netherlands attended Ontario’s Global Water Leadership Summit in May 2011, and Ontario representatives attended Amsterdam Water Week in November 2011. Together, Ontario and the Netherlands have conducted pilot projects in brownfield remediation and soil washing in the Kingston area. The two regions will continue to discuss new areas for potential collaboration and exchanges.

As with any legislation, Ontario looked to leading jurisdictions such as the Netherlands, Singapore and Israel in order to develop the Water Opportunities and Water Conservation Act which builds on Ontario’s expertise in water protection services and technology and will make the province a world leader in water innovation to help address global water challenges. Activities undertaken by NWP will be useful models in the design of a business plan for the Ontario Water Technologies Acceleration Project (WaterTAP). WaterTAP is a technology hub bringing together industry, academics and government to develop Ontario’s water sector and promote it globally.

ER: Of the water technologies being developed, do any explore the water/energy nexus?

LS: Water utilities use a lot of energy during the pumping, storage and treatment processes. But there is often flexibility in exactly when and how much power is needed at any given moment. ENBALA (“energy balance”) smart grid technology allows water utility and power grid operators to work closely together on a second-by-second basis to manage grid demand spikes, maximize system efficiencies during off-peak times and minimize overall energy costs. Companies like Eco-Tec and Ecodyne specialize in the design of treatment systems boiler feed water and brine, and design and manufacture water treatment equipment and cooling towers for a variety of energy plants.

Elsewhere, Echologics is a leading technology company and a full solution provider in the development of acoustic technologies for the detection of leaks and pipe wall thickness in pressurized water pipes. The non-disruptive and non-invasive solution is proven to greatly reduce the energy traditionally required for leak detection.

Finally, there’s Anaergia, which develops and uses cutting-edge technologies to turn organic waste (including that from the wastewater treatment process) into biogas. It operates in a sector still in its infancy and the company is positioning itself to become the world leader. The company chose Ontario as the site for its global operations center. The $70 million facility, which is receiving $16 million from the Ontario government, will include the company’s head office, R&D and manufacturing plant.

Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.

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A student at Australia’s Swinburne University last week received the James Dyson Award for a device he says is capable of harvesting moisture from the air for use in irrigation, even in the world’s driest places.

Developed by Edward Linnacre, the Airdrop is a wind- or solar-powered device that sucks air underground through a coiled metal pipe, where the cooler temperature of the surrounding soil slowly causes it to condense.

The device ultimately collects the water in an underground tank before it is pumped back to the roots of nearby crops via a sub-surface drip irrigation system. According to Linnacre, a prototype that he developed in his mother’s backyard was able to produce about one liter of water per day. He hopes the technology can be used for agriculture in even the driest conditions.

“There are water-harvesting technologies out there, but there’s very few low-tech solutions,” he said. “A low-tech solution is perfect for rural farmers, something that they can install, something that they can maintain themselves.”

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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