The practice of fracking presents surprising good news.

Big advancements in wastewater treatment could be coming from an unexpected source: the oil and gas industry.

The growth of fracking brings with it a heavy demand for water, and that's straining water supplies, often in drought-prone areas. The conflict over water has fueled adoption of new water reuse and recycling techniques, making the fracking market a valuable new proving ground for these technologies – which could later be used in other industries.

The fact that water treatment companies can find willing customers, even just to test their products in industrial settings, is significant. Many cleantech ventures have failed because industrial customers, such as electric utilities, are slow to adopt new technologies in the absence of regulatory pressure. One practice that's advancing thanks to the oil and gas industry is the use of distributed water treatment facilities that can be trucked from site to site.

There are several treatment approaches to increasing recycling, including chemical processes, and what's most important is that the more those get used or scaled up, the cheaper they become for other industries.

Nevertheless it is to say that the actual volume of water recycling happening in fracking fields is relatively low, and one clear winning technology – one that can enable a large amount of water reuse economically – has yet to emerge.

Costanza Gabbrielli

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The story behind water bottles

“Have you ever wondered why people in poor countries lack access to clean water? It is not because nature isn’t providing them enough. Someone is stealing it…”

780 million. Twice the size of the US. This is the number of people in our world who lack access to clean water.

Among them, 3.4 million die each year from water related diseases.

Dying of dehydration is far from being pleasant. At first you experience discomfort, then your skin gets dry, you lose appetite and the heart starts beating fast. Respiration rates begin to increase, the head aches, you faint, you hallucinate.

Passing away because of diarrhoea isn’t nice either. You spend your last minutes of life sitting on a toilet. Oh no, I forgot: people in developing countries do not even have a toilet. Indeed, on earth, there are more individuals owning a phone than a toilet.

On the other side of the planet, things are a little bit different. Wealthy people have access to all kinds of luxurious water. Some are willing to spend 14 dollars for a bottle of 10 thousand-BC-glacier water. Not to mention the “tributo a Modigliani”, which contains 5 mgs of gold at the price of 60 000 dollars.

When these people take their morning showers, in only five minutes they use as much water as a citizen of a developing country during the whole day.

In the US, people consume 1500 water bottles per second. For those living in rich countries, it has become completely norma l to consume bottled water. However, what I would like to do here, is to show you the very insanity behind this habit.

People have said they consume water in bottles mainly because they believe it to be safer. Indeed, I will tell you a little secret: nearly half of all bottled water sold in the US is tap water.

In any case, do not panic: tap water is far more controlled than bottled water.

San Francisco’s public water comes from Yosemite National park, in fact it is so pure the Environmental Protection Agency does not even require it to be filtered. To sum up, the main difference between bottled water and tap water is this: the former costs 1000 times more.

That’s not all, the environment is suffering too from this trend: 80% of those bottles end up in the landfill. Plastic is not, and will never be, biodegradable. On top of that, transportation of water bottles is highly polluting.

In any case, even if you are not an environmentalist, you should be concerned, for your own health. Plastic leaches toxins, which have been linked to some major health problems, such as reproductive issues and cancer.

So, to sum up: on one side of the planet people do not even have enough clean water to drink or wash their clothes, while on the other side they spend huge sums of money for a good they could simply get at home by turning on their tap. The issue is that developing countries actually do have enough clean water to fulfil their needs. If only it wasn’t stolen from them. But water is a huge business.

Every US dollar invested in water and sanitation provides an economic return of 8 dollars. For this reason, multinationals are buying up as much water springs as possible, mainly in developing countries. Nestlè has been widely criticized for its exploitation of water in poor areas of the world. The Swiss company is the world leader in the bottled water industry, owning several brands, among which: San Pellegrino, Acqua Panna, Pure Life and Vera. As much as 10% of the multinational’s entire turnover comes from water.

At this point, I think I have clearly exposed good reasons for quitting the habit of consuming water in plastic bottles. Use reusable bottles. Even Bocconi has created one. Don’t let anybody fool you.

Carlotta Werth

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“There‘s plenty of Room at the Bottom”

Jumping  into a nano blue land

Different technologies has been implemented to make water consumption more efficient and available in a world where almost 1 billion people still have no access to this blue gold and other millions die because of contaminated water.

Scientists started looking for solutions  at the “bottom”of the materil, at atom level, jumping into nano-demantion land. First of all nanoparticles did not come out  in these decades as it may seem  but they have a long history.  Nanoparticles ante litteram was already exploited by Roman artisans in IV century,  and during the Middle Ages master glaziers included small amount of metal oxide to make amazing colorful glass wall. But only at the end of XX century  scientific researches  and the development of sophisticated instruments like STM ( Scanning Tunnelling Microscope)  made possible the comprehension about the properties of nanoparticles and their handling.

Nowadays particular nano structures built with a specific chemical and structural conformations are being more and more studied, from the nanoshells or golden nano particles  as non invasive treatment agaist cancer in the devopling field of nanomedicine  to new nano materials used in energy engineering; we have a great list but let’s focus on what concerns our topic.

It is well known the story of Graphene, a one-atom thick layer of graphite, made of only carbon atoms that are densely packed in a regular sp2-bounded atomic hexagonal pattern. This 2-dimantional nano strucure  is remarkably strong for its very low weight (100 times stronger than steel), it conducts heat and electricity efficiently, it is the basic strucure element for nanotubes and fullerenes and because  of its significant properties it has been subject of increasing number of researches and studies . At MIT , for instance, Jeffrey C. Grossman, an associate professor of power engineering, and his graduate students David Cohen-Tanugi and Shreya Dave are developing a filtration material made of a sheet of nanoporous graphene. The holes in the graphene are small enough to block salt ions while letting water molecules through. This is   a  process of desalination that applays reverse osmosis principle, which relies on semipermeable membranes to filter salt from water. But such systems demand high pressure to force water ( agaist osmosis)  through the membranes which are about a thousand times thicker than ones made of graphene. Moreover graphene is 500 more permeable.

Another study conducted by Jin-Woo Kim at the University of Arkansas has tested the effectivness of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) , smooth pipes of water-repelling graphite, in cleaning contaminated water .  Keeping  it simple, by exploiting the magnetic susceptibility and bacterial affinity of nanotubes pathogenes are captured and enbodied in MWNTs cluster, then separetad from water through an external magnet.

Conventional purification methods such as chlorination, standard filtration, UV radiation, and the infusion of water with ozone gas, aren’t that cheap, nor are they always practical for developing countries therefore  the challenge is  to make the purification  process more efficient, affordable, and available to more people through nanotechnology.

At this link you can see a reasonalble cheap nanofilter  realized using peculiar properties of nanoparticles http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cheap-nanotech-filter-water/

If you want to have a general view and to know more about  nanotech and this fascinating nanoworld an easy but complete and well written, though only in italian, book that I can suggest is “ Quanto è piccolo il mondo”by Gianfranco Pacchioni.

Fei Fei

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Oceans: resources at risk

We all know the importance of the “blue gold”, the water on earth that is usable for quenching the thirst of human beings and certain animals. The importance comes from the little amount of freshwater present on our planet and, as you can hear form the linked video of a famous information designer, Angela Morelli , only 0,1% of water is more or less directly available for us. But not only this part of our “blue resource” is important.

As time passes by, more and more seawater is in danger. Our big problem is the Climate Change, and we are our best enemies. We are driving our existence on a worrying path of climate crisis, through our industrial activities and day-to-day life. Another fact that probably everyone is aware of is the migration of fishes and other organism northward, escaping form warmer water. This migration leads to new mixes of species, causing modifications of predatory habits. The species not adapting die off. Just to give an example, it has been famous the case of an unexpected finding of died seagulls and fishes on the Peruvian coasts of Lima, exactly two years ago (see picture). It happened in May and Imarpe, the research unit for seas of the Peruvian Government, discovered the cause. Due to the shift of the sea temperature from a range of temperature between 14 and 17 °C to a level of 22°C, anchovies migrated to the north and the predators remained out of food. Once you have seen the pictures, as in many other cases, going on as nothing is happening is not possible.

Also the vanishing of phytoplankton and algae is another problem, both more likely to be present in cooler oceans. But if they cannot supplement marine life, it’s easy to imagine the danger for the entire ecosystem. And what about the intense fishing activity? Again, just to give a simple and famous example, the redfin tuna (the Italian “tonno rosso”, the one that every time you find in your sushi or sashimi at the Japanese restaurant) is on the brink of extinction. Together with the overfishing, the human activates along the cost is causing the disappearing of the 80% of the fishes eggs up to 100 metres beyond the sea level. Fishermen get smaller organisms and the reproduction cycles get shorter.  What other bad new can we add? The other “hot topic” is the coral reef and I really suggest you to read this article about the “Reefs at risk” project. It gives you a clear idea on what the acidification is and where it takes origin. It’s not difficult to guess, but the idea is clearly represented and better described.

“So, what can we do to stop this trend?” (as you are probably asking yourself).

Taking inspiration from a Marine Life article called “10 Easy Ways to Help Marine Life”, I’ve made a list of some tips for all of us:

1) Eat eco-Friendly fish!

Going vegan is the best solution for the environment, but there is always space for small steps in the right direction if you don’t feel ready for this change. Remember to eat species not at in danger and the ones that have a minimized impact on our planet. At this link to an Italian article , you’ll find all the 15 most famous species that we need to protect.

2) Avoid the use of plastic

This polluting material gave birth to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is a mix of thousands of garbage pieces and marine debris floating near the surface of the water and twice the dimension of Texas. It’s not the only one, we have five of these garbage patches scattered around the oceans. Use not-plastic bags and avoid things with big packaging.

3) Lessen your "carbon footprint"

It’s the usual drill that can help marine life and the environment in general. Clink on this link and WWF will measure your currently carbon footprint and teach you how easily to improve.

4) Be energy-efficient

For example, you can be “fuel-efficient”:

-Reduce your speed when you drive: increasing the speed, the fuel economy almost disappeared.

-Check your tires at least one a month, because when they are under-inflated, your car has to work more to keep moving.

-Clear out your car: the more stuff and more weight your car has to transport, the more fuel it needs.

-Shut off the air conditioner when not strictly needed and open the windows. Do the opposite when you are driving at the highway speed.

-Simply don’t drive! Ask always yourself if the car-trip is necessary.

5) Take part to clean-up activities organised by a voluntary organisation and pick up the litter you find before it gets into the marine environment.

6) Organise your diving trip and other excursions with a responsible agency.

7) Buy Ocean-Friendly Gifts as something that can be reuse.

What we need is a change on how we approach every-day activities. It doesn’t stand anymore that we do not pay attention on our behaviour and on how we influence the existence of every earthlings. Think about your actions. Think about the oceans. Thinks about your responsibility on this threated world.

Maria Carolina de Vera
Source for the second image: http://www.yeslife.it/moria-di-uccelli-peru-motivi-riscaldamento-del-mare-2443

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The incredibile story of the blue gold, the evil tyrants that usurped it and the noble alchemists who wanted to protect it

It seems the title of a fairy tale, but this story is more real than ever. Its characters are all the citizens of the terrestrial planet, and especially those of the least developed countries; the fundamental resource of water, and the multinationals that exploit it; finally, some talented scientists, whose spectacular inventions resemble sometimes magic.

Once upon a time , water was unequivocally considered as a common good, non-rivalrous and non-excludable, and the idea that someone could make profits of it was just as if someone insisted on selling us the air we breathe (however, I am pretty sure that someone will consider this business, sooner or later).

These principles were even stated by the Council of Europe in 1968. This "Water Charter" also stressed the duty of not to waste this vital resource; a principle that everybody can agree on, but that proved ambiguous and dangerous. During the International conference of Mar del Plata (Argentina) in 1977, exactly because, according to some psychosocial liberist theories, individuals tend to waste it and because of demographic growth and water scarcity, water was declared to have an economic value. This was meant to make consumers aware of the importance of this good, and to rationalize its use (however, then and now, the water that we employ in our houses only amounts to about 8% of the total, while some 22% and 70% are respectively for industry and agriculture). The story, from conference to conference, is much longer than this, but you just need to know two further steps: the declaration of water as an economic good (Dublin, 1992) and the change of status from a human right, free from the law of markets, to a human need, that can therefore be regulated by demand and supply (L’Aja, 2000). Since then, water is still a vital and essential good, and at the same time a merchandise, whose value should be determined by production costs and the necessity to remunerate invested capital, as it was specified in the last above mentioned summit. Privatization was the rallying cry.

The water multinationals portioned the market, and the international economic entities didn’t stay to watch. In some cases, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have granted loans to poor countries in exchange for the management of water services by private foreign companies. That is to say, "we give you the money, and in return we only take the exclusive management of the most important resource for living”. Such cases have occurred in 2000 in several African countries, but also in Bolivia. This is however a peculiar case. After one year from the privatization, the price of water had tripled, permits were needed to have access to the resource, licenses for the collection of rainwater and  55% of the population did not have access to it. This moved hundreds of thousands of people in Cochabamba against the government, that was forced to back down. A story with a happy ending we may say, but it is unfortunately more unique than rare.

Another controversial aspect is that of bottled mineral water. The reason why this market has been so successful -22 billion dollars a year- is the presumed guarantee of consuming higher quality drinking water. Even if the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) has stated that bottled water is not better than tap water and even if in many countries the latter is subject to far stricter qualitative parameters. As a former Chairman of Perrier said: "Everything you have to do is bringing water to the surface, and then sell it at a greater price than wine, milk or even oil ". The conclusion of a study by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is that at least one third of the 103 brands of bottled water that has been examined is contaminated, including residues of Escherichia coli and arsenic; a quarter of them contain water directly taken from the tap and then processed to some extent. Not to mention that producing bottled water means to produce enormous quantities of garbage –just think of the tons of plastic which bottles are made of. Maybe I’ve failed to convince you that buying mineral water is just a scam and a little-ecological squandering; if you are really attached to your favourite water brand, you’ll probably keep on purchasing it. The point is, be aware of your choices, ask yourself whether they make sense, what their impact and consequences are.

I have, however, positive news about recent discoveries and inventions that revolve around water and that you may have failed to notice.

The first is Warka Water by the architect Arturo Vittori. If you think that turning air into water is just alchemy, this will make you change idea. That’s just what this ingenious invention does, in an efficient and economical way. Warka Water is a 10 metres high tower, made outside of a case that allows air to pass, while inside a nylon mesh collects dewdrops. This process happens in absence of electricity, thanks to the temperature range between day and night. The cost of a tower is modest (about 360 euros) and its inventor estimates that in the desert every tower could collect about 90 litres of water a day. If the online crowd funding will be successful, and some 150000 dollars will be found, the first plant could be built in Ethiopia in 2015. This invention received few weeks ago the honours of national news on Repubblica .

Another interesting project is the one developed by the 17-year-old student Fabio Manzoni, with his device that desalinates sea water by means of microbial electrochemical cells. To keep it simple, in this process bacteria in the cells are fed with organic substances and release electrons during their digestion process; these negative atomic particles pass through saltwater and create a potential difference, which in turn diverts salt from water. Desalination is not something new (it was first discovered in 1920) and is currently used in some countries that suffer from chronic water scarcity. Many researches have been carried out to make the process economically viable, but its extensive use is still hindered by high costs. This last invention, which has the advantage of implying limited costs, is therefore the last step of a longer path that could lead to unexpected results. Just consider that seawater amounts to no less than 97% of total water on Earth, and an additional 2% of fresh water is unusable because trapped in glaciers and icecaps. A (relatively) small quantity is left to man: if we became able to exploit saltwater, maybe this could help to satisfy the needs of a growing population, which will exceed 9 billion in 2050 according to the UN.

Let us now talk about a less revolutionary innovation, but one that we could enjoy in our houses in the coming years. Why throwing away all the water we use to have a shower, when we could clean it and reuse it? This is the question that gave birth to “OrbSys shower” by a Swedish company in collaboration with NASA. “Why NASA?” you may be asking. The answer is that a similar system has been in use for decades on spaceships, where saving water is just vital to astronauts. Orbsys purifies the water that has just cleaned your body and sends it back to the shower, allowing to save 90% of water and 80% of Energy: just think that if it takes you 10 minutes to have your daily shower, you are wasting 150 litres of water a day. Orbsys only uses 15.

The last, and maybe the most sensational, regards the so called “nano water”, a discovery that could change the field of renewable Energy. But this invention deserves a whole article, and it would be a real pity to confine it here in few lines. In the mean time, if you cannot resist your curiosity, start reading this article on La Stampa .

Valentina Rutigliano

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True story of Las Vegas water games

Fountains, artificial waterfalls and every greatest variety of water’s games give all a great contribution in building the particular charme of the city of Las Vegas. Bellagio Hotel, Caesars Palace and all the luxury hotels Las Vegas is full of could never give up this fascinating resource. A great amount of the city image depends on it.

Paying attention to Las Vegas’ geographic position this could sound a little weird. In fact, Las Vegas was built in the middle of the Mojave Desert, and its own landscape if not the one that people typically call “bucolic” but, instead, it is known for its aridity typical of the Mojave desert. So, if the city’s only water resource is the lake Mead, where does all that water come from?

The answer is not as obvious as it seems. For sure, Las Vegas is a very big city which practices a great, and maybe a little exaggerated, water’s use and due to a federal law, the only amount of water  that the city can take from Lake Mead correspond to 4%. A very strict percentage if compared to all the unnecessary uses of waters the city daily does. Despite of, Las Vegas’ behavior cannot be considered incautious.

Thanks to the amazing efforts made by Patricia Mulroy, the city has started a great system for recycling all the water used. First of all, gardens has been reduced in order to limit irrigation that is very frequent in the city due to the dryness.  Then, and this is the most interesting part, Mrs Mulroy convinced all the luxury hotels of  Las Vegas to invest in water recycling  and reuse systems, in order to re-enter the majority of the water used into Lake Mead. Thanks to the system, the city was able to save greats amounts of energy costs, and significantly reduce the environmental impact.

The project started in 2008 and since then, the games that people can admire in the amazing fountains of Bellagio Hotel has always been made of the same, recycled water.

Who would have ever thought?

Silvia Pennazzi Catalani

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Le impronte invisibili dell'acqua

Nel rituale di ogni mattina ci avviamo fischiettando verso il bagno per toglierci l'ultimo velo di sonno. Spazzolino, dentrifricio e con un semplice gesto facciamo scendere a fiotti l' acqua dal rubinetto. Armeggiamo con i nostri saponi ammicando allo specchio e sentendoci in ottima forma mentre l'acqua continua a scorrere allegramente. Al termine del rituale finalmente chiudiamo il rubinetto senza renderci conto di aver già consumato in 5 minuti 40 litri d'acqua solo per lavarci i denti.

Comprendiamo allora come il consumo medio pro capite di acqua arrivi ai 180-220 litri giornalieri, dei quali solo 3 litri sono utilizzato per bere. Ma difficilmente immagineremo che questa è una stima favorevole che non tiene conto del consumo dell' acqua virtuale , quell'acqua invisibile utilizzata abbondantemente per produrre beni e servizi.

Ritornando all'esempio di prima, pensiamo di continuare la giornata con una semplice colazione.

Per abitudine o bisogno fisiologico prendiamo il caffè senza sapere che per farne una goccia servono 1100 gocce d'acqua, per la nostra tazza da 7 grammi 140 litri d' acqua. Dalla fornita dipensa scegliamo i nostri cereali preferiti come orzo o grano la cui produzione mondiale richiede rispettivamente 190 miliardi e 720 miliardi di metri cubi d'acqua (3%  e 12% del consumo globale in agricoltura). Mentre prepariamo le nostre due fette di pane tostato (40 litri per fetta) ci ricordiamo di aggiungere lo zucchero al caffè senza sospettare che lo zucchero è ancora più esigente e per produrne un kg possono servire fino a 1500 litri di acqua (220 miliardi di metri cubi per la coltivazione mondiale). Concludiamo lo spuntino con una salutare spremuta d'aracia che ci “costa” circa 170 litri d'acqua a bicchire. E così, prima ancora di incominciare seriamente la giornata, abbiamo già consumato più di 400 litri di acqua virtuale, quell'acqua embedded nei processi industriali.

A questo punto ci si può naturalmente domandare quanta acqua abbiamo a disposizione per soddisfare una tale massiccia domanda. La risposta putroppo è non molta: del 71% dell'acqua che ricopre il nostro bel pianeta azzurro il 97.5% è salato e solo lo 0.3% di quella dolce é facilmente raggiungibile perchè conservata in fiumi e laghi. Mentre una parte della popolazione può sperperare questo bene vitale godendo di una distribuzione idrica favorevole, più di un miliardo di persone non ha accesso a fonti migliorate di acque potabile. Inoltre, secondo la quarta edizione del United Nations World Water Development Report , il consumo di acqua nel settore agricolo (che assorbe il 70% delle risorse disponibili) è destinato ad  aumentare di oltre il 19% per far fronte a un incremento di cibo del 70% entro il 2050. Lontana dai nostri rubinetti, l'impellente crescita del fabbisogno di acqua virtuale esorta a un forte cambiamento di un sistema di produzione e distribuzione che non è sostenibile nel lungo termine.

Proprio per discutere politiche che possano far fronte a problemi legati alla scarsità idrica si sono riuniti a febbraio più di 700 stakeholders di tutto il mondo per elaborare un corposo programma da presenatre durante il World Water Forum che si terrà ad aprile del 2015 in Gyeongju, Republic of Korea.

...E noi, mentre attendiamo di vedere i risultati del WW Forum, potremmo iniziare col ricordarci di chiudere bene il rubinetto che perde, risparmiando 200 litri al mese, 2400 all'anno.

Per maggiori info sul Forum: http://worldwaterforum7.org/en/commissions/thema

Wu Fei Fei

Foto di: © Milanj Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

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