Reframing Our Perception of Wastewater Networks

Act With the Urgency That the Limited Time Requires

Planet Earth, we have a problem - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and many other climate assessment reports state very clearly that TIME is now absolutely critical in the fight against climate change. The time to act is now because time is quickly running out. Waiting is not an option!

A good analogy to our current situation is the famous scene from the Apollo 13  film, where CO2 levels in the spaceship were reaching dangerous levels. The managers at Mission Control pulled their engineers into a room, threw onto a table a collection of items that astronaut crew had available to them up in space, and told them to come up with a solution to fit the square filter into a round housing. Critically, both time and energy were extremely limited. They had to get the CO2 levels down and conserve limited energy in order to get the astronauts back to earth. 

It's the same situation here on our spaceship (Earth) where CO2 levels are reaching dangerous levels (albeit not toxic like in the Apollo capsule). The collection of resources we have available on our table are people, equipment, existing infrastructure, and money. And like in the movie, energy and time are limited. Unfortunately, unlike Tom Hanks & crew, we do not have a safe base that we’re trying to reach. Therefore failure is not an option!

Reframing Perceptions of Wastewater Networks

One of the most overlooked and undervalued assets many cities already have, is their wastewater network(s). Why is this so? Ask most people what they think of when sewer networks are mentioned and you’ll likely hear the negatives like smelly, dirty, disgusting, polluted, disease ridden etc. But let’s reframe our thinking and look at things in a positive way…

1. Wastewater = 99% Water:  The Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) definition of wastewater is 99.9% water and 0.1% pollutants. So, let's focus on the 99.9% which is simply water. We know that water is a fantastic conductor of heat energy as it has the highest specific heat of any substance on earth.
   
   
2. Existing Heat Energy Resource Already at Our Disposal:  Typically, up to 35% of total housing energy and up to 40% of the commercial & industrial sectors, is used to make hot water which is used once and then goes into a city's sewers. The wastewater network collects of all this warm water and brings these thousands of flows together in the existing system of pipes. This heat energy is nicely contained, well distributed and is ready and waiting to be recovered and recycled. 
   

Wastewater is an Overlooked & Undervalued Existing Asset

So, we need to wring every bit of potential out of the energy and resources we already have at our disposal. We do not have the luxury of time to wait for a magic solution that doesn't exist because while we procrastinate, time just keeps ticking away. Like the astronauts, we will likely need to adjust our lifestyles. But we cannot allow the tiny window of time we have available to be wasted.

Courage is required by politicians and policy makers because they are our Mission Control. John Mauro, former sustainability manager for Auckland City once said, "We have to push and maybe we get a little scared. We are not going to transform the city (to a better Auckland) by pleasing everybody." There’s no time left to procrastinate. Mission Control needs to step up, be brave and do the right thing. Not everybody will be pleased, but it’s the right thing to do.

Connect with the Experts at The Sewer Thermal Energy Network (STEN) 

STEN is a non-profit established to provide advocacy, education, information dissemination, capacity building, and networking opportunities for cities, municipalities, and wastewater utilities as well as other interested entities. Discover the potential of unused resources with the utilization of freely available heat contained within a sewer system for heating and cooling of the built environment, from a single building to a whole district.

No Need to Wait - Start Recycling This Heat Energy Now!

Do you want to do more to help the world utilize clean energy, but don't know where to begin? STEN is here to help you get started. There is enough heat capacity available to power highly efficient electric heat pump systems to heat and cool many large buildings. Allowing them to quickly transition from fossil fuels and make a real meaningful decarbonization difference very quickly. So don't wait another moment - the time is now. Take the leap and unlock the potential. We invite you to send a message to begin a conversation that will give you the answers you need…