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Venice floods more than one hundred times a year. At the beginning of this month, Venice was caught in another onslaught, as the sea level around the city rose higher than most people can remember. The last time locals and countless visitors had to wade through water this deep was over thirty years ago. It is floods like the most recent one that make it clear how important a flood barrier really is.

Things were different a century ago when floods occurred at an average of ten times a year, but Venice has always been sensitive to changes in water levels because the city itself is built on hundreds of small islands. It doesn’t help that Venice is sinking a few centimeters every year, as well.

One proposed solution comes in the form of a barrier that would use hydraulic pressure to raise steel plates that cut off the rising water flow. This controversial Moses Project-named after the religious figure who parted the red sea-was originally shelved because of the 4.2 billion dollar price tag and the millions (if not billions) of dollars it would take to maintain the structure annually. The hefty price tag isn’t the only cause for concern, environmentalists worry that the artificial barriers will harm protected ecosystems. They claim that closing off the tide flow will cause water to stagnate and kill off marine life.

In an in-depth article by the Times, journalist Richard Owen explains that the project “involves 79,300-tonne hinged steel panels or “buoyancy flap gates”, which most of the time will lie beneath the water but will fill with compressed air when the high-tide alarm sounds, closing off the three inlets. There are 700 workers at the three construction sites, a workforce due to double as completion approaches in 2012. A €1.5 million simulator at Malamocco shows how the locks will allow shipping to pass when the lagoon is blocked off.”

Any barrier that affects the natural flow of floods and tides will obviously have an impact on the underwater ecosystems. The question is how much of an effect? Not only that, but shouldn’t the ancient historical architecture be protected as well? Either way, Moses is currently scheduled for completion in 2012.

Overall land subsidence in the region surrounding Venice has been 1.5 to 2.0 meters during the past 70 years, making high tides far more problematic (ref. Wessex Institute).

PORTLAND, Maine, December 15, 2008 – IntertechPira is pleased to announce the global launch of Sustainable Fragrances for Cleaning Products set for June 3 – 5, 2009 at the Marriott Washington in Washington, DC, US.

Co-Chaired by Lauren Heine, Senior Science Advisor, Clean Production Action, Marian Marshall, Director of Government Relations, The Roberts Group and Ladd Smith, President, Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM), this year’s program will bring together cleaning products industry experts, fragrance manufacturers and suppliers of raw materials to learn about changes to existing standards and discuss ways to untangle the intricate fragrance supply chain.

“Because cleaning products formulators often rely on fragrance manufacturers to develop and deliver the fragrance for their products, fragrance manufacturers are required to provide an end product that meets the customer’s specifications for sustainable, “said Senior Conference Producer Jessica Johnson. “With hundreds of chemicals that comprise a fragrance formulation and fragrance developers relying on several suppliers, the supply chain has become a complex logistical web.”

Currently, truly green cleaners account for only 2% to 5% of the products sold in the $17.5 billion U.S. cleaning products market for household, janitorial, food service, and laundry chemicals. Due to increased consumer misperceptions regarding the terms ‘green,’ ‘sustainable,’ and ‘natural,’ government regulatory agencies and NGOs have developed programs to certify consumer products that meet stringent standards for sustainable formulations. Sustainable Fragrances for Cleaning Products will address these programs and additional salient issues facing this market.

Key topics will include:

• Creating a definition of ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ that is meaningful for all constituent industries
• Understanding the criteria for green fragrances developed by EPA’s DfE program and RIFM
• A comprehensive review of current technology and where its heading
• The science behind determining allergic response and sensitization to fragrance

One pre-conference seminar will be held prior to the conference on Wednesday, June 3. Several networking opportunities will also be provided.

At a time when the market continues to experience tremendous technological growth, IntertechPira’s Sustainable Fragrances for Cleaning Products is both timely and practical, providing a unique advantage to gain the necessary knowledge to define sustainability and secure development for the fragrance industry.

For the most up-to-date program details visit the Sustainable Fragrances 2009 website.

Members of the press interested in attending, to find out if you qualify for a complimentary press pass, please contact Press Officer Sheri Bonnell at sheri.bonnell@pira-international.com or +1 (2070 781-9637

A recent comment on our report entitled “Ford Delivers Electric Vehicles” (written in April 2001 when USPS tried out a fleet of 400 EVs) has called our attention once again to EEStor (site under construction), the stuff of legends, the company developing an ultracapacitor to supply partners such as ZENN Motor Company, among others. According to Wikipedia’s entry on EEStor, EEStor’s capacitor may achieve an energy density as high as 700 watt-hours per kilogram. By comparison, the lithium ion battery only attains an energy density as high as 150 watt-hours per kilogram. This is making up a lot of ground. For example, a lead acid battery has an energy density of about 40 watt-hours per kilogram, but a good off-the-shelf conventional capacitor only has an energy density of around 5 watt-hours per kilogram.

The disruptive potential of EEStor’s ultracapacitor technology has been known for some time, as evidenced by the Technology Review report of January 22, 2007 entitled “Battery Breakthrough?” or our own report dating back to September 27, 2006 entitled “ZENN Cars & EEStor’s Ultracapacitor.” But EEStor has also been in the news lately, it turns out, though they remain fairly quiet. Earlier this year the anonymously authored “EEStorblog” went online, billing itself as “News, Reviews, Interviews and Overviews of all things related to EEStor Inc.” They reported on December 12th that Intel is considering getting into the automotive electricity storage business, in their post entitled “Intel Inside Model May Attract Intel.” Earlier this week, the EEStorBlog claimed “first Zenn Motor EESU production unit” could arrive at Zenn sometime this month in a post entitled “A Speculative Piece on the Arrival of the First Production EEStor EESU.”

A Cleantech Group report from July 30, 2008 entitled “EEStor’s Weir on ultracapacitor milestone” stated EEStor had “announced the certification of production milestones and the enhancement of its chemical purification processes.” All in all, there still isn’t much recent information available regarding EEStor, but what is out there remains positive. The fact that Intel could consider manufacturing storage systems for electric vehicles should excite anyone still wondering if they are for real. One of the advantages of capacitors as a storage application is that compared to batteries, capacitors have virtually unlimited surge capacity. Also, as storage devices, an added attraction of advanced capacitors is their manufacture may require fewer expensive inputs and less toxic material.
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The Chevy Volt’s “E-Flex” technology is likely the most advanced all-electric drivetrain under development today, insofar as it is designed to accomodate any onboard power source, presumably including a natural gas diesel generator. (Photo: General Motors)

The combination of batteries and advanced electrochemical capacitors are part of a plethora of rapidly evolving and hybridizing electricity storage innovations. They are only one example of how new technologies are relentlessly delivering decidedly unbiased pluralism to automotive design. The ferment of new ways to design an automobile are disrupting established auto manufacturers, and this technology pluralism will impel economic pluralism. The next great automaker could be in the Silicon Valley, manufacturing an extended range plug-in with extra power from an onboard natural gas diesel generator, an all-electric drive train, and a novel electricity storage system that includes ultracapacitors.

Our latest interactive spreadsheet “Cost to Mitigate CO2″ is an attempt to present the financial implications of precipitously moving to a fossil fuel free world. We have provided only three variables – how many parts per million of increased atmospheric CO2 correspond to one degree centigrade higher global average temperature, how many gigatons of CO2 emissions correspond to a one ppm greater concentration of atmospheric CO2, and how much it costs (US$) to avoid emitting one ton of CO2.

Our default assumptions are probably the best case, that is, the least expensive case. We assume that 15 gigatons of CO2 emissions will increase atmospheric CO2 by 1.0 part per million, that for every 50 parts per million of increased atmospheric CO2 there will be a 1.0 degree increase in global average temperature, and that a ton of CO2 emissions can be avoided via an expense of $25 – i.e., for 25 billion dollars, we can avoid emitting one gigaton of CO2. And using these assumptions, it would cost 19 trillion dollars to lower the projected temperature of the planet by 1.0 degree centigrade.

The point of this exercise isn’t to suggest that CO2 is actually the culprit, causing the global climate to teeter on the tipping point of runaway catastrophic warming. Our position has always been the following – if there is climate change, and if the climate change is something to be alarmed about, we would be better off reforesting the tropics, refilling our aquifers, and investing in global prosperity to provide ourselves the wealth to adapt, than try to eliminate fossil fuel use. But let’s return to the numbers.

First of all, the cost of $25 per ton to mitigate CO2 is probably significantly understated. Using our example, 15 gigatons of CO2 emissions represents about 50% of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions, which in-turn represents about 50% of all energy production (some anthropogenic CO2 comes from deforestation). The cost to produce 50% of all energy, 250 quadrillion BTUs of energy, from non-fossil fuel sources, can be roughly estimated as follows:

Assuming fossil fuel use will be offset by electricity use, to replace 250 quadrillion BTUs of heat energy we will need to generate 8,350 gigawatt-years of electricity. Using our cheapest known alternative electricity, we will have to deploy wind generators at a cost of $2.5 million per megawatt at full output. With a yield of 35% (the percentage of time there is viable wind), this equates to a cost for wind generated electricity of $7.1 million per constant megawatt, or 7.1 billion per constant gigawatt. Which is to say that using wind energy, we could eliminate annual CO2 emissions of 15 gigatons for a cost of 8,350 gigawatt-years times $7.1 billion, or about $60 trillion dollars. Using this example, therefore, it will not cost $19 trillion, or $25 per ton, to reduce projected global average temperature by 1.0 degree centigrade, but $60 trillion, or $78 per ton (ref. “Wind Energy Update”).

There’s much more, however. What is the service life of a wind generator? Wouldn’t these CO2 emissions be avoided for that entire period? Can’t this cost be amortized over the service life of the wind generator? If so, how much would the annual expenditure have to be to make this transition? And how much expenditure for conventional energy would this new energy offset?

If you expressed 250 quadrillion BTUs of energy in terms of barrels of oil, you would be looking at roughly 50 billion barrels of oil, which at $50 per barrel represents an annual global expenditure of $2.5 trillion per year. Can this $2.5 trillion per year pay for the amortized installation cost, maintenance, and systematic replacement of a $60 trillion windfarm? The answer is no. Even if these units had service lives of 30 years, just paying back the installation cost, with zero interest, would be $2.0 trillion per year. With interest, on a 30 year term, at 5%, an installation cost of $60 trillion would require payments $3.6 trillion per year.

There’s more. One might correctly argue that 250 quadrillion BTUs of fossil fuel energy would not require a one-to-one substitution of electricity, since much of that fossil fuel is used to create electricity at efficiencies of 60% or less, or burned in vehicles at efficiencies of 30% or less. The electric age will usher in a far more efficient use of energy.

Ring-tailed Lemur (Lemur catta) (Photo: EcoWorld

This is true, but to consider this also requires us to consider the projected future energy consumption in the world. Energy is essential for economic growth. There are going to eventually be not quite 10.0 billion people living on earth. Currently in the U.S., each person consumes about 350 million BTUs of energy per year. In the European Union each person consumes about 250 million BTUs of energy per year. If there were 10 billion people on earth, each consuming on average only 100 million BTUs of energy per year, we would still have to double energy production on the planet, from 500 quadrillion BTUs per year to 1,000 quadrillion BTUs per year. Sure, population will probably top out at 8.0 billion – run the numbers. The point remains inescapable – energy production worldwide is going to need to increase significantly. And there is plenty of fossil fuel to fill this energy demand until we have perfected truly advanced means of generating energy such as fusion power (read “Fossil Fuel Reality”).

The imperative to dramatically curtail fossil fuel use rests on the precautionary principle. Maybe the earth’s climate isn’t going to catastrophically tip because of CO2 emissions, but we should do it anyway just in case. But there are two sides to this argument. Our position is we should use those trillions to build roads, hospitals, power plants, reforestation, aquifer replenishment, and medical (and other scientific) research. We should nurture free trade, free markets, and entrepreneurship. We should deliver to humanity the universal prosperity that is the destiny of our generation. Then by sometime between 2025 and 2050, we will have created economic abundance, we will have advanced technology, and we will be well positioned to handle whatever the climate may throw at us.

For years engineers and utilities have been waxing on and on about the future of the utility grid and the economic importance of having a smarter, more flexible infrastructure for distributing electricity. But the conversation goes silent when it comes to the price tag: $1.5 trillion.

There’s no doubt that a radical improvement needs to be made to the aged infrastructure that carries electricity from generation plants to homes and businesses. Some places on the grid, like stretches between L.A. and San Diego, are as congested as the freeways at rush hour.

This is where energy intelligence comes in. Energy intelligence is often defined as a subsector of traditional energy efficiency, focused on utility-scale distribution, grid connectivity and two-way communication with end users and devices. It becomes part of the nervous system that helps connect and make the grid more sentient.

By using energy intelligence technologies, grid-connected utilities and providers will be able to manage their generation and supply in accordance with end-user usage patterns. And that means power is distributed more intelligently to minimize load and enable active power-distribution management to optimize resources.

It may cost the U.S. $1.5 trillion to upgrade to a smart grid. (Source: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)

With the new infrastructure in place, customers can make informed decisions about their energy use, so they can purchase it at times when it’s cheapest. The way to make much of that happen is with smart meters and power management dispatched to homes and businesses where they will deliver savings and improved efficiency.

Trouble is, the next phase of bringing solar and wind energy sources online will require more engineers trained in power electronics. Unfortunately, power electronics was taught widely at universities 20-30 years ago but now few teach it.

“Power electronics is really going to be the critical area, along with interface technologies for converting AC current to DC and vice versa,”

says Dick DeBlasio, laboratory program manager for electricity programs at the National Renewable Energy Labs in Boulder, Colorado.

It is part of an evolutionary process that aims to bring a grid built on 50-year-old analog technology up to speed with the 21st century shift to digital. “Interoperability is really the big part of the focus for researchers and engineers,” says DeBlasio. Part of the problem is where to place sensors in buildings and on the distribution system.

The control and monitoring of the smart grid it is not easily done, as an estimated 10-15 percent of energy is lost in delivery. Another critical item for the future of the grid is storage and government R&D in this area has been abysmal for a long time.

The targeted areas for smart-grid R&D activities are in four basic categories: architecture and communication standards; monitoring and load-management technologies; monitoring and control for demand-side management; advanced components and operating concepts. . “We have a chance to be an early adopter of this technology,” said John Kunhart, managing director and co-founder of American River Ventures in Roseville, CA., at a recent panel discussion on Energy Intelligence: Investment, Risk and Regulation for Advanced Connectivity and Infrastructure sponsored by the VC Task Force.

Standardized architectural designs and interfaces are important to stimulate developments toward a smart grid. As part of that effort, universal standards have been proposed, like the IEEE 1547 series of standards on interconnecting distributed resources with electric power systems by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

So what will it take for energy intelligence to reach its potential and simultaneously reward investors? Successful growth in this area will require a detailed understanding and navigation of the complex interplay of risk mitigation, regulation and regulatory influence, and infrastructure development.

The attention some of the electric automobile designs have attracted over the past few years has tended to take the focus away from bikes and motorcycles. But for every Volt or Tesla making a splash in the news, dozens of models of electricity powered two-wheelers have been selling by the thousands for years. In aggregate, millions of electricity powered bikes are already in use around the world.

Should anyone doubt the electric scooter industry is alive and well, if not already gone through several cycles of maturity, go to Alibaba.com and search under “Electric Scooters.” You will get links to an astonishing 6,903 products, ranging from Suzhou Rununion Motivity Co., Ltd., to Wuxi Beiyi Electric Bicycle Co., Ltd., to Taizhou Wangpai Automobile Industry Co., to Jiangsu Taler Science and Technology of Motor Vehicle Co., to Jiangsu Xinling Motorcycle Manufacturing Co. , and on, and on, and on, and on. And small wonder – you can plug them in at night, ride them to work during the day, they’re relatively inexpensive to purchase, and they’re considerably less expensive to operate.

Now that electric bikes, scooters and motorcycles are making sense not only on the streets of Shanghai but also on the streets of Silicon Valley, there are some relatively new entrants in this market based in California instead of China. One such company, ELV Motors, based in Santa Clara, in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, manufactures mo-peds as well as scooters. Their UM 44L Electric Bicycle, which sells for $1,699, has a top speed of 15 miles per hour, and a range – not including range extension through pedaling – of 20 miles. And at 75 pounds, the bike is practical to pedal in flat terrain without battery power. ELV Motors manufactures seven models of mo-peds and scooters, including the E-1600 Electric Scooter, which at the price of $2,699 attains a top speed of 30 miles per hour and a range of 40 miles.

Another company, ZERO Motorcycles, is located in Santa Cruz, California, a coastal resort community which is a 30 minute drive south of the Silicon Valley through some of the most beautiful rolling hills of redwood forests anywhere. ZERO Motorcycles draws on Santa Cruz’s reputation as one of the original centers of mountain biking alongside their proximity to the technological saavy of Silicon Valley to develop the first ever off-road, all-electric dirt bike. Their Zero X model (specifications) delivers 23 horsepower of power and can accelerate from zero to 30 miles per hour in under two seconds. There is no transmission and the electric motor delivers constant torque of 50 ft-lbs. With a 18 pound frame and a total weight of only 140 pounds, ZERO claims their Zero X model has the highest power to weight ratio of any electric vehicle. With lithium ion batteries the motorcycle has a range of about 40 miles.
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The Zero X electric motorcycle goes zero to thirty in 2.0 seconds. (Photo: ZERO Motorcycles)

An electric car with a mileage of 4.0 miles per kilowatt-hour would compare to a compact car with a mileage of 30 MPG. At $1.50 per gallon, that equates to $.05 per mile for the gasoline powered car, and at $.10 per kilowatt-hour, that equates to $.025 per mile for the electric powered car – half as much. To save money on gas, people are turning to motorcycles; to save even more money, they might consider the emerging electric motorcycle. With well established supply chains for electric scooters and mo-peds, and an electric dirt bike now available from ZERO Motorcycles, it is only a matter of time before street-legal, full sized electric motorcycles arrive. If the example from ZERO is any indication, these bikes will perform against their gasoline powered counterparts just as admirably as the early Teslas perform against their gasoline powered automobile counterparts.

One of the keys to achieving the next step in commercializing renewable transportation fuels is to have a refining technology that can utilize a variety of biomass feedstocks. In the case of cellulosic ethanol, there are a lot of competing technologies out there, but not very many that can operate using virtually any cellulosic feedstock. Coskata is an Illinois startup whose technology appears to have this flexibility. Coskata recently closed a $40 million private equity financing as reported earlier this month by Private Equity Hub in their report “Blackstone Backs Cellulosic Ethanol Startup Coskata.”

According to Coskata’s Chief Marketing Officer, Wes Bolsen, “what this round does is get us through construction of our commercial demonstration plant as well as the initial engineering on our first commercial facility.” Coskata’s commercial demonstration plant is designed to produce 40,000 gallons per year of ethanol using a variety of cellulosic feedstocks. The plant is built at what Bolsen terms “minimum scale engineering,” meaning that while the output of the plant is not at a commercial volume, the size of the plant is large enough so the basic modules do not have to be fundamentally reengineered in order to follow up with construction of a full scale plant. Bolsen stated their demonstration plant, which is being built near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is “on schedule to be producing in early 2009.”

Coskata also intends to use the proceeds of their recent financing to begin the initial engineering of their first commercial facility. For this Coskata intends to build a plant with an initial capacity of 50 million gallons per year. The cellulosic ethanol plants at full scale – 100 million gallons per year – in general have been estimated to cost $400 million each. Coskata expects this plant, which can be expanded to refine 100 million gallons per year, to cost somewhat more than half that amount for the first 50 million in capacity, about $250-300 million. Bolsen stated Coskata has a partner involved in this project and expects an announcement early next year.

Meanwhile, Coskata has also signed an agreement to build a 100 million gallon cellulosic ethanol facility in Clewiston, Florida, in partnership with U.S. Sugar Corporation. With 181,000 acres of sugar cane under cultivation, U.S. Sugar is the largest sugar producer in the United States. As they begin to take this land out of production, U.S. Sugar intends to produce sugar as before, while using the cane residue (“bagasse”) after processing for sugar to refine into ethanol.

Coskata’s recent successful financing is particularly impressive given how much more difficult major project financing has become. In early 2007, with much fanfare, the U.S. Dept. of Energy announced funding to bring cellulosic ethanol to market, as noted in their February 28th, 2007 press release entitled “DOE Selects Six Cellulosic Ethanol Plants for Up to $385 Million in Federal Funding.” In this announcement, six companies were named; Abengoa Bioenergy, ALICO, Inc., BlueFire Ethanol, Iogen Biorefinery Partners, Broin Companies (now named POET), and Range Fuels.

According to a spokesperson at the DOE, ALICO Inc. and Iogen Biorefinery Partners have withdrawn. It appears that two of the others, Abengoa Biorefinery and Bluefire Ethanol are still seeking matching funds from private financing sources. Only RangeFuels and POET have actually broken ground on cellulosic ethanol refineries. But the plant RangeFuels is building in Soperton, Georgia, which they claim is still on track to begin producing in 2009, processing wood chips, is initially designed to produce 10 million gallons per year, not the 50-100 million gallon per year size of truly commercial scale facilities. POET’s plant in Iowa, which will refine ethanol from corncobs, will be part of a corn ethanol refinery producing 100 million gallons per year, but 90 million of those gallons will be refined from corn using conventional ethanol distillation processes, only 10 million of the annual ethanol will come through cellulosic conversion of corn cobs. So it appears that most of the DOE’s initially anointed cellulosic frontrunner companies are either stalled or downscaled in their plans. This, combined with the unprecedented difficulties today in obtaining project financing, means the future of cellulosic ethanol is definitely at a crossroads.

When the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard was enacted as part of the Energy & Security Act of 2007, the goal was to increase production of renewable transportation fuels from 8 billion gallons per year to 36 billion gallons per year. The estimated production of renewable fuel in 2008 is not quite 10 billion gallons, and virtually all of it is from corn ethanol using conventional distilling methods. Nearly all of the remaining 26 billion gallons, well over 20 billion gallons per year, is expected to come from cellulosic ethanol refining. As we calculate in our feature report “Cellulosic Ethanol,” there is easily enough feedstock to meet this goal – in fact, even without dedicated energy crops, there is enough cellulosic feedstock in the U.S. from waste streams, forest trimmings and crop residue to supply material for up to 100 billion gallons of ethanol per year. Coskata’s technology, which can process any of these primary feedstocks without fundamental modifications to their plant design, probably helps explain why they are raising significant private investment capital when most other companies are not.

When assessing the potential of cellulosic ethanol, the prevailing question is which of the emerging refining technologies can operate at a commercial scale. Ten billion gallons per year of cellulosic ethanol will require 100 refineries producing 100 million gallons per year – at a capital expense for these refineries of $400 million each that is $40 billion dollars. If these refineries were to multiply to a scale where – along with electric hybridization of vehicles and fuel economy improvements – they would replace 100% of petroleum consumption for light vehicles in the United States, that would require 1,000 refineries producing 100 billion gallons per year, at a cost of $400 billion dollars. Such a sum of money seems both daunting yet feasible – didn’t we just throw $700 billion at the mortgage meltdown? Don’t we spend (at $50 per barrel) over $200 billion per year on imported oil?

One thing is certain – if the United States is to accomplish the goals of the 2007 renewable portfolio fuel standard, and beyond, refineries will need to start construction now. The fact that Coskata is securing project financing from private sources in these tumultuous economic times is testament to the strength of their technology. Their progress should encourage anyone who is waiting to see the next big moves in an emerging industry that represents one of only a few major steps America needs to take to become an energy independent nation.

There are dozens of DOE backed projects to accelerate development of renewable transportation fuels in the U.S., but only a few approach commercialization. (Source: U.S. DOE)

Algae Reactor

Thanks to the efforts of a handful of people endeavoring to improve the world around us photo bio reactors are making a more and more common appearance in the Salt Lake City region. Taking this passion to a global level Jared Bouck has created a website with a good deal of information to build reactors easily with little cost associated. You can read more at their website http://www.algaegeek.com

40 percent of the world is dealing with a water shortage. This means that over 2 billion people have to survive in barren and often unsanitary conditions, while everything crumbles around them. Nothing can survive without water. Plants dry up, cattle starve to death, and people succumb to the ailments associated with drinking unsanitary water.

The irony is that water exists all around us. Water droplets shining on leaves in the morning seem to appear out of thin air. This is where companies like EWA Technologies and Air2Water will collect water.

EWA gives a rough estimate of how much water there actually is in our atmosphere: “Air humidity, an unlimited renewable natural resource, is available to all mankind, except in few extreme climatic regions where the temperature is bellow 4^oC or extreme arid zone. One cubic kilometer of air contains 10 to 40 tones of life-giving water. Nature continually recharges the atmosphere with humidity by evaporation from the world’s oceans, seas and fresh water bodies.”

Both companies use similar technologies. Air is pulled into a machine where it is condensed into water after passing through a filtration system that removes airborne particles and bacteria. Air2Water also applies UV light to the collected water to ensure that consumers won’t sip up any bacteria or viruses as well.

More than one billion people currently lack adequate or sufficient drinking water. (Photo: EWA Technologies Group)

EWA prides itself on using as little energy as possible in the process. By using both residual water and solar heat to power their products, the price of producing water comes to about 5 US cents per cubic meter!

EWA is focused on providing the liquid to nations hit the hardest because of economic hardships and location; like rural villages nowhere near a river and without pipelines.

EWA uses a desiccant material to attract moisture. (Silica Gel and Rice (often found in salt shakers) are examples of desiccant materials that absorb moisture from the air.) The water is then collected through processes involving wind drying, heating and vacuum. EWA has a variety of models, all using the same technology, ranging from devices that produce a few liters to larger machines that pour out a whopping 1000 liters on a daily basis. Combining a few of the larger machines could fill up a swimming pool in no time!

Water has been a topic of debate for decades. WaterAsia is hosting their 9^th international conference and exhibition this month, which focuses entirely on the water industry. Companies like EWA and Air2Water are sure to make an appearance alongside representatives of breweries, power stations, oil refineries, fiber plants and countless other companies that depend on water to function. It seems like everyone could benefit from a little more water at their disposal.