Clean Water: a big clean tech win

Desalination technologies are on the forefront of the green/clean technologies that are attracting investment from public and private sources. As water insecurity increasingly challenges foreign and domestic markets, new research is developing approaches that will bring greater efficiencies. One of the unknowns is public opinion. In a country that apparently prefers to drink water from bottles than their own tap, people may balk at recycled water from storm drains and brackish marshes. A new report by Lux Research reviews the winners and losers, and gives their expert opinion on the shape of the future.

OVERVIEW

In this age of high tech wind turbines and thin film photovoltaic, desalination conjures up images of deserts or sci-fi movies with names like Dune. But desalination has been a booming business in the Mideast, starting with research from UCLA in the late 50’s on the membranes need for a process called reverse osmosis.

REVERSE OSMOSIS (RO)

Many of us remember Biology 101: osmosis is the movement of salts in water across a semi-permeable membrane from areas of high concentration to areas of lower concentration: resulting in the same concentration of salts on both sides. Reverse Osmosis, however, does the reverse by putting pressure (often hydraulic) on a saline solution, forcing it through a membrane which separates the salts by letting the smaller water molecules through while capturing the larger minerals.
The first membranes were developed during the Kennedy administration’s goal to “go to the moon and make the desert bloom (referring to desalination)” campaign. In 1959, UCLA produced a functional synthetic RO membrane that could reject salt and pass through water at both reasonable flow rates and realistic pressures.
By 1965, the California town of Coalinga had built the world’s first commercial plant, producing up to 6,000 gallons per day.

The town of Coalinga is in the middle of California, a hot, dry spot on Route 5 half way between LA and San Francisco. More famous to truckers for the Harris Ranch steak house than its history of oil and coal production, it’s hard to imagine a less likely spot for a desalination plant. But in 1965, every kitchen sink had three water faucets — one for hot, one for cold and one for drinking water: potable water was hauled in on railroad cars. The desalination plant was the first step in turning the hard mineralized water into something drinkable.

From this small start, desalination facilities sprouted up, particularly in the Mideast, producing trillions of gallons of pure water every day, about 60 percent of which is located on the Arabian Peninsula.

DRAWBACKS

A new report from Lux Research, which can be downloaded from their site, provides an important overview of desalination technologies along with their predictions for the winners and losers.
To begin, RO does have drawbacks:

• The process can be costly to build and energy intensive
• Membranes are subject to fouling and must be replaced or cleaned regularly
• Environmentalists are not at all happy with disposal of brine-the remaining salts-at many plants

Even so, RO dominates the desalination equipment market with a 54% revenue share in 2008.  The technologies being developed to challenge RO, are likely to vary by market segments, of which only one is seawater. The other two, likely the bigger market in the US, are:

• Brackish water: from inland estuaries and marshes, and highly mineralized water such as in Coalinga
• Recycled water: “grey” water from storm drains as well as Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)

Recycled water will be critical as green and sustainable buildings and communities gain traction, and as municipalities face growing water challenges. Proposals written by ECON, Inc, a research group in Princeton, NJ, submitted under a NASA contract in 1983, cited the benefits of desalination technologies-specifically reverse osmosis-as a critical part of plans for sustainable homes and communities.

LUX RESEARCH REPORT

The Lux report develops a matrix along two axis: value and maturity. Value is the ability of the technology to be cost effective, which includes energy use, reliability, propensity to foul and other metrics. Maturity is the ability of the technology to reach market goals set by the business pro forma. Applying their metrics to 18 available and future technologies, they concluded:

• Seawater: Forward osmosis (FO) and RO variants are the winners. Two other technologies, cloud-point and ammonium carbonate FO, which are being developed by a few companies named in the report, are simpler technologies which Lux predicts will beat RO on energy and cost when “their kinks are worked out.”
• Brackish water: Lux sees a fragmented sector with nine successful technologies. The larger playing field is due to very different operating conditions amongst the highly localized issues faced by brackish water. Lux sees electrodialysis, capacitative desalination, two FO variants, and several RO enhancements, including RO/multi-effect distillation hybrids as competing in this sector.
• Recycling: Lux sees RO as the unchallenged winner in recycling. The recycling market’s low energy needs and levels of brine waste play against RO’s weaknesses, such that it won’t be challenged for decades.

OPPORTUNITY

Water is potentially a nation making-or breaking-resource.  Experts predict that water will replace oil as a future cause of war between nations. As early as 2007, a Business Week cover story cited Dow Chemical as seeing the need to “marry planetary issues with market opportunity”, by partnering with foundations and the UN to help finance programs for the 1.2 billion people who do not have access to clean water.

Even the US sees growing water shortages, particularly in the West where the Sierra Nevada snow packs are as much as 50% below their early 1900 levels. From San Francisco to San Antonio, water shortages are leading to rationing and concerns about maintaining growth.

To meet the growing need, desalination worldwide is expected to grow from roughly a swimming pool worth of water for every two people in the US, to somewhat more than one swimming pool for every man woman and child in the US and Canada by 2020.

But in the States,  clean H2O may be in the eye of the drinker: in the US the idea of recycled MSW leaves people skittish, even though experts conjecture that cleaning MSW could solve most municipal water shortages. One town in California-not Coalinga-is dumping their cleaned MSW back into the aquifer-the water table-and then pumping it out again. It’s less energy efficient, but politically an easier sell.
The Obama plan has allocated Billions for water. Recognizing the market opportunity, major corporations from  GE Water to Siemens are betting on desalination, as are equipment companies from Viola Environment to Aquatech international.  In addition, companies betting on the emerging technologies or extensions of RO-many of whom are mentioned in the Lux report-are banking their futures on keeping us hydrated and healthy.  As venture money and corporate capital comes back, water will be a growth area worthy of everyone’s attention.