Finally Bill Aulet takes the leap and writes about Water. He is both knowledgeable and spends a lot of time thinking about these issues…so when he writes, I pay attention. Click here for what I wrote on water a few months ago.
My comment to Bill:
I was hoping somebody would write on water. Thanks. While the average were running after nanotech/biotech deals 5-8 years ago, the cunning were starting to see environmental tech on the horizon. Now that the average are running after energy deals, the smart should be thinking about water.
I don’t mean any offense to those in the industry, but you are dead-on that the decision makers in the water business are slow, relatively non-techie, and risk-averse. Having worked in the next slowest industry, i.e. automotive, I can imagine how hard it is to sell into it. But is there a way to approach the customers directly who would be more willing to pay than the middle-man thinks? I can tell you my family in urban Pakistan would pay a lot more for clean water (and are more used to it) than an average American.
It is interesting that some of the issues faced by water innovators parallel those in energy: (a) geographical distribution of markets, (b) centralized vs distributed systems, (c) scalability issues, (d) mismatch between rhetoric and action at governmental level, and (e) lack of entrepreneurs/investors who are willing to stick with long-term endeavors.
I agree with your comment above that the water-energy nexus could be great for both. Energy companies could end up investing in water innovations while water companies would look for cheaper energy sources. I think we need to take energy and water technologies to regions where they are needed most to develop them fast and cost effectively, i.e. developing countries in Asia, Africa etc. And lets find long term investors (maybe the Middle East investors fit the bill) who are less scared of playing with commodities in such markets.
The Next Big Thing in Energy Innovation and Investing? Let’s Talk Water
Energy innovation and investing are exploding right now. Technological breakthroughs are seen as perhaps the greatest hope to solving our dire energy challenge. However, what is often overlooked is the link between finding or creating new sources of energy and the effects on food and water.
Indeed, if you think of energy as a coin, the flip side is water and food. The scary thing is that food and water are both lower on Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs—i.e., they are more fundamental to human survival. Yet, the current rush to create new sources of energy—including “clean” energy—may have potentially disastrous tradeoffs on our food and water supplies. Going forward, trading off energy creation for water—meaning creating new sources of energy that depend on heavy use of water, as many do—will be less and less acceptable. That’s why the most exciting opportunities in energy entrepreneurship and investment lie in strategies that create more water or energy without adversely affecting the other. Xconomy for more…
Now this just totally cracks me up….except that it also shows how people of Karachi (Pakistan) take the idea of livin’ on the edge just a tad bit too far. This is dangerous, not just for the 4 people on the bike, but also for others. Mind you, this is not kids playing around in an isolated alley. This is on a major road in the middle of very busy city traffic. Unbelievable.
2007 was undoubtedly the year of clean-tech. The debate around global warming frequented the front pages of major newspapers, and reached our homes and dining tables. There were too many exciting clean-tech related news to recount, and there were a few disappointments as well. I have been asked several timesif there is anything ’substantial’ to be expected out of this clean-tech boom, or are these just science fair type curiosity projects, but on a larger scale and consuming tons of public sector funding? While many clean-tech blogs are highlighting technologies to look out for in 2008, ‘Automotive News’ recently published a tongue-in-cheek list of 10 potential alternative fuels that included chicken droppings and cheese.
I remain optimistic that what we are witnessing is not just a shift in our understanding of the need for cleaner energy sources, but also a unique coming together of science, engineering, health, business, investor and public policy stakeholders that ultimately need to work closely together to find winning solutions. This is no science fair - this is evolution in action. An evolution of technologies and policies, and of our abilities to incorporate better ones into our lives.
Here are some thoughts that stuck with me through 2007, and what I am expecting in 2008. Would love to hear what you think about these.
2007
Ethanol bubble bursts - A few failed IPOs, the spectacle of rising food prices around the world, esp Mexico, and a realization that ethanol actually gives lower fuel economy provided enough material to disillusion even some of corn-ethanols strongest supporters. On the issue of technology trajectory for ethanol, it seems cellulosic ethanol has not yet moved fast enough to be commercially viable in the short term.
Clean coal continued to garner attention, esp as gasification projects got major funding for building demonstration projects. But I am still looking for serious and convincing plays in this sector. There is much potential here but people seem scared of venturing too far into the dirty coal business.Read the rest of this entry »
This essay by Mary Schmich was published in the Chicago Tribune in 1997. It was rumored to be a commencement speech given by Kurt Vonnegut at MIT, but that was obviously not true, but it made several rounds on the internet. I remember reading it back then and was truly taken aback by the simplicity and the power of the message contained with in it. No idea what prompted me to think of it again today, but I did. And here it is to be shared with you. Watch the video that was also made on her essay.
Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young
Mary Schmich
June 1, 1997 Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who’d rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there’s no reason we can’t entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘97:
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.Do one thing every day that scares you.
Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain
Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show.
By Denise Gellene
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 10, 2007
Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.
In a simple experiment reported todayin the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.
Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.
The results show “there are two cognitive styles — a liberal style and a conservative style,” said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research.
I just got this link from a friend, and the information contained within it is rather overwhelming. It is a real-time counter that is predicting various phenomenon based on statistical models developed in respective fields. For example, it tells you the instantaneous world population, growth of communicable and non-communicable diseases, the mean temperature of the earth’s troposphere, the number of gallons of oil consumed, and the number of cars produced etc… I could not verify how accurate their models are, but just knowing how these numbers are adding up is enough to make one pause and think twice about what humanity is sort of experiencing in this world, exactly at the same instant as I sit down in front of my computer with a cup of coffee to catch up on the news.
Below is a screen shot of it from 6 minutes ago (click to enlarge). That’s how long it took me to crop and save the image, write up this short post, send a quick email to my brother, and press Publish….
Some readers here may start thinking that I have something against ethanol (for my other posts, see: here, here, here, here, and here). That is not true. While I do have questions on the net energy balance on the production and shipment of ethanol, the potential with technologies such as cellulosic ethanol can be huge. Additionally, I am becoming more and more convinced that more interesting and useful than ethanol would be butanol. It does not mix readily with water, can be transported in regular pipelines, and has higher energy density than ethanol. Dupont and BP are working on a biofuels alliance that is looking at bio- butanol. There are some very interesting studies that have also emerged recently around the conversion of synthesis gas (syn-gas, i.e. a mixture of CO, CO2 and H2) to biofuels, including biobutanol, via the use of certain enzymatic species in a fermentation reactor. I will write on that topic as soon as I have read a bit more on it.
But here’s a recent paper from the journal Environmental Science & Technology which caught my attention. Thank you to K- for sending it to me. Reader’s beware that its a modeling study, and much like all modeling studies, there are tons of assumptions built into it, but at least I was not expecting this kind of an impact from the use of E-85 ethanol. Here’s an interesting question for scientists working in this field: Are there any public health/epidemeological studies available from Brazil where ethanol is much more widely in use and has been for some time now?
Environ. Sci. Technol.,ASAP Article 10.1021/es062085v
S0013-936X(06)02085-2 Web Release Date: April 18,
2007
Effects of Ethanol (E85) versus Gasoline Vehicles on Cancer and Mortality in the United States
Mark Z. Jacobson*
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-4020
Received for review August 31, 2006
Revised manuscript received February 19, 2007
Accepted March 14, 2007
Abstract:
Ethanol use in vehicle fuel is increasing worldwide, but the potential cancer risk and ozone-related health consequences of a large-scale conversion from gasoline to ethanol have not been examined. Here, a nested global-through-urban air pollution/weather forecast model is combined with high-resolution future emission inventories, population data, and health effects data to examine the effect of converting from gasoline to E85 on cancer, mortality, and hospitalization in the United States as a whole and Los Angeles in particular. Under the base-case emission scenario derived, which accounted for projected improvements in gasoline and E85 vehicle emission controls, it was found that E85 (85% ethanol fuel, 15% gasoline) may increase ozone-related mortality, hospitalization, and asthma by about 9% in Los Angeles and 4% in the United States as a whole relative to 100% gasoline. Ozone increases in Los Angeles and the northeast were partially offset by decreases in the southeast. E85 also increased peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN) in the U.S. but was estimated to cause little change in cancer risk. Due to its ozone effects, future E85 may be a greater overall public health risk than gasoline. However, because of the uncertainty in future emission regulations, it can be concluded with confidence only that E85 is unlikely to improve air quality over future gasoline vehicles. Unburned ethanol emissions from E85 may result in a global-scale source of acetaldehyde larger than that of direct emissions.
I have written about the problems of water shortage before. Water is most certainly going to be the most important commodity in the future, not only because it is becoming scarcer to find in drinkable and pottable quality, but also because the ever increasing world population is finding many uses for it outside of drinking as well.
Treatment of water to make it drinkable has recently attracted many investigators, both in basic research and in product development. Fortunately a significant body of knowledge is developing even though th eproblem is not yet fully solved. While reverse osmosis or membrane based filtration systems are used in large field deployments (e.g. in Saudi Arabia and Israel), a big problem plaguing this field is that the treatment systems are needed for the developing parts of this world, and that is exactly where the associated costs quickly become prohibitive. However, I am encouraged to see lots of activity in this sector, esp by budding scientists and young entrepreneurs, who have identified this as a great opportunity to create value for their businesses and do good at the same time. Kudos to VC and private equity firms that are supporting their efforts with investments. I wish them luck.
Here’s an idea that showed up on NYTimesrecently and I am highlighting here. This, together with ideas that are as simple as building small clay vessels lined with adsorbing ferrous catalysts, or small scale filters for family use, iso an indication that a ground breaking technology may be just around the corner.
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: October 10, 2006
In very poor countries, the family that has to walk miles to fetch drinking water from a well or a stream may be the lucky one. In many villages, the water source is a filthy pond trod by animals and people, or a mud puddle out next to the yam field.
As a result, about 6,000 people a day — most of them children — die from water-borne diseases.
Vestergaard Frandsen, a Danish textile company that supplies water filters to the Carter Center guinea worm eradication program and mosquito-killing plastic tarps to refugee camps, has come up with a new invention meant to render dangerous water drinkable.
The invention is called Lifestraw, a plastic tube with seven filters: graduated meshes with holes as fine as 6 microns (a human hair is 50 to 100 microns), followed by resin impregnated with iodine and another of activated carbon. It can be worn around the neck and lasts a year.
Lifestraw isn’t perfect, but it filters out at least 99.99 percent of many parasites and bacteria, the demons in most fatal cases of diarrhea.
It is less effective against viruses, which are much smaller and cause diseases like polio and hepatitis, and it wouldn’t protect American backpackers against the parasite giardia.
Nor does it filter out metals like arsenic, and it has a slight iodine aftertaste (not necessarily a bad thing in the large stretches of the globe with iodine deficiency).
It can be manufactured for about $3, but it needs more field-testing. Only about 100,000 have been handed out, 70,000 to earthquake victims in Kashmir last year.
Already in the works, however, is a Lifestraw toddler version — which will be squeezable.
As readers of this blog may know, I recently got married. Among other things that came with my wife are a few plants that I now find myself responsible for. Now if you knew me, you would understand why having plants at home is a huge deal for me. The only greenery my house had seen for the past decade was in the form of saag paneer or home-made salads. Real life plants are a fresh addition.
Now that I am once again taking care of plants, I am reminded of my garden (also called lawn by my brothers, and bagheecha by my parents) in our house in Karachi. I have many memories of the bagheecha, and continue to add more each time I visit.
I grew up in a small house in very urban Karachi, but by some clever designing, and probably minor land grab, my family has been able to include a small garden inside the house and in a narrow fenced-in (read ‘grilled‘) strip outside the primeter of the house. It is is barely the size of my current bedroom, but serves numerous purposes.
Cars, trucks and other vehicles that are heavy emitters of smoke, also called super-emitters, are really a menace to environment and urban air quality. The really old vehicles, which are not kept well burn a lot of oil with the fuel and emit tons of smoke and other dangerous criteria pollutants. These pollutants, such as unburnt hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, soot, and heavy metal particles from lubricant oil (ash) are considered to be many times more (more than 10x) dangerous to the human health than the pollution of even the most polluting new engines.
In mega-cities of developing world, such as Karachi, Lahore and Mexico City, the average age of vehicles is ununsually long. People keep their cars for long periods of time (not always well maintained as well due to cost burdens involved), and cars change many owners before seeing the graveyard. Old cars are typically less clean to begin with as far as their technology is concerned, but they also do not have good fuel control systems for stoichiometric combustion, or after treatment devices such as catalytic converters for emission control.
As these cars age, their pistons and rings give way, leading to lubrication oil entering the combustion cylinders, and a drmaatic increase in exhaust and crank case emissions. If you are behind an old car and see blue smoke coming out, be warned that you are breathing in tiny droplets of nasty oil. As a sum total, older vehicles quickly become super-emitters if not kept excellently maintained, and in the absence of easy & affordable retrofit emissions control technologies, they pollute like nobody’s business.
In that context, the following news item from Daily Times about Islamabad Police impounding and fining the smoky/dirty cars is very encouraging. Most developed countries now have control systems in place for regular monitoing of emissions from all registered automobiles, and to determine the average life/usage of cars and their pollution indices as a function of age. Such data is frequently used to make policy changes - including appropriating money in heavily polluted areas to even ‘buy’ the super-emitters out.
I was hoping somebody would write on water. Thanks. While the average were running after nanotech/biotech deals 5-8 years ago, the cunning were starting to see environmental tech on the horizon. Now that the average are running after energy deals, the smart should be thinking about water. 
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Energy, Entrepreneurship & Startups, Environment, Health & Wellness, Science & Technology, Venture Capital & Private Equity | Tagged: Energy, entrepreneurship, innovation, venture capital, water, xconomy | 
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Posted by Bilal Zuberi
2007 was undoubtedly the year of clean-tech. The debate around global warming frequented the front pages of major newspapers, and reached our homes and dining tables. There were too many exciting clean-tech related news to recount, and there were a few disappointments as well. I have been asked several times if there is anything ’substantial’ to be expected out of this clean-tech boom, or are these just science fair type curiosity projects, but on a larger scale and consuming tons of public sector funding? While many clean-tech blogs are highlighting technologies to look out for in 2008, ‘Automotive News’ recently published a tongue-in-cheek list of 10 potential alternative fuels that included chicken droppings and cheese.
Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who’d rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there’s no reason we can’t entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.
Some readers here may start thinking that I have something against ethanol (for my other posts, see: 
As readers of this blog may know, I recently got 
Cars, trucks and other vehicles that are heavy emitters of smoke, also called super-emitters, are really a menace to environment and urban air quality. The really old vehicles, which are not kept well burn a lot of oil with the fuel and emit tons of smoke and other dangerous criteria pollutants. These pollutants, such as unburnt hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, soot, and heavy metal particles from lubricant oil (ash) are considered to be many times more (more than 10x) dangerous to the human health than the pollution of even the most polluting new engines.
