Water economy   |  January 26, 2009  

Clean tech makes a splash in the global water crisis

By Hailey Eisen

Looking out at yet more wet winter weather, it is hard to believe that water is in fact one of the planet’s scarcest resources. “The fact is, 99.23 per cent of the water on earth is not usable by humans unless something is done to it first,” said Dr. Mark Shannon, director of the U.S. National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Advanced Materials for the Purification of Water Systems. “And, the remaining 0.77 per cent is currently being contaminated.”

With the global supply of water far outstripped by its demand, even Canada, with its abundant water resources, is now beginning to experience a shortage of available clean water. “We are living on a water planet but we can’t use that water,” Shannon said.

“The current situation,” said David Henderson, managing director of XPV Capital, “is being impacted directly by six unstoppable global trends: population growth, urbanization, industrialization, infrastructure failure and climate change.” The fact that all industrialization processes require vast amounts of water, paired with an unsustainable water infrastructure that is necessary to service growing populations in urban environments and the realized negative hydrological effects of a changing climate, result in a bleak future, he said.

“We are at the beginning of some really challenging times and there are two ways forward—we either ignore it, or we invest in technologies and innovations and find new approaches to adapting these solutions,” said Henderson, whose investment capital company partners with entrepreneurs in emerging water companies.

Though these issues are not new, the current global push toward environmental awareness, coupled with the rising cost and declining access to clean water, has resulted in an increased awareness that researchers welcome.

When Shannon began examining the science and technology of water purification in 1997, he faced extensive criticism. “People told me that water purification was a done deal and an old science,” said the Illinois-based professor. But recognizing the need for science and technology in what he predicted would be the greatest problem of the next few decades, Shannon continued his research and pushed for the necessary funding. “Though we’re the only group in the United States looking at the science of water purification, compared with many examining political solutions like resource management, we strongly believe that technological solutions can aide a lot of these problems.”

For Canada, the implications of water shortages could be dire. “If we end up being one of the countries in the world that holds access to clean water when the rest of the globe experiences a severe shortage, our national security and sovereignty could be at risk,” said John Ruffolo, national leader of Deloitte’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications Industry Group. “Fortunately, Canada has established itself as the global leader in clean water technologies.”

The new economy
The intention now is that governments, corporations and citizens will realize there are not only environmental but also economic benefits associated with supporting the innovation of clean technologies. Current technological advancements are already being used to promote water conservation, water reuse and the elimination of chemicals in the treatment process, Henderson said. “We’ve coined the phrase ‘The New Water Economy’ to express the current economic and political environment, which is making it attractive to invest in emerging companies that can profitably address these water challenges through innovation.”

Housing a robust cluster of talent and R&D in water-based technologies, Canada is perched on the leading edge of change. Three of this country’s most notable success stories from the past decade are ZENON Environmental, which perfected membrane technology for water and wastewater treatment; Trojan Technologies, which developed water treatment solutions using ultraviolet (UV) light; and Glegg Industries, which provided industrial pure water systems to energy, electronics and pharmaceutical industries. All three were sold to large U.S. multinationals within the past eight years, including General Electric and Danaher, leaving Canada with more than 2,000 employees possessing 25-plus years’ experience in the water industry.

“When an organization like GE buys a company, those people who aren’t interested in big-business culture usually fall back to the middle layer,” Henderson said. “But in this industry the middle layer was almost entirely absorbed, so much of this brainpower fell into new innovation at an earlier stage in the market.”

An example can be found in EnviroTower, a Toronto-based company that provides clean cooling-tower water treatment solutions to large buildings in Canada and the United States. The CEO, John Coburn, along with at least nine other employees, came from ZENON between 2006 and 2007.

Although there is market demand, some believe the technologies designed to improve the world’s water problems are not being used to their potential. “I believe you first have to run into a wall before you really wake up,” said Coburn, whose customers are 80 per cent American. “There are so many problems in water including infrastructure failure, bacteria, viruses and the water supply/demand imbalance, and I know that technologies like ours can play a huge role in offering solutions.”

Canadian opportunity
“Increasing environmental regulations and the skyrocketing costs of energy and chemicals needed to manage water systems are favouring innovation,” Henderson said, and that role may be even more significant in Canada, thanks to our natural resource-based economy.

“It takes about four to eight barrels of water for every barrel of oil produced,” said Deloitte’s Duncan Stewart, director of Research, Technology, Media and Telecommunications, Life Sciences and GreenTech. “When it comes to extracting shale gas—the single largest source of natural gas in the U.S.— even more water and hydraulic pressure is being used to break shale rock formations, allowing oil and gas to flow up the well.” The result is vast amounts of unusable, dirty water.

Calgary’s Aqua Pure Ventures developed a technology called Mechanical Vapour Recompression (MVP) Evaporators that are used to recover pure distilled water from wastewater containing dissolved solids. “This energy-saving technology really makes sense in regions where fresh water is scarce,” said Jake Halldorson, the company’s CEO. “Currently we work primarily in the oilfields of Texas.”

Finally, another water technology, which may eventually impact homeowners as much as manufacturers, involves wastewater treatment. Using a membrane bioreactor (MBR) process developed by ZENON Membrane Solutions, part of GE Water & Process Technologies, to treat, store and reuse wastewater for toilet flushing, irrigation and cooling towers, The Solaire Apartments in New York City is the first wastewater recycling facility built inside a multi-family residential building. An example noted by experts as a solution that could eventually take the pressure off North America’s failing water infrastructure by localizing the treatment process, The Solaire Apartments could address issues of recovery and reuse.

“I’m trying to obviate the word ‘wastewater’ to ‘resource water’ because this water that we think of as waste in fact has a tremendous amount of chemical and energy value. If we could recover those and clean up the water at the same time we could actually achieve economic value,” Shannon said. “The technology used in this New York apartment building is something we could see a lot more of in the future, and later generations of these will even produce energy themselves.”

What it will take—all agree—is an increased awareness and perhaps even desperation.

“We just have to change people’s mindsets to have them think differently about the problem,” Shannon said. “Clean tech is actually beneficial economically, not just environmentally—you help the environment and you help your pocketbook at the same time. What’s not to like?”



SIDEBAR

How much water was required to make the jeans you’re wearing?
Water is used in all manufacturing processes. According to David Henderson of XPV Capital, it takes about 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to make one pair of jeans. (And the argument that we could use synthetic fibres doesn’t work because those fibres use chemicals that require water and energy to produce.) Water is also integral to the process of manufacturing the fabric, dyeing the textiles, manipulating the garment (mainly in the form of steam) and adding aesthetic touches (it can take up to 200 gallons just to stonewash a pair of jeans). Throughout this process, as many as 2,000 different chemicals are used, leaving the water in need of significant treatment before it is reused or discharged.

To put these numbers in perspective, the UN estimates that humans need a minimum of 13 gallons of water per day to meet their most basic needs, such as drinking, cooking and maintaining proper sanitation.


GreenTrends Archive