World is Green

One of the clean tech areas of the future is Water. Allianz has launched a new fund which will target this area across the world.

“Less than 0.007% of all the water in the world is potable, or safe for consumption,¹ yet the demand for fresh water is steadily increasing,” said Bozena Jankowska, portfolio manager of the Allianz RCM Global Water Fund. “Solving this global water challenge demands a long-term effort from institutions around the world which we believe will require significant investment from the private sector.”

The Fund will seek long-term capital appreciation by investing in a portfolio of companies that are substantially engaged in water-related activities that relate to the quality or availability of or demand for potable and non-potable water. The following are included among these activities:

• Water production, storage, transport and distribution;
• Water supply-enhancing or water demand-reducing technologies and materials;
• Water planning, control and research;
• Water conditioning, such as filtering, desalination, disinfection and purification;
• Sewage and liquid waste treatment; and
• Water delivery-related equipment and technology, consulting or engineering services relating to any of the above-mentioned activities.

BioteQ Environmental Technologies Inc., a waste water treatment company focussing on mines has won an Environmental excellence award from Globe Foundation.

BioteQ was honoured for the water-treatment plants it designs and operates at mines around the world, using a proprietary system that removes acid and heavy metals from runoff water leeching from mine sites - a major environmental headache for mining companies for decades.
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“[The companies] outsource the whole water-treatment issue to us, we manage the water, we build the plant and run it, and generally we create a financially sustainable treatment process, in that the sale of metals from the process sustains the treatment plant …”

The amount of cleaned water runs to billions of litres. For example, BioTeq cleaned 920 million litres of acid-waste water from Xstrata’s Raglan nickel-copper mine in northern Quebec last year. Mr. Marchant says the processed water was safe enough to be used in the sensitive arctic ecosystem of Nunavik - something unthinkable in the past.
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Currently, the method most mining companies still use to stop acid water from leeching into the ecosystem involves catching the tainted water with lime, resulting in a toxic sludge that must be carefully stored. The expense is considerable - as is the waste, notes Mr. Marchant.
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In the BioteQ system, a mixture of sulphur-loving bacteria neutralizes the acid in the water, leaving behind the heavy metals that come away in the mining process, such as copper, zinc, nickel, cobalt and selenium. These metals can then be sold on the market.

Money Morning investigates the green tech opportunities flowing from the problems in China.

Money isn’t the only thing flowing through China right now. Pollution has filled the streets, contaminated the rivers and clouded the skies.

Half of China’s population - 600 people to 700 million people - drinks water contaminated by human and animal waste. In fact, 1 billion tons of untreated sewage is dumped into the Yangtze River each year. And, according to a recent study conducted by the World Bank, air pollution causes more than 400,000 premature deaths every year.

With the health of its population fading and global opposition to carbon emissions rising, China has no choice but to address its pollution epidemic. And thanks to a blistering economy and a stockpile of cash reserves, throngs of investors are eager to help Beijing wash away its troubles.
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According to a Cleantech Network report and industry insiders attending the clean energy forum in Beijing, water treatment and energy efficiency projects boast the greatest investment potential.
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Both Guo and Liu agree that the greatest obstacle to solving the nation’s water crisis is economics.

“Artificially low water prices, as well as lack of preferential policies from the central government, mean that it doesn’t make economic sense for companies to adopt costly technologies to improve water usage efficiency and re-utilize wasted water at the moment,” Guo told InterFax.
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The second biggest environmental concern for China is the nation’s suffocating air pollution. So far, China has relied heavily on coal-fired power plants to power its rapid industrial expansion.

Between 2003 and 2006, worldwide coal consumption increased as much as it did in the 23 years prior. China was responsible for 90% of that increase. China used 2.5 billion tons of coal in 2006, more than the next three highest-consuming nations combined. The country is home to more than 2,000 coal-fired power plants, and a new one goes into operation every week.
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The nation’s climate-change program has set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 950 million tons over the next two years. Last week, at the U.N. climate conference in Bali, Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said China’s investment in renewable energy would reach $20 billion this year.

“China is already the world’s factory,” Yang Ailun, climate change program manager at Greenpeace China, told Bloomberg News. “It could be and should be the manufacturing hub of clean technology for the world as well.”
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China-based manufacturers of alternative energy technologies are already taking off in a big way. Companies specializing in alternative energy have seen their stock prices soar. Suntech Power Holdings Co. (STP) has seen its stock price skyrocket by 137% this year. Solarfun Power Holdings Co. (SOLF) has jumped 125%.

Vcs are already there. Large companies like GE are building desalination plants. Suntech’s technology was developed in Australia. More entrepreneurs are looking to China for growth in this area. For individual investors, ETFs can be a possibility. However, figuring out the right value at this time is tough. And there is always the need for people who can understand China and the green tech sector!

Arun Natarajan points to the profile of S. Sivakumar, founder of Akash Ganga in The Mint.

All his life, Sivakumar, who looks an unlikely capitalist in his casual trousers, shirt, and bushy white moustache, has been interested in understanding what makes some people rich, and others poor.

At the Delhi School of Economics, where he completed his doctorate, his thesis was on this subject. He studied 200 families across three generations in rural India. His conclusion: “Affluence is a matter of chance.”

That discovery changed his political viewpoint…His interest in understanding the genesis of wealth did not…he was convinced that water, or the absence of it, held the key.

The idea for Akash Ganga came to Sivakumar in 2004, mainly as an offshoot of his research…The scientific basis behind Sivakumar’s air-to-water conversion is the heat exchange process: In this case, it involves sucking in air from the atmosphere and blowing it over cold gas resulting in the creation of water (in much the same way, condensate, or water, forms on the outside of the windows of a heated room in winter or an air-conditioned room in summer).

To Sivakumar, Akash Ganga, named after the tributary of the Ganga that provides water to the heavens in Hindu mythology, is more than a company; it is a mission. “I am doing this under a business format because there is no other format to take it to the people,” he says.
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By mid-2004, Sivakumar and his team worked out how to make water from air. AGL invested in a modest 3,000 sq. ft manufacturing facility and started rolling out its products. Priced between Rs9,200 (USD 235) (for an 8-litre version) to Rs42,500 (USD 1,087) (for a 120-litre one), the machines were powered by electricity, and sold through stores that sold consumer durables such as television sets, washing machines and refrigerators. The Akash Ganga machines produced a litre of water at an average cost of Rs0.80 a litre (USD 0.02c), but, surprisingly, found little success. The company was unable to sell the product as it lacked the resources to market the product on a larger scale.
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Since the process of converting air to water results in a drop in temperature (one reason why some air conditioners leak water), AGI has pitched its products as a three-in-one as the company terms it: an airconditioner, water creator, and air cleanser.

The machine produces ISO standard water for drinking and the company has sold some 400 machines till now. Considering fresh water is a major decreasing resource in the entire world and particularly in India, this innovation has some good potential if the economics work out.

Water will become an increasingly important resource to understand and manage for businesses to perform.

Joel Makower writes about a new tool to help global businesses manage their water risks.

World Water Week is upon us, an annual fete of all things H2O. The event, held in Stockholm, is the leading global meeting place for experts from businesses, governments, science, NGOs, academe and United Nations agencies. This year’s event features the launch on Tuesday of a remarkable Global Water Tool, a free online resource to help companies calculate water consumption and efficiency across a portfolio of facilities around the world.

The tool is the product of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, a Geneva-based organization of some 200 international companies representing 30 countries and 20 industrial sectors. Nearly all of its members have core businesses that depend heavily on water: Alcan (Charts) and Alcoa (Charts, Fortune 500) (aluminum production), ConocoPhillips (Charts, Fortune 500) and Shell (Charts) (oil production and refining), Dow (Charts, Fortune 500) and Dupont (Charts, Fortune 500) (chemicals and ag products), Rio Tinto (mining), Lafarge and Holcim (cement), Pepsico and Suez (water and beverages)

Indeed, pretty much all large companies depend heavily on water.

One of the challenges such companies face is assessing the potential risks posed by water’s uneven quality and quantity from place to place, and even from time to time in the same place. For companies, the questions are many: How many sites are in extremely water-scarce areas? Which sites are at greatest risk? How that will change in the future? How many employees live in countries that lack access to improved water and sanitation? How many suppliers are in water-scarce areas now, or will be in ten or twenty years?

Every day in the newspapers and TV shows you see the lamenting on water shortages. In a country of only 22 million people there is an increasing water shortage. How can this be possible?

The Age reports on the two possibilities:

NOT enough water? There are only two alternatives. One is to pray for rain. The other is to pay more.

According to Paul Butler, the managing director of the British water company South East Water, customers, including business, will have to start getting used to the latter. And it could be a lot more expensive.

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“I think everybody out there is recognising there is something out there called climate change. And certainly, when we make our water resource plans, we make an allowance for climate change going forward. What it in effect does is put in place an amount of hedge room. It has to be met.”

Apart from the need to adapt for growing climate change issues, what is important is to put in place the infrastructure to create enough water.

The Murray-Darling plan hopes to cut down on the inefficient farmers however, in the long run desalination plants and recycled systems should be the way to go. If Dubai in a desert does not have water problems, Australia should not.

At the end it all comes down to costs and revenue. With a marginal cost of $1.16 for a kiloliter (1000 liters) of water in South Australia, it is a far cry from the $2.5 to $3 we pay for 600ml of bottled water. If we get ready to Pay more for water (nearing its real cost) then more water will be available, conservation will be possible and Australia can go back to living like the developed country that it is.

Reading the news that US Army generals are urging US President George W Bush to cut down greenhouse gases seem too extreme. However, I think their argument may have some merit.

It warns that over the next 30 to 40 years, there will be conflicts over water resources, as well as increased instability resulting from rising sea levels and global warming-related refugees.

“The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism,” the 35-page report predicts.

Writing in the report, Gen Zinni, a former commander of US Central Command, says: “It’s not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism.”

Their timing of 30 years could be too early, but there could be conflicts if not war over natural resources including Water.

The Solve quarterly magazine from  CSIRO has many sustainability related articles (Feb 2007 edition). The theme is the intersection of technology, science, multi-disciplinary collaboration and partnerships to create a sustainable world.

Water and IT

The Water theme is continuing on Worldisgreen.com and this time the problem is of data.

The first step in solving the water problem is getting the data on how much water is available, how much is used now and what may be available in the future. In order to achieve this, information technology may be the answer.

A Water Resources Observation Network (WRON) was instigated by CSIRO’s Dr Rob Vertessy in response to the clear need for more accurate monitoring of Australia’s water resources.

He says billions of dollars of investment are needed in new water-supply infrastructure as the urban population grows and the long-term effects of climate change become more apparent. “But where do we start? Good water information is the key to answering these questions.”

The problems being solved revolve around defining data standards, developing security solutions, managing historical data, and even created web-robots to gather dam-level data from multiple web sources.

I can appreciate the need to develop data standards and the ability to transfer data among many different organizations. My current work has been delayed by many months due to the lack of consistent data standards and unavailability of open standards like XML.

Click the link below for the rest of the post.

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Andy Mukherjee, a good opinion writer for Bloomberg, writes about the increasing interest in China and India for Bio-fuels. The consequence of this will be the impact on food due to the scarcity of water.

If water were a globally traded commodity, with unmet demand in China and India reflected in its price, the world might shed its newfound craze for biofuels. Growing corn to make ethanol to run sport-utility vehicles is downright silly; nowhere more so than in China and India.

As many as 400 Chinese cities are facing water shortages; farmers in the most-populous nation are forgoing millions of tons of grain production every year. Per-capita availability of water is expected to shrink to alarming levels by 2030.

Amid this water scarcity, China has gone on to become the world’s third-largest bio-ethanol producer after Brazil and the U.S., pouring thousands of gallons of water to grow a ton of corn, and then using more water to turn the corn into ethanol.

The tradeoff between water and biofuels may also be crucial for India. One-sixth of India’s food output is being supported by pumping groundwater, which is depleting rapidly. In the state of Tamil Nadu, more than a third of aquifers are “overexploited,” meaning the rate at which water is being extracted is more than the pace of recharge. According to the World Bank’s estimates, by 2050 demand for water in India will exceed all available supplies.

“If water would have its correct price, then we wouldn’t even be thinking about biofuels,” Nestle SA Chief Executive Officer Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “If I had to identify one resource I’m worried about, that’s water.”

Water is emerging as the main issue all around the world. At Worldisgreen.com, we have been writing about this issue for sometime now.

Greenpeace suggested that the growing need for bio-fuels are fuelling the growth for deforestation in Indonesia.’

In Food or Fuel, Lester Brown comments that “By the end of 2007, the emerging competition between the 800 million automobile owners who want to maintain their mobility and the world’s 2 billion poorest people who want simply to survive will be on center stage.”

And Larry West from About.com says, The most valuable commodity in the world today, and likely to remain so for much of this century, is not oil, not natural gas, not even some type of renewable energy. It’s water—clean, safe, fresh water.

The current Water debate in Australia is clearly shows the need for leadership in this area.

And Water is Wealth. A UNEP Finance Initiate called water “an emerging risk of strategic importance to businesses and their financial backers around the world.”

Economics teaches the opportunity cost of goods and services. This is the basic principle to understand in this march towards alternative fuels.

Atanu Dey explains the importance of opportunity costs:

In fact, I would go so far as to claim that economics at its most fundamental is the careful systematic study of opportunity costs. Opportunity costs implies choices and tradeoffs, and is itself the consequence of a fundamental physical characteristic of the universe that we live in. That fundamental fact is that this universe has limits. Each one of us has a limited amount of time and other derivative resources at our disposal.

Understanding this core principle is important in deciding upon alternatives, making choices and taking policy and strategic decisions.