Water Power R&D

Archive for February, 2009

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.