Progress report for
Protecting the Ocean from WasteWater is a necessary Climate Action: Ending Marine Pollution returns Natural Water Cycles to the Land to foster Biodiversity.
Achievement at a glance
Water use is typically linear - take clean water from the land, dispose spent water to waterway. The key problem in changing to a circular water economy is the need to implement additional resources, both capital and regulatory, to safely return water to land for re-use. But this can be achieved quite effectively and simply when including conversion of all urban solid waste into energy.A 100,000-population example defines a modular, containerized Baleen-UTOC plant capable of reclaiming some 20,000 tons per day (tpd) of Water fit for horticulture, while converting 200 tpd of Garbage and 63 tpd of waste water Screenings (263 tpd Total) into 33 MWthermal energy per hour and 1 ton per hour of sterile, organic free ash. The resulting hot gas additionally producing steam for 10MW per hour electricity generation, in addition to allowing for onsite heating provisions.
The project’s direct CO2 equivalent emissions benefit compared to landfill disposal is around 167,500 tons CO2e reduction per annum; plus, the additional CO2e benefits of not having to build/operate/maintain an equivalent capacity conventional biological sewage treatment plant and landfill with associated leachate disposal (responsible for some 4% of global emissions).
Accordingly, this transformative infrastructure presents a unique solution to shortcomings in mismanagement of both solid and liquid waste and is commercially available to offset more than 8 of the Global (annual) 36 billion tons of CO2e emissions, while producing sufficient energy to deliver 787 TWh; 3.6% of the 22 PWh Global electricity production.
In summary, this project presents an immediate scalable opportunity to transform urban populations from a paradigm traditionally based on resource wastage and pollution to one based on waste utilization and eco-social balance with opportunity to generate more than 1/30th global electric power consumption & 1/5th reduction in global emissions.