Water Power R&D

imho the current muddle in the central valley of California lends urgency to the idea of accelerated developed of new deep sea desalination technologies I’ve mentioned in previous posts here and here. Deep sea water desalination looks orders of magnitude cheaper and easier to impliment than say spending 35 billion on a 35 mile long pipeline under the delta. According to this letter to the Congress by the American Petrolium Institute–offshore oil & gas would bring $1.3 trillion in new government revenue over the next two decades. A fraction of that would pay for all the water needs of southern California for the foreseeable future using deep water desalination–with money’s left to pay state officials for what not. Heck California might get the underwater desalination plants for free as a condition allowing oil drillers to drill offshore. Sound too good to be true? Maybe. The Obama administration is willing to fund offshore drilling in Brazil. Someday they may think it in the best American interests to allow more drilling offshore of the USA. At that point a deal might be struck with oil drillers to bring fresh deep desalinized water ashore as part of a deal to water algae onshore or drill for oil offshore or both.

but that’s not what this post is about–except tangentially.

Remember I mentioned that Exxon might be interested in getting into offshore water desalination because of their interest in algae oil and their partnership with Craig Ventor?

Listen to the story below about what going on in genetics field–and how it will affect water & power supplies. If you’re ready to move on — then know the significance of the story below is that commercial very large scale algae oil production is coming sooner –much sooner than is currently anticipated.

In the beginning

On July 24, 2009, a small group of scientists, entrepreneurs, cultural impresarios and journalists that included architects of the some of the leading transformative companies of our time (Microsoft, Google, Facebook, PayPal), arrived at the Andaz Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, to be offered a glimpse, guided by George Church and Craig Venter, of a future far stranger than Mr. Huxley had been able to imagine in 1948.

In this future — whose underpinnings, as Drs. Church and Venter demonstrated, are here already — life as we know it is transformed not by the error catastrophe of radiation damage to our genetic processes, but by the far greater upheaval caused by discovering how to read genetic sequences directly into computers, where the code can be replicated exactly, manipulated freely, and translated back into living organisms by writing the other way. “We can program these cells as if they were an extension of the computer,” George Church announced, and proceeded to explain just how much progress has already been made.

New York Times even talked about the symposium given by Church and Ventor.

Church noted that between 1970 and 2005 gene sequencing had taken place on a Moore’s Law pace, improving at about 1.5 times per year. Since then it has improved at the rate of an order of magnitude, or ten times annually.

Within a week or so of this symposium this article appeared entitled Researchers rapidly turn bacteria into biotech factories.

Led by a pair of researchers in the lab of Harvard Medical School Professor of Genetics George Church, the team rapidly refined the design of a bacterium by editing multiple genes in parallel instead of targeting one gene at a time. They transformed self-serving E. coli cells into efficient factories that produce a desired compound, accomplishing in just three days a feat that would take most biotech companies months or years.

Remember this is the same Church that gave the symposium with Ventor. At the symposium he was talking about improvements in gene sequencing accelerating to ten times annually before his announcement. However, in this case what he’s talking about here is writing genetic sequences. That is, before they were talking about reading genetic sequences into computer programs.  Now they are talking about writing out gentic sequences from computers back into living organisms. And doing so much more quickly.

The following week two companies–one in Cambridge Massachusetts and the other in Washington State — announced that they had quadrupled the yield for algae from ~5000gallons @ acre to ~20,000 @ acre. According to the Cambridge Massachusetts company:

A startup based in Cambridge, MA–Joule Biotechnologies–today revealed details of a process that it says can make 20,000 gallons of biofuel per acre per year. If this yield proves realistic, it could make it practical to replace all fossil fuels used for transportation with biofuels. The company also claims that the fuel can be sold for prices competitive with fossil fuels.

Joule claims that its process will be competitive with crude oil at $50 a barrel.

Seperately a third company called Green Technologies Inc — figured out a way to “massively increase” algae production because “scientists uncovered the elusive and long sought after “lipid trigger” in green algae.”

Escondido, CA, August 04, 2009 –(PR.com)– Sustainable Green Technologies (SGT) a start-up company in Escondido, California announced today that it has discovered a highly effective and low cost way to massively increase algal oil production.

Do they use the new method mentioned by Church? There is no definitive answer to this question. It looks like there might be a relationship but beyond the coincidence of the announcements–there is no proof from the text. But its safe to say that major major advances have been made in both the process and the production of algae oil. That more are likely– are on the way.

Is this just hype? Another article considers this question in a slightly different context.

In terms of methodology used to distinguish viable new technologies from the hype associated with renewables, McDonald said he looked for corroboration. For instance, Aurora Biofuels in Florida announced it had found a way to harvest algae oil using the same methods as waste-water treatment plants. Then a few weeks later the research arm of the Australian government made a similar announcement. “That’s what we are looking for,” McDonald said. “When legitimate organizations make similar discoveries independently that seem to corroborate each other, I think it gives credence to the commercial development and growth of the technology.”

Same could be said when several companies here and there announce radical increases in algae to oil yield –especially when they coincide with broad based technological change mentioned by Church and Ventor.

Remember the crucial take away. Church has created a tool that Ventor will likely use to improve algae to oil yields significantly above the just announced four fold increase to 20,000 gallons@acre. This will be used by Exxon oil to scale commercial quantities of algae oil.

Finally, of note, OriginOil along with Idaho National Laboratory (INL) of the Department of Energy has come out with the first-ever comprehensive algae production model, for the algae oil industry.

Its should be clear that algae oil process will require a lot more water from water scarce places with algae oil ambitions like southern California and New Mexico. What’s not so clear is what kind of water that will be. What’s that? Well, consider, advanced genetics will likely be able to tailor the algae to the kinds of water available.

But the implications of this accelerated genetics go to more than just algae oil’s demands on water.This technology will enable the water reuse industry to create specialized microbes for any water reuse plant.

This article dated July29 from Global Water Intelligence lists the
Top 10 New Water Technologies to Save the World I’m not familiar with some of the companies. But as to the ones that I am familiar with on the list–I would agree. They are world changers. So that reflects well on the rest. These are the technology areas mentioned in the article that would be most affected by Church’s new genetics tools mentioned above. Consider what would happen if you could quickly tailer single cell organisms for a specific waste stream mentioned below in such way as to maximize their yield and minimize any attendant problems.

Bio-polymers from wastewater: bio-polymers are a great natural al ternative to petro-chemical-based plastics; what is more they can be made during the biological digestion of sewage sludge. AnoxKaldnes (www.anoxkaldnes.com) is the leading commercial developer of this technology.

Biogas recovery: the collection of methane from anaerobic wastewater treatment has been a reality for industrial effluents with a high biological load for some years. The challenge is to make it viable for less concentrated municipal wastewater. Leaders in this market are Paques (www.paques.nl) and Biothane (www.biothane.com).

Microbial fuel cells: the next step in energy recovery from wastewater is direct electrical power generation through microbial fuel cells. Emefcy (www.emefcy.com) of Israel is at the forefront of commercialising this technology.

Decentralized wastewater treatment: centralised wastewater systems are expensive to build and use a lot of water. Decentralised systems might remove the need for sewers, and make it easier to recycle the water and energy in the waste. The Lettinga Associates Foundation (www.lettinga-associates.wur.nl) is one of the leading organisations promoting the practical application of decentralized wastewater.

Then there is the kind of experiment you see in many universities that uses microbes to do interesting work. Consider this article about the work of some Penn State Scientists (jointly with Saudi Arabia & China)

Wastewater produces electricity and desalinates water So far the work is just interesting. But what if you could get the microbes mentioned in the article to do a lot more work using the tools mentioned above?

If you find this info to be useful or interesting–kindly ask your webmaster to link to this blog.

The House could start work as early as [Wednesday July 15] on a bill funding energy and water projects in the US. It funds 1,866 earmarks.

Anyone who has read my last post on Deep Water Desalination may want to consider finding a way to get funding for an prototype deep water desalination program. While the source of the funding might come from Title XVI — another source of government funding may be available.

Water–and lots of it– is a necessary precondition for the development of algae oil in bulk.

Places like San Diego want to be major centers for the development of algae oil. However, they don’t have a lot of fresh water. Therefor the DOE might be interested in funding water development as a necessary ingredient for the production of green fuels.

Government funding would attract funding from private sources.

This week July 14, Exxon announced that they are committed to spending 600 million dollars on developing algae oil into a viable energy source. The NY Times said this Exxon move signaled a paradigm shift for the oil industry. As much as 300 million of that may go to Craig Ventors San Diego based company Synthetic Genomics. San Diego has ambitions to be a major algae oil center.

Exxon has gas and oil platforms off the coast of Southern California.

Any federal government commitment to deep water desalination might also draw Exxon funding and expertise as well.

How much? Beats me. But I can suggest what the pieces would be. There should be at least three players at the table. The funding authority like the DOE or the Bureau of Rec, an oil company with a platform off of Southern California already–like Exxon. Finally a company like DVX Water Technologies mentioned int the last post. These players would draw up plans and run a test of the technology off the coast of southern california.

Back in 2005 reports started coming out that detailed the progress of oil seeps in the Santa Barbara channel. They’d been around for years but likely it wasn’t PC to mention them. Trouble was — because the seeps were natural — no hue and cry could be raised. Still too many birds were turning up dead. So scientists quietly studied the problem. Recently a study of the seeps has been completed. According to this article
new research shows that natural oil seeps into the Santa Barbara channel dwarf the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez. Remember all the grief Exxon took for the Valdez spill? Well, much much more oil is sitting on the sea floor just offshore of Santa Barbara. Considering that modern oil rigs have taken 20 years of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico–without an incident — its not clear to me what all the fuss about drilling off the coasts — is about–especially off Santa Barbara.

Consider that Santa Barbara was the cause of the US being the only country in the world with coastal drilling bans. By drilling — oil companies might take some of the pressure off the under water oil and gas deposits in the Santa Barbara Channel and lessen the seeps. They might also take the some of the pressure off California’s state budget. Might help the feds too.

Funny how this sort of thing doesn’t get out of the science journals.

How does this bear on water desalination? Well readers of this blog know that I’ve advocated doing a test site for underwater desalination off Santa Barbara — by way of a slant well for water drilled alongside a slant well for oil drilled from shore now being negotiated in the area. But if the sea floor just off the beaches in of Santa Barbara is rank with oil –that area might not be best for desalination trials.

Here’s the deal.

These days it seems that no sooner do you mention an idea — than someone’s got a company all set up and with the designs and technologies to implement it. That’s what - DXV Water Technologies has done. They have designed an a desalination process that uses deep water to provide pressure for their membranes.

Now before you close the browser — I think its important to state that everyone has heard of this kind of thing before. The argument against deep water desalination was that you’d need to go down about 1700 or so feet to get the right pressures for the membranes. At those depths — whatever reduction you managed in energy costs would be made up for in maintenance costs. And what the hey–just pumping the fresh water ashore.

So why bother?

I never saw these studies. I only heard about them second and third hand. I’ve been watching the desal research flow for 15 years or so. So I think those studies are old. New technology comes up. According to Forbes

Nikolay Voutchkov of Water Globe Consulting says membranes have gotten 2.5 to 3 times more efficient in the last decade

So its worth taking a second look. DXV Desalination claims they can do the desalination at 850-900 feet. That looks like it tracks membrane efficiency improvements in the last 10 years or so. (ie double the membrane efficiency and half the depth for desalination pressures to work.)Further there are several places off the coast of southern California where you can hit 850-900 feet depths within a mile of shore. The inventor is Diem X. Vuong, He has set up a two-stage nanofiltration process for seawater desalination. Vuong, who retired from the Long Beach Water Department in 2005, developed the ‘depth exposed membrane for water extraction’ (DEMWAX) process now being tested by DXV Water Technologies. Vuong is familiar with the neighborhood and familiar with the technology. DXV produces almost no brine as it has a 50:1 yield — i.e., 50 gal of seawater for 1 gal of fresh water — AND it occurs underwater, so higher salt dissipates within 1-2m. Makes sense. All they’re doing is pulling a little fresh water out of the vast deep.

They claim their process will desalinate sea water for $0.50/m^3 (616@acre foot). Considering water rates are going as high as 900@acre foot — $0.50/m^3 or 616@acre foot — looks cheap to me.
According to the articles –here’s the money quote:

We can get 50MGD (56TAF/year) from an 11 acre installation. Given a SoCal urban demand of 3MAF, that means that 54 of these systems could supply all of urban SoCal [ignore price for now] — in an area of about one square mile in the ocean.

As well, when you desalinate in the deep dark ocean — the amount of bio fouling declines significantly. Oh and one other thing. It may sound counter intuitive– but desalinated water that comes from these depths is very pure and fwiw — rich in healthy trace elements.

How do you say hmm. Consider. Next year NanoH20 and UCLA Engineering’s Eric Hoek will come out with a membrane that improves efficiencies of current generation membranes.

NanoH20’s Green says the company has modified Hoek’s work substantially to improve and perfect the nanoparticle membrane, but he won’t say how. He says the company is targeting nearly 100% improvement in water production, from 6,000 to 7,500 gallons per day per eight-inch area of membrane to 12,000 gallons per day. The membrane will be the same size and shape as current membranes, so plants won’t have to be retrofitted. The company is building enough capacity to produce “tens of thousands” of membranes–a big plant incorporates 10,000 to 20,000. The first membranes will go on sale early next year.

With those kinds of efficiencies–they might cut costs significantly by cutting the distance to shore or provide all of southern California with water with a half mile square installation at 850-900 feet of water. But more importantly NanoH20 gives DVX cost estimates plenty of room for error–while remaining in the 600@ acre foot range.
For more detail on the DVX project, check out this pdf calledA new approach to Deep sea RO If you have the time and a a more granular interest in the project listen to this mp3 interview with the DVX CEO

The company already has some street creds in the water desalination community. DVX was a finalist –along with Oasys and Aquaporin — at this years Global Water Intelligence and the International Desalination Association awards in Zurich Switzerland.

The prestigious Water Technology Idol award, sponsored by Norit, is particularly poignant as its award is based on votes cast by the delegates present, experts in the field of water and desalination, after a short ‘show and tell’ by each finalist company.

DXV Water Technologies is interested in doing some tests in fresh water. I don’t think this is really the way to go. There is a very simple way to prove their technology. All you do is bring in the oil companies from off the coast of California. Their shops will already have a very good idea of the capital, maintenance and energy costs of an underwater operation. They’ll know the best materials and processes for every part of the operation except the membranes. They will have streamlined their procedures significantly in the last 15 years. They will already have a detailed understanding of the underwater topography of the area in house–including areass where minor seismic activity might threaten underwater operations.

My wag would be that Maintenance would be the biggest expense.

Energy would still be a significant cost because of the cost of pumping water to shore. I don’t know what would be the cheapest way to bring water ashore from a mile away. For example a slant well drill drilled from onshore — that goes out a mile would be much more expensive than laying a pipeline on the ocean floor. The oil industry can lay 3 kilometers a day of pipeline along the ocean bed. However, a slant well could make the water run downhill to shore. How does that happen? The drill would be onshore. It would drill down say 1500 ft and then slope upward gradually to a point out in the ocean at 850-900 feet. The water from the desalination modules would run down hill to shore arriving at depth of 1500 feet. Equalizing pressure would bring it to 850-900 ft. How would you bring it the rest of the way to the surface naturally. Beats me. The point of having such a steep slope to shore would be to create a lot of forward momentum for the water. You wouldn’t want to lose that momentum at the up elbow onshore with a joint that turns at a sharp angle. They might be able to narrow the diameter of the pipe as it comes shoreward so as to increase the column pressure on the water as it comes ashore. Materials advances in the surface of the pipe might help reduce the friction and drag on the water as it moves forward. The net effect would be increase the pressure on the water as it comes ashore to cut the cost of pumping water ashore over time. If you must still pump the water to the surface you might site the pump down in the well on land to push the water up. Presumably the maintenance and energy costs of such a pump on land would be cheaper than a pump out at sea.

Permitting for the project would be fairly simple since the site would be at sea. There wouldn’t be any disposal issues. If onshore delivery were not energy intensive — there would be no worries about cracking an already strained grid.

Actuallly building a small scale experimental installation would consist of of a set of procedures about which the oil companies have decades of experience: One ship lowers a prefab desal plant & pump to the ocean floor. One ship runs a pipe to shore. One ship runs an electrical line from shore to to pump. An underwater crew attaches everything. Yr done. So instead of taking 10 years from permitting to building–the actual process from permitting to project completion could take one year.

As it happens the oil companies have decades of experience with each one of the procedures listed above.

Likely the oil companies wouldn’t be too interested in going out on their own to fund an experimental project outside of their field. Funding for the experiment might come from Title XVI funding for the DOI. This is the sort of project that might answer the 21st Century Bureau of Reclamation question….how do you top the Hoover Dam.

Or funding could come from the vast pools of dollars for R&D controlled by DOE that nobody in the desalination industry knows how to tap–or from a utility funding authority set up this year. No matter where the dollars came from–they would be federal dollars well spent.

Update: Science Daily is calling a UCLA based company a big breakthrough desalination testing.

With these critical issues looming large, researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science are working hard to help alleviate the state’s water deficit with their new mini-mobile-modular (M3) “smart” water desalination and filtration system.

In designing and constructing new desalination plants, creating and testing pilot facilities is one of the most expensive and time-consuming steps. Traditionally, small yet very expensive stationary pilot plants are constructed to determine the feasibility of using available water as a source for a large-scale desalination plant. The M3 system helps cut both costs and time.

“Our M3 water desalination system provides an all-in-one mobile testing plant that can be used to test almost any water source,” said Alex Bartman, a graduate student on the M3 team who helped to design the sensor networks and data acquisition computer hardware in the system. “The advantages of this type of system are that it can cut costs, and because it is mobile, only one M3 system needs to be built to test multiple sources. Also, it will give an extensive amount of information that can be used to design the larger-scale desalination plant.”

The M3 demonstrated its effectiveness in a recent field study in the San Joaquin Valley in which it desalted agricultural drainage water that was nearly saturated with calcium sulfate salts, accomplishing this with just one reverse osmosis (RO) stage.

If they can figure out a way to put their mobile testing tools underwater they might merge well with DVX to create a fast pilot.

I

Before I get started let me show you some serious eye candy I found this past month. The noise to signal ratio for the last couple of years on global warming is running about 100/1. Here’s a very good explanation of why. Take a look at this National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) graphic of mean temperatures in the USA. Notice the sudden drop off at the end?

Here’s also a NASA graph of the sunspot cycle along with NASA’s prediction for when the sunspot cycle will turn up again.. It shows we’re at a solar minimum. Here’s something more interesting. Here’s a graphic that shows how NASA’s prediction of the next upturn in the solar cycle has changed since 2004. It keeps being pushed further out into the future. That might help to explain the increasing cacophony in the global warming debate.

It may well turn out to be that carbon dioxide will turn out to be a case of correlation without causation in the global warming debate. Here is the Best Discussion of Global Warming that I’ve ever seen.

I heard that some folks were pretty discouraged after MSSC conference in January. For that reason its kind of encouraging to see a bill introduced to congress that would accelerate the pace of desalination research along the terms discussed by the water energy conference in Janaury.
US bill seeks major desalination research expansion

US Senate hearings began on 10 March 2009 into a bill on the relationship between energy and water which could have wide implications for desalination research, both in the US and internationally.

I like the US part. I’m not sure what to make of the international part.  Right now major US desalination players like GE and IBM have already teamed up with overseas players. IBM has teamed up with Saudi Arabia and a Japanese company called Central Glassto do research. GE has teamed up with Singapore to set up a research facility there. I don’t think that GE or IBM could long play the international game as they have done — without maintaining some control over their IP. But I could be wrong. Right or wong the US is going to need to hold onto IP in order to get competitive advantage to change capital flows so we can pay our bills. The proper question framed appropriately for federal state & local officials up and down the chain of command is this: How do we grow our tax base. This is the way smart state governors think.

The hearings relate to a new bill introduced by the leaders of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, Jeff Bingaman and Lisa Murkowski, titled Energy & Water Integration 2009. This seeks to order the Secretary of Energy, in consultation with the Secretary of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency, to arrange with the National Academy of Sciences for an in-depth analysis of the impact of energy development and production on the water resources of the United States.

Sounds good. No? The National Committee of Sciences will have a chance to make up for the disinterested report they put out last year.

However, more importantly for desalination, the bill seeks to authorize funds to enable the Secretary of the Interior to operate and manage the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Otero County, New Mexico, as a state-of-the-art desalination research center. The center would develop new water and energy technologies with widespread applicability; and create new supplies of usable water for municipal, agricultural, industrial or environmental purposes.

Somebody got it right. Thank You. Now maybe in two years the US will have a dedicated desal and reuse laboratory on par with Saudi Arabia and Singapore. What’s most amazing about the bill is that the report they want produced is susposed to come out in 90 days:

If the bill is passed the Secretary of Energy would have 90 days to develop an ”Energy-Water Research and Development Roadmap to define the future research, development, demonstration and commercialization efforts that are required to address emerging water-related challenges to future, cost-effective, reliable and sustainable energy generation and production”.

I think this would be a good way to get all interested parties (including but not limited to the GOA, DOI, DOE, EPA)to release funds for various desalination and water reuse projects. The article continues:

As a priority, says the bill, renewable energy technologies should be developed for integration with desalination technologies:
# to reduce the capital and operational costs of desalination;
# to minimize the environmental impacts of desalination; and
# to increase public acceptance of desalination as a viable water supply process.

In addition, the bill wants:
# research regarding various desalination processes, including improvements in reverse and forward osmosis technologies;
# development of innovative methods and technologies to reduce the volume and cost of desalination concentrated wastes in an environmentally sound manner;
# an outreach program to create partnerships with US states, academic institutions, private entities and other appropriate organizations to conduct research, development and demonstration activities;
# an outreach program to educate the public on desalination and renewable energy technologies and the benefits of using water in an efficient manner.

I would add to this list that research be done on energy efficient cheaper to produce and maintain pipelines. The tool set for 3d prototyping is evolving faster than the materials & designs that can be used with it. As well, I would mention the OSTP report entitled “A Strategy for Federal Science and Technology to Support Water Availability and Quality in the United States September, 2007.” on the national challenges to ensure adequate fresh water supplies. The study then outlines a federal strategic plan for addressing these challenges and provides a guide for how federal agencies will be a part of this plan. I give more detail on that from a Jan 2008 MSSC blog.
I think that as part of that a helpful thing to do would be to include efficient reverse and forward osmosis membranes onto the list of strategic material research goals in the already architected NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers. Heck I’d throw in easy to build and maintain energy efficient pipelines too. And don’t forget line item funding so these projects land inbox.
Anyhow, everyone would do well to do their part make this study go through.

I mentioned in a previous desalination post a bunch of ways that renewable energy projects could be integrated with desalination projects. As well, the Oasys forward osmosis project –that I mentioned in the last post — gives a body pause:

Oasys estimates that engineered osmosis will cost US$ 0.37-0.44/m³ once fully scaled up. The startup has so far established a pilot-scale plant to test the technology by producing 1 m³/d.

That’s $431@acre foot to $542.8@acre foot. When you consider that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is charging $800@acre ft… Oasys numbers take on a whole new meaning. In fact, those meanings cut six ways to Sunday. Oasys mentions California in their press release

The company’s patented EOTM process can produce drinking water at less than half the cost of current desalination methods. This is accomplished by eliminating the need for high-pressures used in modern Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems, thereby reducing the electricity and fuel demands by more than 90%. The result is a reduction in the economics of seawater desalination that will ultimately bring the cost of producing water from our vast oceans below the cost of conventional surface water, such as the aqueduct system used in the California State Water Project

To get those low numbers Oasys forward osmosis system has to use waste heat from sources like coal plants plants near the coast.

Now combine Oasys work with this: (Click) Here’s break through in production costs for algae oil.

A coal plant — that can also produce fresh water and carbon neutral oil…– is golden.

There will be a congressional hearing on algae oil soon — that, I think, will result in algae supplanting sequestration as the carbon capture method of choice.

But Oasys could also work well with a thermal solar power plant like the one in Nevada. So where ever you had plenty of sun above a brackish aquifer — and say –400 acres of relatively cheap land–as is available in New Mexico or West Texas — you could put up a solar thermal plant with a Oasys forward osmosis desalination plant because the internal processes are nearly identical–in fact the flash vaporization used by the thermal solar power plant to drive its electrical generators might also take the salt out of solution in the Oasys forward osmosis solution. Actually, Oasys has already talked about something just like this idea.

Here’s a couple more ideas. It may well be that some of the concentrated salts left over from desalination can be used in this hot salt battery or peak production of solar power/wind/coal could be stored as methane with a bacteria that produces it directly from water and carbon dioxide. Here’s the first paper I’ve seen which discusses how the properties of Na+ and Cl- ion in saltwater could be used to create hydrogen.

There are some cost savings there that might justify the costs of tapping deep brackish aquifers in New Mexico that are currently experiencing a big gold rush.

Finally before I take the long view, I believe that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite energy and desalting ideas. My favorite energy idea: Its my favorite because I thought of it myself. Ha! Here goes. Here is a high school teacher dropping a lump of pure sodium into a bucket of water. Notice the nice big bang? Here’s a bit calmer explanation. How much energy would it take to convert sodium in solution Na+ to pure sodium Na. Then could you harness profitably the exothermic reaction that results from adding pure sodium to water? Beats me. But sheesh it would be way cool to convert salt water economically into power as well as energy. I mention a wild strategy for converting Na+ to Na here. I’m sure there are many more.

Ok now for my favorite desalting research idea. I first mentioned it here. As I’ve said many times, the chief end of seawater desalination R&D should be a a pipe with a semipermiable membrane on the end. The membrane should be so efficient that the water pressure at 100-300 feet of ocean water is sufficient to drive fresh water through the membrane–while the coastal current carries off the concentrate. Ideally you would have slant drilled from the coast. “Slant well” — means you drill down 200-400 feet or so and then drill sidways and up out into the ocean- +-1000 feet–depending on how steep the drop off –so the up sloping drill hole meets the down sloping ocean bed — at the point where the drill emerges from the ocean bed at 100-300 feet of water. A ship floats over the drill and drops in a passive desalter that looks like an underwater mushroom. The mushroom desalter synches with the drill head just like it would if it were an oil well. Fresh water flows through the membraned mushroom downhill to shore. The oil drilling industry already has the ships, the underwater installation and drilling technology. City of Carpinteria near Santa Barbara in California is negotiating with Venoco over their proposed Paredon Project. Venoco wants to drill down a mile or so and then drill sideways a couple more miles out into the Santa Barbara Channel for oil. A helpful provision for their contract would be a slant well for water purposes. The membranes and mushroom to make this work are not available now. But they will be in two or three years. The job for now would be to drill the well and cap it, spend two years designing the mushroom and the membranes for installation in 2011-12. Funding for the experiment could come from several different players including Venoco, the DOI, EPA & DOE. The design for the underwater mushroom would go the the firms that supply underwater oil equipment for Venoco working in conjunction with some American membrane plant designer.

Ok now for the view from eight miles high.

As I mentioned at the MSSC conference in January — everyone knows about great works of the water guys in the early 20th century. Everyone has seen the discovery channel pictures of salt water on Mars–so its not too tough to figure what will be the work of water men in the 22nd century–(or earlier if the rate of change keeps accelerating.) What’s hard to figure is the big plan for the 21st century–on the scale that dam building was for the 20th century–or desalination on Mars. The reason for this is that on the one hand we have legacy ideology from the 1960’s that holds that there are too many people, growth is bad, but it won’t matter anyway because the oceans are rising and they will drown the coastal cities. On the other hand, because of fast tracking technolgical change–perhaps more powerful than that in the early 20th century –there is a rebirth of early 20th century thinking that holds there is plenty of room for more people, growth is good and the way you enable more room for more people is to bring water and power to waterless and powerless places. Take southern california. Whether you believe rising sea levels will drown the coastal cities or whether you believe that future growth is inland over the coastal mountains to the deserts–the answer to providing water and power for the future is the same–because people will either be pushed inland by rising sea levels or pulled inland by new water and power resources. That is, prudent water managers have to either plan for disaster by providing water and energy for the day the population has to move inland to escape rising sea levels OR prudent managers will have to believe there is a better brighter future ahead and plan for it as Hoover did. Actually Herbert Hoover’s thinking involved both propositions above. He wanted to make a silk purse out of a sows ear. The genesis for the colorado river project and the hoover dam was the terrible flooding of the Colorado that just wiped whole communities in the early 20th century. When Hoover wrote the initial enabling legislation in 1922 for the Hoover dam, a lot of the technology to build the dam and create the hydropower had not been invented. We are in the midst of just such a period of extraordinary scientific and technological development. A good thing too though the problem this time is not floods but drought.

Regular readers of this blog know that while I advocate all kinds of desalination techniques–I believe the big water solution for the 21 century comes from the ocean. Therefor the goal of water desalination R&D should be to collapse the cost of desalination and transport so that water delivered from the gulf of Mexico to New Mexico or water delivered from the pacific to arizona or utah –even desalted water delivered over the cascades to eastern Oregon and Washington–is cheap enough for agricultural uses that is < than 100@acre foot. Instead of 100 million dollar desalination plants there should be just a 4 million dollar pipe you stick in the ocean. Water flows downhill to shore by way of slant well drilling. Cheap to manufacture and maintain pipelines with minimum energy pipe the water inland. What energy is needed is drawn from the sun/wind/heat or the water itself. The goal is to turn the deserts green, and increase the potential habitable size of the USA by 1/3. The USA having then created the technology could export it to the rest of the world profitably and double the size of habitable planet. Anyone who follows — not just the research–but the development of new research tools — knows that this is what’s implied by the work in the labs.

In January, 2008 I mentioned that all the candidates both Republican and Democratic mentioned the need for energy independence. The republicans, especially, made the comparison between the the call for energy independence today and the race to moon in the 1960’s and the Manhattan project in the 1940’s.

According to this article dated 3/8/09 the Obama administration takes a similiar tack.

Now energy experts and officials in the Obama administration see a similar “Sputnik moment,” urgent and global in scope, over energy use and climate change. And they want to try some new ventures, similar to efforts in the Cold War, to stimulate technological advances in energy and shift the economy away from oil and coal.

Deep in the $787 billion stimulus bill that became law two weeks ago is $400 million to launch ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Authority for Energy. It’s modeled after the Pentagon’s DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which took on Soviet technology and gave us online shopping in the process.

Needless to say, typically, it takes water to make energy and you need energy to make clean water.

On the second day of the MSSC conference back in January something that was billed as a Town Hall Meeting was held. I was reminded of that meeting in the past week because of the flood of dire water news coming out the Southwest and southeast. As well, the very interesting news that has emerged from Yale.

The point of the second day’s discussion at the MSSC conference was the relative roles of government and industry in desalination going forward. But that was overshadowed by events. That desalination got no explicit funding in the midst of the biggest government spending splurg in generations–gave people pause. What happened? imho one problem was the National Committee of Sciences Desalination Report. It was the kind of scholarly report that public policy college students might read. Or GAO officials. More likely the latter. The report recommended that government funding for desalination related research remain at current levels or about 25 million annually. This is on the level of Australia or Singapore. People generally agreed that these funding levels were not appropriate given the rising urgency of water solutions needed for the southwest in particular but also in the California and the southeast.

The Drying of the American West does a good job of telling how the west is in the midst of a long drought while population there grows. The article has a good video.Patricia Mulroy mentions that if current trends of less than 70% normal rainfall remain in effect for the next five years–then Nevada will lose 90% of the water they receive from the Hoover Dam.

Here’s another article on ongoing struggle between Florida, Alabama and Georgia over dwindling water resources in the southeast. Both the southeast and the southwest were beneficiaries of the New Deal water projects. That both are in deep trouble now–shows that the 20th century solutions to water power are no longer adequate.

I think that point was made fairly clear Friday morning. Too bad this was not made clear before the report came out.

A second point made by the report as to limits of RO efficiency was off base. We were informed that RO membranes were limited to only a 15% improvement in efficiences. (One Bureau of Rec Scientist strolled up to me during the Town Hall Meeting and stage whispered “Whoa they’re off by a factor of about 100%.” He didn’t turn his head. The man had a job to keep. We were in the presence of PC.)However, current LLNL research suggests that carbon nanotube based membranes can achieve efficiencies 80% greater than current membranes. The membranes to achieve these efficiencies have already been spun out the the llnl labs.

Then of course there’s the big news recently that the Yale spinoff Oasys:

Oasys says that it can wrest drinking water from these non-potable sources at less than half the cost of existing desalination systems by doing away with the high-pressure components commonly found in reverse osmosis systems. Electricity and fuel demands could drop by 90 per cent, it hopes.

“The only real way to significantly reduce the cost is to eliminate the need for lots of electricity,” says CEO Aaron Mandell, who is also a managing partner at GreatPoint Ventures, a Boston-based firm that invested an undisclosed amount of seed funding in Oasys.

Mandell estimates it currently costs between $0.90 and $1 to turn one cubic meter (or 264 gallons) of seawater into potable drinking water. He says Oasys’s technology can lower the cost to $0.35 to $0.50 for the same quantity.

The Yale work is forward osmosis. I first mentioned their work back in 2007. But I’m betting that part of their efficiency claims come from either the membrane of llnl spinoff porifera or the membrane of the UCLA spinoff NanoH20

According to the article Oasys Water Inc. has raised $10 million to pilot a technology.

Investors in Oasys’s $10-million funding round include Advanced Technology Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Flagship Ventures. Mandell says an additional funding round, expected to total $30-50 million, is needed to commercialize its technology on a broad scale.

The amazing thing is that private capital is available at all in these challenging times. While government has not adequately responded to the need for more water–more companies are getting funding in response to the opportunity provided by the increased demand for water. Oasys is not the only company to get finanacing lately.

The current funding comes amid an active period for venture investment in the water purification sector. Companies that received money in the past six months include WaterHealth International, a producer of contaminated water treatment technology that raised $10 million in January; NanoH20, a developer of membrane materials for water purification, which raised $15 million in September; and Quench, a distributor of water purification coolers that closed a $26 million funding round in August.

According to consulting firm Lux Research, spending on water treatment products and infrastructure is slated to rise sharply, jumping from $522 billion in 2007 to nearly $1 trillion by 2020. Researchers forecast that by 2030, the world will use 40 percent more water than today, and nearly half of the world’s population will face severe water stress.

Mandell estimates that the desalination market is at least $30 billion, but that is a fraction of the broader wastewater treatment sector.

The Dept of the Interior will get several hundred million dollars for water projects but they will mostly go for wastewater treatment–though I would think that a portion of that will go to desalinating brackish pump water from oil wells.

The week of Jan 12-16 I went from a four day Internet marketing conference Sunday-Wednesday to the MSSC Conference Thursday-Friday. As a result, I went to the latter conference with my biz hat on. So I asked the hard funding questions.

The panelists on day one at the MSSC– asked the audience for a raise of hands for those who sent water projects to their congressmen in response to solicitations. About half the crowd raised their hands. The congressional lobbyist said they would not see their projects funded. They were in the presence of a bait and switch.

However, it also became clear that funds would be available for desalination projects if they were pitched and structured properly. For example, if a desal plant wanted its energy source to be from solar or wind or thermal–it could get funding from the DOE for funding to build a renewable energy project. Further, there is provision for about 2.5 billion for efficient utility projects. So a desal plant which could demonstrate that it was more efficiently desalting — might get funding from this second pot. Finally, salt disposal: if structured as a solar pond or a heat capture project or an algae to oil project — might get more funding from the DOE.

Electric power generated in remote locations could have power lines to the grid paid for under the electrical grid legislation. Nothing on this was mentioned but I’ll bet water pipelines might be funded too. (No guarantee here. Certainly the DOE would not fund pipelines.)

In short, whole desal projects could be nearly fully funded if structured properly.

Finally, there is a very good chance that in a couple months there may be 2.5 billion or so federal dollars available for algae to oil producers.

There was problem here. The DOE has had a huge pot of funds since last year for alternative energy spending that no one has tapped into. It doesn’t appear as if county or town or small city official have the skills to get funding from the feds for alternative energy projects. As stated at the conference, there’s just no efficient way to get money from the feds to a local level. While last years DOE funding for alternative energy projects was not mission critical. This year the situation is different. Private funding for alternative energy projects is drying up. According to the NY Times we are entering Dark Days for Green Energy If Green Energy is little understood–the relationship between Green Energy and water production is even less so.(The exception here is hydro electric plants–like the Hoover Dam. Water power projects like the TVA and the Hoover Dam were symbols of the New Deal –but not much further hydro electric work is expected this time.)

I’ve been buried for the last several weeks by work accumulated by the internet marketing conference I attended before the I stopped in at the NSSC Summit. But I did some checking around to see if any of the people I know in Washington interceded for local districts to obtain funding for small time water power projects. I didn’t get any response to speak of. This doesn’t mean that 1000’s of small town projects are not up for funding. Rather it means that water people are generally not in line. Or they’re in the wrong line.

Part of the problem is one of conception. On the second day of the conference, a guy from an electric utility stood up and said that in the future — when a water conference is held that highlights the relationship between water and power–he would prefer not to feel like a guy who had just snuck in incognito.

This is not the way it should be. Water power projects should be at the heart of the new economy and the economic stimulus plan. What projects would they be? Well, anyone who has read my blog for year or so–knows that I favor technology that has not been invented yet. I’m speaking of membranes that are so efficient that they pass fresh water at room temperature and pressure. These are five years away. I also favor pipelines that are cheap to build, long lasting, easy to repair and energy efficient. These are ten years away.

What can be done now with federal funding — is something completely different.

Federal funding for current shovel ready technology would be for solar or wind or thermal powered desalination plants that produced at least double the electricity needed by the desal plant so as to provide for the grid and to power a desalination plant. They would be sited near small towns short on water that sat above brackish aquifers or coastal towns. In places where there were already desalination plants like the El Paso desalination plant or plants in planning like the Poseidon facility in Carlsbad, Calif., near San Diego– they would just need solar power plants for the desalination. They could also get funding for thermal power generation.

But there are other kinds of smaller scale water power projects. For example all over the west– there are oil wells that produce both water and oil/gas. If the water were cleaned up–it would provide a great source of clean fresh water for the locals. (This would also be the case on Indian reservations if they have any gas/oil wells that also produce water.)

There’s more. Every small town has a sewage treatment plant. That water could be funded for algae to oil projects. That’s just the start. There is now technology available to convert sewage to oil. The process that convert raw sewage to oil leave water that is fairly clean. These project would likely be eligible for DOE funding as they represent renewable energy with water as a byproduct.

And more. Every coal plant in the US is a candidate for algae/oil and thermal energy project. First the waste heat from the water would be harvested and then the water would be run through algae for oil generation. By the time water was restored to its original place — much of its original character would be restored too and the CO2 would be scrubbed. This would go a long way toward resolving water intake and CO2 issues with coal plants along the coast of California. As well, coal powered electric plants along the Ohio River and elsewhere could see water returned to the river in nearly its natural state.

Finally it bears mentioning that federal funding might be obtained for the slant well drilling project in the Santa Barbara channel.

When you compare many of the projects that are up for funding to water power projects–there’s just no comparison. Water power projects are the real deal.

Are there shops with the skills to write alternative energy/desal water power specs — who can also write successful federal funding proposals? If you know anyone who who can do that–drop me at line cakilmer AT yahoo DOT com. I’ll post an notice for them on this site. This would match up with any locals interested getting federal funding for an alternative energy powered water desalination plant or water power alternative energy project. A considerable number of people interested in desal & alternative energy pass through this web site daily. So there’s likely to be some synergy.

A little housekeeping before I get started…anyone interested in the Kanzius effect should thumb down to comment #74–and after looking at the comment– just for the hey of it — ask a buddy in the labs with an RF machine to fire some radio waves at salt water at RF 26.451. (If the experiment is a success — his lab will blow up…just kidding…but some caution is required.)

Another item. I’ve shifted to a new url. If you have found this blog to useful/helpful/interesting I would appreciate it if you would ask your webmaster to provide a link to this website.

Ok, on to biz.

On January 8 President-elect Barack Obama called for doubling the nation’s renewable energy production over the next three years.

According to the latest “Monthly Energy Review” issued by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, renewable energy accounted for more than 10 percent of the domestically-produced energy used in the United States in the first half of 2008.

So Obama is talking about doubling renewables as a percentage of the national energy output from 10% to 20%.

The growth of renewables as a percentage of national energy production has been 1.5 annually averaged over the last two years. (In 2006 renewables accounted for 7% of the US energy output.) So Obama’s proposal is to double the rate of growth of renewables. This doesn’t seem to be too big a challenge considering the amount of money they will be throwing at the problem and the immense momentum for change already built up.

Still a leap in renewables as a % of the US energy picture from 10% to 20% is an enormous jump.

From where will the growth come?

Currently, biofuels and hydo are the largest component of renewables — with each taking roughly an equal share. Its not likely hydo will get much growth from here. Solar and wind are experiencing 40% growth annually but they’re coming off such a small base that even if their growth rates soar to 100-200% annually– they’ll still only account for 2-3% of the total US energy output portfolio in three years.

That leaves biofuels.

I don’t think the incoming administration will push for more ethanol from corn or soybeans.

That means they’ll be converting corn stalks wood chips, lawn clippings agricultural waste city sewage, garbage darn near anything carbon based– to biofuel.

The Pentagon has already signed some major contracts here. Biomas production plants are springing up on military bases all over the country.

imho cellulose biofuels is where most of the growth in renewables will come in the next two years.

However,–at current rates– by year three –or maybe four — imho something else will happen.

The trouble with cellulose is that the new administration is going to sign the Kyoto accords. Much of biomass production does not actually advance the goal of carbon footprint reduction. So even this will not be quite the answer that the new administration is looking for.

What does that leave?

Well in biomass there is one solution that will enable the US to reduce its carbon footprint in line with Kyoto restrictions –while producing energy. That is, algae production sited next to installed coal plants. I’ve mentioned that here and here.

Rather than pipe carbon dioxide into underground formations–the idea would be to pipe carbon dioxide into greenhouses or green ponds. About +-300 acres of algae will support one coal plant’s carbon dioxide output.

The smart money at DARPA has been investing in algae production since 2006 In Dec 2008 they signed more contracts with SAIC and General Atomics to collapse the cost of algae oil.

During the first 18 months of the project, teams from General Atomics and SAIC will try to get costs of algae-based oil down to $2 a gallon. In the following 18 months, they will push to drop it to $1 a gallon and build a 30-to 50-acre demonstration facility.

One team, headed by General Atomics, says they’ve already cut the cost of algae-based oil from $30 a gallon to about $6 or $7 a gallon (in three years from 2006-2008). But the price needs to get closer to a dollar to make it competitive, said David Hazlebeck, the chemical engineer and biofuels program manager who is heading General Atomics’ efforts.

The general impression I’ve been getting from reading various representatives of the industry is that algae to oil costs respond very well to economies of scale. For example, an El Paso algae to oil company called Valcent is currently running algae to oil trials. What would the costs be to scale up the trial?

A Vertigro plant of the size needed to supply a large biofuel refinery would require about 200 to 300 acres and “probably cost about
$800,000 per acre” to build and operate. That means a full-scale plant would cost about $160 million to $240 million.
The Vertigro system is expected to be able to produce algae oil for about $1.70 a gallon versus about $2.63 a gallon for soybean oil. Those numbers are without government subsidies or tax credits.

There are about 100 small algae to oil companies and the number is growing. None of them are well funded–except for Microsoft funded Sapphire Energy

imho a federal investment of 5 billion into the algae to oil business to fund acres of algae to oil greenhouses/ponds would push down algae to oil costs quickly and create jobs quickly. Likely the best way to do the funding would be to spread it across many small companies.

Is there method to this uh–you name it? Yeah. OPEC is draining oil production currently from the system so that in xxxx months when the world economy turns–oil prices will instantly shoot up. This will suck out America’s growing capital base/tax base–and throttle any nascent expansion. The proper response for the US is to grow our oil production capacity fast so that when demand picks up — supply will be there to meet it–without prices jumping sky high. If we can’t drill here drill now–then we have to grow here grow now.There won’t be any great push to get more ethanol from corn, soybeans or any other food source on crop land. So for growing energy–algae is the answer.

Maybe a five billion dollar investment in algae to oil is too little.

What does this have to do with water and water desalination in particular? According to the article:

Of course, algae grow in water. But scientists say that’s not necessarily a problem since the organisms can be grown in brackish – or salty – water and would not compete for dwindling supplies of fresh water.

Some companies like Algenolbiofuels use seawater.

Last year PetroSun claimed they had completed the first commercial scale algae to oil production center in Rio Hondo Texas in a series of saltwater ponds spanning 1,100 acres.

Green Star Products, Inc. uses brackish water.

Green Star Products, Inc. today announced that EcoAlgae USA, LLC, has received a signed resolution from Saline County Missouri commissioners to construct a commercial Algae Production Facility in conjunction with an Integrated Biorefinery Complex.

Valcent Grows Algae Oil in El Paso with fresh water–and not much fresh water. Their CEO Glen Kertz has figured out a solution to two problems with his closed-loop algae-growing system, preventing water evaporation and stopping infiltration of foreign species of algae. Mark Townsend Cox, CEO of the New Energy Fund, an $11 million New York-based fund which invests in companies developing renewable energy products, and Global Green consultant, said Global Green and Valcent appear to have one of the better algae-growing systems among 15 to 20 companies working on projects to use algae for biofuel production. “They have a really smart design that I believe is scalable and (has) the ability to do it pretty rapidly,” Cox said. Kathyrn Dodson, director of the city Economic Development Department, who toured the Vertigro research facility Wednesday, said at least three other companies are working on biofuel projects in the El Paso area.

Here is the CEO of Vertigrow on video discussing algae production system.

The reason I find the El Paso algae story to be interesting is that El Paso is the site of the recently opened — and world’s largest — inland water desalination plant. Are the two related? I think so. In any case the presence of both brackish and fresh water gives algae companies more choices as to algae species to choose from.

For further study see:

Scientific American: Energy versus Water: Solving Both Crises Together