Tailor-made Industrial Water

Water is a key component of local and national economies with the resource often a key input in a variety of industrial value chains. As industrial demand for water increases the sector needs to increase its water productivity. A failure to do so could lead to the loss or disappearance of jobs.

*By Robert C. Brears

Tailor-made industrial water to meet rising demand

Majority of jobs dependent on water

It is estimated that more than 1.4 billion jobs, or 42% of the world’s total active workforce, are heavily water-dependent while another 1.2 billion jobs, or 36% of the world’s total active workforce, are moderately water dependent. In total, 78% of jobs in the global workforce is dependent on water.

Water-dependent industries

Half of the global workforce is employed in eight water and natural resource-dependent industries including agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, manufacturing, recycling, building, and transport. Currently, industry and manufacturing account for around 4% of global water withdrawals. By 2050, it is projected that manufacturing alone could increase its water use by 400%.

Meeting rising demand with non-conventional supply

To ensure industry has access to adequate supplies of good quality water and maintains productivty, utilities have been researching and developing ‘non-conventional’ sources for large-scale customers. Examples of which are as follows.

Research on industrial wastewater reuse

Singapore’s Public Utilities Board (PUB) has been conducting research on recycling and reuse of industrial wastewater. Industrial wastewater is a by-product of manufacturing processes at industrial or commercial premises. With suitable treatment, industrial wastewater can be recycled and reused as boiler or cooling tower feed water in addition to irrigation and toilet flushing. PUB has also been conducting research on Low-Temperature Thermal Desalination (LTTD), a desalination process that utilizes low-grade industrial waste heat to produce high-quality freshwater. This requires minimal electricity demand as waste heat can come from various sources including power plants, refinery plants, and waste incineration plants etc.

Tailored industrial water

In Flanders, De Watergroep provides tailored industrial water for industry and service business customers. The water utility’s Industry and Services Business Unit charts the company’s internal water streams, analyzes sources of available water, including groundwater, surface water as well as wastewater or reusable process water, and seeks ways of optimizing water consumption. The quality of water supplied depends on the customer’s requirements, for example, whether they require cooling water or demineralized water etc. The Business Unit usually carries out its industrial water projects according to the concept of Design, Build, Finance and Operate (DBFO) contracts. The Business Unit has also developed a mobile pilot installation and drilling team unit for business customers to see how the utility can match desired water quality with available water resources. The pilot system uses various techniques including ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis on a small-scale, enabling customers to make decisions on investments and the techniques to be used.

The take-out

To meet rising demand for industrial water, utilities can develop tailored solutions that utilize non-conventional sources.

*Robert C. Brears is the author of  Urban Water Security  (Wiley),  The Green Economy and the Water-Energy-Food Nexus  (Palgrave Macmillan), and of the forthcoming title  Blue and Green Cities  (Palgrave Macmillan). He is Founder of Mitidaption, which consults on climate change risks to business, governance, and society.

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Taxonomy

• Water
• Industrial Wastewater Treatment
• Industrial Water Treatment
• Industrial
• Industrial Water Treatment
• Industrial Water Reuse
• Industrial Water Managment
• Water Quality
• Business Strategy
• Desalination
• Industrial Use
• Thermal Desalination
• Sustainable Desalination
• Water Utility
• Water Quality Management
• Groundwater Quality & Quantity
• Water
• Water
• Water
• Desalination
• Industrial

1 Comment

1. Currently, industry and production account for about 4% of the world's water intake. By 2050, it is projected that only production can increase water consumption by 400%.
   
   Such actions lead to the rapid destruction of the planet.
   
   Climate change is the result of unreasonable human impact on natural resources.
       Water, as the most widespread and most necessary product of all living things on Earth
   The water was created in a long-term interaction with the biota.
       Man with his appearance began to use water as a working reagent. Washing, drying, heating, squeezing is a number of technological processes in which water is used as a physical object. The incoming water with precipitation evaporates back into the atmosphere without performing its functions - passing through food chains. Water must have a full cycle of transformations. The reduced or withdrawn element of the transformation increases in volume and speed of turnover with each passing year, every day. Unnatural evaporation fills the surface layers of the atmosphere, create their mindless water cycle, which is the cause of the growth of natural disasters and the approaching world catastrophe.
       "Green technologies", reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases - all these activities are private components in the cycle of substances. Of course, they are important, but in essence they are microscopic in terms of volume and degree of impact in comparison with the change in the parameters of evaporation.
          The second, if not the first, especially important human impact on evaporation is the consequences of the increase in arable land, the destruction of forests, the filling of new reservoirs and a host of other ways to destroy the territories of one's own residence.
        If we want to save the planet for posterity, a person needs to reconsider their actions and urgently create a new concept for returning water to its natural functions. The main components in the new Concept should be the urgent stoppage of all processes for the destruction of land. We have already killed 67% of the fertile soil, each hectare of which contains 20 tons of underground living creatures.