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Vast amounts of valuable energy, agricultural nutrients, and water could potentially be recovered from the world's fast-rising volume of municipal wastewater, according to a new study by UN University's Canadian-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH).
[...]Today, the volume of wastewater roughly equals the annual discharge from the Ganges River in India. By the mid-2030s, it will roughly equal the annual volume flowing through the St. Lawrence River, which drains North America's five Great Lakes.
Among major nutrients, 16.6 million metric tonnes of nitrogen are embedded in wastewater produced worldwide annually, together with 3 million metric tonnes of phosphorus and 6.3 million metric tonnes of potassium. Theoretically, full recovery of these nutrients from wastewater could offset 13.4% of global agricultural demand for them.
Beyond the economic gains of recovering these nutrients are critical environmental benefits such as minimizing eutrophication—the phenomenon of excess nutrients in a body of water causing dense plant growth and aquatic animal deaths due to lack of oxygen.
The energy embedded in wastewater, meanwhile, could provide electricity to 158 million households—roughly the number of households in the USA and Mexico combined.
Journal Reference:
Manzoor Qadir et al. Global and regional potential of wastewater as a water, nutrient and energy source$. 27 January 2020, Natural Resources Forum. DOI: 10.1111/1477-8947.12187
The aquatic plants that depend on the effluent could not be reached for comment.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:41AM (4 children)
Drink toilet water!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:50AM (1 child)
Only to you. Since you insist on following her around like a lost puppy, she figures she'll treat you as such.
Daily reminder that, yet again, you are getting so asspained the world's supply of Preparation H wouldn't be enough, over a teenage girl. Because she's *absolutely correct.* Sit, boy! Don't make me hit you across the snoot with a rolled-up newspaper...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @03:13AM
I think the goal is still "pwn the libs" as if irritation at their stupid trolling is causing rational people to stew all night trying to figure out how to defeat the evik troll!
They are the anti-heroes of their own story, a strange twist on normal human behavior.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:51AM
My dog does it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 04 2020, @04:43PM
Is that a question?
And you're asking . . . for a friend, right?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.