Water: A glimpse of the future?
The Australian state of Queensland, which is battling the worst drought in a century, says it has been forced to pursue a strategy that involves recycling water from sewage. And it’s expected other regions of Australia will follow. Could this be a sign of things to come as the world’s climate continues to change?
The good news is that we have such options, and that the technologies do exist to extract pure water out of raw sewage. It might not sound so appealing, but hey, let’s not kid ourselves: the stuff we get out of our tap every day undoubtedly has disgusting origins.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
This could prove a reality check on the growth proposed in the Calgary region. 80% of the province’s water is in the north, while 80% of the population resides in the south. The Athabasca carbon-mine requires a vast amount of water in the form of steam to separate the goop from the sand. Now it’s rumoured the Harper gov’t signed some secret deal early in its term to expand that tar-sands project’s output 5-fold -possibly to support the US’s thirst during an Iranian embargo resulting as a response to a military attack?
January 30th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Molecules are molecules. I’m sure all the carbon atoms in our bodies were dinosaur farts, once.
But news stories vary–and this one is sure to garner some attention, and that’s good. It’s got the ability to make people think about water and where it comes from. And it gives a very…gutteral…illustration of the impacts of climate change.
However I think that “distributed” sewage treatment, using “living machines”, is the way of the future…
January 30th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
This reminds me of a piece I saw on the news once, about bottled water. This guy was saying that he drinks bottled because “they say that each drop of water from your tap has been through an average of 7 people…” That’s true, sort of, but a pretty wierd idea all the same. I wonder if this will mean people drink more bottled water, thus making the situation worse?
February 1st, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Speaking of Australia, anyone seen this slashdot article about a wind turbine that extracts water from air? The claim is that the vertical blades of the turbine are designed to cool air passing over them, which condenses moisture out of the air.
Interesting concept; I hope it works.
Stephen
February 1st, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I saw something on TV recently – I think it was on ‘Daily Planet’ (Discovery Channel) – about Las Vegas recycling all their sewage water, making them one of the most water-conscious cities in North America. The interesting point (that stuck in my memory) was the fact they claim the process is a ‘net producer’ of water, as all the bottled water and beer that the tourists drink eventually gets flushed into the hotel’s water treatment system and recycled…