SUSTAINABLE WATER   Sustainable Water means not only a guaranteed supply of fresh water for human consumption, hygiene, food production and other needs such as washing, cleaning and garden watering; but includes allowing rainfall to run in rivers, allowing forests to grow and wet-lands to remain so there is clean water in a healthy environment that stops erosion and the loss of top soil.   To achieve the objective of a closed-cycle water system, that does not constantly draw down on our ecological balance sheet, requires that we either achieve 100% conservation of water in our social infrastructure, which is very difficult to achieve even if we were to live in a biosphere ‘bubble’ (which we do not propose), or increase the total fresh ‘potable’ water supply.   This can of course be done, even on remote isolated islands, by seawater reverse osmosis desalination at low cost, but not no cost, so that water efficiency and recycling are still essential to achieving a water system that is as near to closed-cycle as is practical and least cost.   EnGen Institute is developing such a system, powered by tidal current energy, with pumped-hydro energy storage. A longer term objective is better systems to process run-off and river flows to remove chemicals and plastics before they enter the oceans using osmotic renewable energy to filter river outflow.
EnGen Institute 1992-2018
The Reverse Osmosis Desalination of seawater is viable globally and low enough in cost, when bulk low cost electricity is available, for it to be used to provide water for crops when water is not wasted but conserved such as in greenhouses.   Integrating RO desalination, water storage and pumped-hydro energy storage guarantees supply with less storage capacity and smaller dams.
DESALINATION
INTEGRATED WATER & ENERGY
I  N   S  T  I  T  U   T  E
LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS
TOTAL SUSTAINABILITY
GENERATIVE ENGINEERING OF ENGINEERED ENVIRONMENTS FOR LIFE SUPPORT
Global Sea Surface Salinity Pumped Hydro Energy Storage using Seawater Portable Reverse Osmosis Desalination System NEXT NEXT