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: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @01:17AM (7 children)
The very meaning of "life" as a phenomenon, is taking concentrated energy from somewhere and "embedding it in" the surrounding medium in diluted form. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but still is rendered less usable. Or unusable, when any ready way to harvest it at that dilution would spend more than it harvested.
Thermodynamics is a bitch, and uneducated "green scientists" are a plague.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:38AM
Yes, thermodynamics is a bitch.
Especially entropy. God rigged the game. We can't win...we can't even break even. It's obvious to me that I am just along for the ride. And to make of it whatever I will.
For me, the study of this is a religious experience. Please don't ask me to pastor...all my study did is to reveal that I did not know jack shit about anything. Entropy is the closest concept I have for the Divine,
So far, it seems I am here for one thing and one thing only...learn how to respect others. Try to make myself useful. Don't be an asshole. Choose love or hate. Compassion or greed. And you will get what you sow.
Yes, off topic as all get out, but I felt led to post it
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @03:10AM (4 children)
Haha you still on about thermodynamics? These self-styled geniuses I tell you hwot!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @03:51AM (3 children)
Irrespective of having an obsession, he is right.
While you are still irrelevant. Consistently so, almost obsessively.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @04:40AM (2 children)
And you think the OP's point has any bearing on the article? Entropy exists, therefore scientists are dumb? Or something else? Please good sir, do explain to this lowly country bumpkin what is going on here!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @05:24AM (1 child)
More like a beering than bearing, but it does have a tangent with sorta evocative potential.
+
=> Fucking shit, mankind, you act as you are dead to let that energy gradient go to waste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @03:55PM
Well diluted form? I don't think that is accurate, life forms are usually quite compact. They inhabit large areas, so I guess the mathematical density would be low but that is quite misleading.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 04 2020, @05:27AM
As spending more than it's harvested will increase the total entropy, I argue that it's the "life" obligation of the humanity to act immediately in harvesting it! (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @01:24AM
Get valuable energy, agricultural nutrients and water from San Francisco's fast-rising population of shit-in-the-street homeless people.
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday February 04 2020, @01:33AM (5 children)
Don't shit where you eat.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday February 04 2020, @01:48AM (3 children)
My toilet and kitchen sink/dishwasher are literally within 3 feet of each other. Granted, there's a wall between them.
just sayin
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:13AM (2 children)
They probably share the same main drain pipe. Any stink from your sink/fruitflies?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:28AM (1 child)
Water seal? Shouldn't be any problem. All homes, or almost all, use a common drain pipe.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Informative) by barbara hudson on Tuesday February 04 2020, @04:12AM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 04 2020, @04:38PM
Not even on the same planet?
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MostCynical on Tuesday February 04 2020, @01:49AM (24 children)
Fundamental question needs to be asked: why spend money/time/resources extracting the stuff, when we could do far better at not putting it in, in the first place?
Captured grey water is easier to filter and re-use than "black" and industrial waste water, so why add them together?
Why not do better in preventing human, industrial and agricultural waste water getting into the environment?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:12AM (16 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:28AM (15 children)
So start with new homes and make it semi-closed- if you put shit in your grey water, you'll wreck your filters and your shower won't be as... cleansing.
Nothing vs perfect is not the arguement.
Centralised systems are great, but start with one at a time a work up [tandfonline.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Tuesday February 04 2020, @03:54AM (13 children)
You haven't given enough thought to the problem domain. Individual homes aren't a problem - the grey water can be used for lawns, gardens, or just drained into a septic field, or even a dry well filled with gravel.
Can't do that with multiple unit dwellings so the water has to be piped away. And that represents a major infrastructure program.
Grey water use in the home doesn't mean filtering it to the point where you're drinking it again, but finding uses that can tolerate water that isn't drinkable, like flushing toilets or watering lawns. Returning it to a drinkable state is too complicated a process to be done in individual homes, considering the risks a screwup can have on people.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday February 04 2020, @04:22AM (12 children)
Oh, wow! Such a major technological challenge!
Whatever happen with the spirit of "... in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."?
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @06:18AM (1 child)
Babs is a Canadian. They play hockey instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @07:33AM
Fair enough. Hockey being a shittier game, I guess the challenge is higher.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by barbara hudson on Tuesday February 04 2020, @01:30PM (4 children)
Simply put, it costs too much.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 04 2020, @10:45PM (3 children)
very much alive in my neighborhood [soylentnews.org]
Which shows that is possible and the costs are affordable even at middle-class levels.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday February 04 2020, @11:44PM (2 children)
Or did you not understand the issues involved in discussion?
Grey water can't stand on pipes for as long as potable water before it stinks.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 05 2020, @09:41AM (1 child)
Try again. You don't need to distribute gray water when you can distribute recycled water - sterilize it and it's gonna stay like this quite long even when it's not proper for drinking. Besides, it's not gonna stagnate for long when you have consumers for it.
Not like every problem has only one solution.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday February 05 2020, @04:03PM
Try again - even sterilized, it's still not potable water - and one of the two plants your link points to doesn't greate potable water out of grey water. If it's not drinkable, it's still grey water, and still uses a separate set of pipes for redistribution after treatment.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @01:36PM (4 children)
And everything is cheap if someone else pays for it.
If the "technological challenges" of this nature got financed from the same finite pool as eco-propaganda, the tune would change overnight.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 04 2020, @11:07PM (3 children)
I didn't realize I'm living in a eco-propagandist populated neighborhood [soylentnews.org] and not actually paying my bills from my software engineering wage.
Let me mod your comment accordingly, it was an eye opener.
Shit, my water service is must be an eco-mobster [recycledwater.com.au]!!1oneone!
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday February 04 2020, @11:51PM (2 children)
So you live near a plant so it isn't expensive to hook you up. Same as someone living near a plant that generates lots of heat can tap into the waste heat in the winter. That's how they heat cities in Russia and it's incredibly in dependable and wasteful. Is not like you can leave grey water standing in pipes on dead end streets. The pipes would have to be flushed a lot more often than potable water.
This isn't a solution for places that don't have permanent water shortages.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 05 2020, @12:07AM (1 child)
...
This isn't a solution for places that don't have permanent water shortages.
(like, I don't know, California?)
So, apart from showing you that is not quite dead, Jim, do I need to mention the "Nirvana fallacy" for you?
---
(maybe you should do something to keep in check that depression of yours, it seems that's spilling out in everything you say. The problems will arise when it will start spilling in what you do too; it will block your willingness to do anything, because "Why does it matter, the world is shit anyway")
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday February 05 2020, @04:31PM
People with depression have continually been shown to be able to make more realistic evaluations of situations because they don't get caught up in "irrational exuberance", "blue-sky thinking", and other stupidities. They also are less likely to get caught by scammers and cat-fishers. Reality IS depressing, or haven't you noticed? Skepticism and cynicism are necessary tools of modern life.
California can solve its problems by not exporting water in agricultural products like almonds. Stop growing almonds, build better storage for the huge floods they get, water crisis solved. Almonds are very environmentally destructive.
Nevada is another story entirely - building a city like Las Vegas in a desert was a dumb move, and it will eventually have to be abandoned if common sense prevails. The longer they put it off, the more it's going to hurt.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 04 2020, @04:42PM
Grey water shouldn't be for showers. But for watering lawns, washing cars, flushing toilets, watering plants, etc.
I remember a cable tv program long ago showing somewhere in the Las Vegas or nearby Arizona area that could treat effluent into grey water suitable for lawns, flushing, etc.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:56AM
Because the cost of ignoring externalities (and not capturing/filtering grey water at source) is lower.
And it allows the industry to disguise their waste and don't give a damn about the effects.
Why do you hate capitalism? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday February 04 2020, @03:32AM (2 children)
FYI: https://www.melbournewater.com.au/water/securing-our-water-supply/how-water-sector-taking-action/producing-recycled-water [melbournewater.com.au]
I am able to water the lawns and the veggie patch in the backyards without restrictions (as all my neighbors do). And for toilet flushing.
Comes at the same $price/m3 as the drinking water, tho (understandable, the cost of disinfecting it is the same).
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Tuesday February 04 2020, @12:27PM (1 child)
Very cool! Is the recycled water delivered in separate pipes, and is your house set up to supply the different types of water to different fixtures?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 04 2020, @10:56PM
Yes, indeed.
Toilets and the garden taps [cloudfront.net] (the purple color is standard) are connected to the recycled water pipe, the rest (including the cloth washer) are connected to drinking water. They trialled using recycled water for clothwashers too, but I think they abandoned it for reasons of slightly higher hardness.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 04 2020, @04:32PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 05 2020, @09:47AM (1 child)
Can and will are two different things. Not like avoiding pollution must always create more polution.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 05 2020, @03:21PM
(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?
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday February 04 2020, @04:47AM (4 children)
It's long been known that purifying waste water for drinking would be very effective in many cities (LA for example). The problem is people won't accept it unless it's camouflaged.
"My god, we're drinking toilet water!"
So, instead they partly clean it up and then inject it into the aquifer via wells to recharge it. They then draw it out via different wells. No problem. To the consumers it's now different water.
Similarly, people get cats to eat from a bowl of food that the bottom was showing in by passing it behind their back, shaking it to redistribute the food and then putting it down for the cat to eat as a now full bowl.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday February 04 2020, @11:14AM (3 children)
I'm not so sure about the acceptance part. In Europe, cities taking their water from the rivier get the (diluted) toilet water from upstream, nobody complains. The aquifers do have a purpose in providing an extra (and almost free) purification step. The Netherlands, for example, pumps water from the rivers into the dunes to have it filtered through a couple of meters of sand. This provides water with strongly reduced particle load thereby reducing microbial load, making the ensuing purification cheaper.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday February 04 2020, @11:36AM (1 child)
Off topic... About the cat food.
I have cats. Cats have teeth. And when they try to eat from a nearly empty bowl, their teeth strike the metal or ceramic surface. So, they try to get us to rearrange their food if they have pushed it into hard to get at places.
Or at least that's what she told me about it.
When you are accepted by an animal, they will talk to you. Without saying a word.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by Jay on Tuesday February 04 2020, @05:50PM
Off topic... About the cat food.
I have cats. Cats have paws. And when they try to eat from a nearly empty bowl, their teeth strike the metal or ceramic surface. So, they use their fucking paws to rearrange their food because they're not fucking idiots.
When you choose stupid animals, you have to do stupid things for them.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday February 04 2020, @07:44PM
"I'm not so sure about the acceptance part. In Europe, cities taking their water from the rivier get the (diluted) toilet water from upstream, nobody complains."
My point exactly.
Dumping it into the river magically (psychologically) changed it from toilet water to river water.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @03:49PM
I assume the remaining sludge at a wastewater treatment plant contains the nutrients after the wastewater has been cleaned by bacteria and that it's used directly, or treated before use, in farming. I saw a short segment on TV yesterday about a local wastewater treatment plant and a district heating plant who had combined forces. The wastewater from the industry contained more heat than normal household wastewater, they mixed it to increase the heat in the general wastewater for more efficient cleaning (by bacteria). When treated the water was used at the district heating plant where it would be around 25C, using heatpumps they increased the heat in stages and sent out 75C water to heat homes. The engineer said that, "for every MW they put into the system they get out 4".
The municipal said that the system paid for itself after only three years.