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
TOTAL SUSTAINABILITY
GENERATIVE ENGINEERING OF ENGINEERED ENVIRONMENTS FOR LIFE SUPPORT
