The new water technologies that could save the planet

The well was a transformative invention, though it is often overlooked. This source of freshwater, vital for the expansion of inland communities, dates back nearly 10,000 years – 3,000 years before the wheel was ever imagined.

The well is but one of a long list of innovations in water technology that have enabled human development to continue apace. Sophisticated pipeline networks and treatment plants today furnish us with this elixir of life and industry. As intense pressure is placed on the planet's limited water supplies, businesses are again turning to technological innovation. New and emerging inventions should see human civilisation through the 21st century and, with any luck, the next 10,000 years.

Nanotechnology in filtration:

According to the World Health Organisation, 1.6 million people die each year from diarrhoeal diseases attributable to lack of safe drinking water as well as basic sanitation. Researchers in India have come up with a solution to this perennial problem with a water purification system using nanotechnology.

The technology removes microbes, bacteria and other matter from water using composite nanoparticles, which emit silver ions that destroy contaminants. "Our work can start saving lives," says Prof Thalappil Pradeep of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. "For just $2.50 a year you can deliver microbially safe water for a family." It is a sign that low-cost water purification may finally be round the corner – and be commercially scaleable. Unlike other solutions, in being inexpensive, this new process brought about a real fix for an increasingly growing problem.

Seawater desalination:

Another innovative stride in terms of solutions for the increasing concern surrounding access to drinking water has to do with making brackish water and even seawater safe for consumption. Although holding much promise for the future, seawater desalination is still extremely expensive, with reverse osmosis technology consuming a vast amount of energy: around 4 kilowatt hours of energy for every cubic metre of water.

One solution being studied in Singapore, which opened its first seawater desalination plant in 2005, is biomimicry - mimicking the biological processes by which mangrove plants and euryhaline fish (fish that can live in fresh briny or salt water) extract seawater using minimal energy. Another new approach is to use biomimetic membranes enhanced with aquaporin: proteins embedded in cell membranes that selectively shuttle water in and out of cells while blocking out salts.

Harry Seah, chief technology officer for PUB, Singapore's national water agency, says: “If science can find a way of effectively mimicking these biological processes, innovative engineering solutions can potentially be derived for seawater desalination. Seawater desalination can then be transformed beyond our wildest imagination.”

Hanley Will. The new water technologies that could save

the planet. The Guardian. 2013. Adapted from: <https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/new-watertechnologies- save-planet>. Accessed on: May 26th 2022.

The new water technologies that could save the planet

The well was a transformative invention, though it is often overlooked. This source of freshwater, vital for the expansion of inland communities, dates back nearly 10,000 years – 3,000 years before the wheel was ever imagined.

The well is but one of a long list of innovations in water technology that have enabled human development to continue apace. Sophisticated pipeline networks and treatment plants today furnish us with this elixir of life and industry. As intense pressure is placed on the planet's limited water supplies, businesses are again turning to technological innovation. New and emerging inventions should see human civilisation through the 21st century and, with any luck, the next 10,000 years.

Nanotechnology in filtration:

According to the World Health Organisation, 1.6 million people die each year from diarrhoeal diseases attributable to lack of safe drinking water as well as basic sanitation. Researchers in India have come up with a solution to this perennial problem with a water purification system using nanotechnology.

The technology removes microbes, bacteria and other matter from water using composite nanoparticles, which emit silver ions that destroy contaminants. "Our work can start saving lives," says Prof Thalappil Pradeep of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. "For just $2.50 a year you can deliver microbially safe water for a family." It is a sign that low-cost water purification may finally be round the corner – and be commercially scaleable. Unlike other solutions, in being inexpensive, this new process brought about a real fix for an increasingly growing problem.

Seawater desalination:

Another innovative stride in terms of solutions for the increasing concern surrounding access to drinking water has to do with making brackish water and even seawater safe for consumption. Although holding much promise for the future, seawater desalination is still extremely expensive, with reverse osmosis technology consuming a vast amount of energy: around 4 kilowatt hours of energy for every cubic metre of water.

One solution being studied in Singapore, which opened its first seawater desalination plant in 2005, is biomimicry - mimicking the biological processes by which mangrove plants and euryhaline fish (fish that can live in fresh briny or salt water) extract seawater using minimal energy. Another new approach is to use biomimetic membranes enhanced with aquaporin: proteins embedded in cell membranes that selectively shuttle water in and out of cells while blocking out salts.

Harry Seah, chief technology officer for PUB, Singapore's national water agency, says: “If science can find a way of effectively mimicking these biological processes, innovative engineering solutions can potentially be derived for seawater desalination. Seawater desalination can then be transformed beyond our wildest imagination.”

Hanley Will. The new water technologies that could save

the planet. The Guardian. 2013. Adapted from: <https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/new-watertechnologies- save-planet>. Accessed on: May 26th 2022.

Global food crisis looms as fertilizer supplies dwindle
Sanctions on Russia, bad weather, and export cuts have
fueled a severe fertilizer shortage that has farmers
scrambling to keep the world fed.

Think the global fertilizer shortage is someone else’s problem? Take a look in the mirror. If you are reading this in North America, Europe, Latin America, or Asia, chances are that the bundle of amino acids staring back at you is alive today because of chemical fertilizers.

In fact, according to noted Canadian energy researcher Vaclav Smil, two-fifths of humanity—more than three billion people—are alive because of nitrogen fertilizer, the main ingredient in the Green Revolution that supercharged the agricultural sector in the 1960s. The chemical fertilizer trifecta that tripled global grain production—nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K)—enabled the greatest human population growth the planet has ever seen. Now, it is in short supply, and farmers, fertilizer companies, and governments around the globe are scrambling to avert a seemingly inevitable tumble in crop yields.

“I’m not sure it’s possible any more to avoid a food crisis,” says World Farmers’ Organization President Theo de Jager. “The question is how wide and deep it will be. Most importantly, farmers need peace. And peace needs farmers.”

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was a body blow to an industry that has been hammered by various events for more than a year. Russia typically exports nearly 20 percent of the world’s nitrogen fertilizers and, combined with its sanctioned neighbor Belarus, 40 percent of the world’s exported potassium, according to analysts at Rabobank. Most of that is now off limits to the world’s farmers, thanks to Western sanctions and Russia’s recent fertilizer export restrictions.

“If you speak to a farmer in North America or Oceania, the main talk is fertilizers, specifically the price and availability of fertilizers,” de Jager told a virtual conference on the subject recently. “Prices are more or less 78 percent higher than average in 2021, and this is cracking up the production side of agriculture. In many regions farmers simply can’t afford to bring fertilizers to the farm, or even if they could, the fertilizers are not available to them. And it’s not just fertilizers, but agrichemicals and fuel as well. This is a global crisis and it requires a global response.”

Most of the response thus far has been pretty ad hoc, with every farm and government for itself. But last week, the U.S. and global development banks announced a major “action plan” on global food security totaling more than $30 billion in aid, in hopes of staving off a repeat of the food riots that toppled governments during the last food price crises in 2008 and 2012.

JOEL K. BOURNE, JR.. Global food crisis looms as

fertilizer supplies dwindle. National Geographic. 2022. Adapted from: <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/global-foodcrisis- looms-as-fertilizer-supplies-dwindle>. Accessed on: May 26th 2022.

Global food crisis looms as fertilizer supplies dwindle
Sanctions on Russia, bad weather, and export cuts have
fueled a severe fertilizer shortage that has farmers
scrambling to keep the world fed.

Think the global fertilizer shortage is someone else’s problem? Take a look in the mirror. If you are reading this in North America, Europe, Latin America, or Asia, chances are that the bundle of amino acids staring back at you is alive today because of chemical fertilizers.

In fact, according to noted Canadian energy researcher Vaclav Smil, two-fifths of humanity—more than three billion people—are alive because of nitrogen fertilizer, the main ingredient in the Green Revolution that supercharged the agricultural sector in the 1960s. The chemical fertilizer trifecta that tripled global grain production—nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K)—enabled the greatest human population growth the planet has ever seen. Now, it is in short supply, and farmers, fertilizer companies, and governments around the globe are scrambling to avert a seemingly inevitable tumble in crop yields.

“I’m not sure it’s possible any more to avoid a food crisis,” says World Farmers’ Organization President Theo de Jager. “The question is how wide and deep it will be. Most importantly, farmers need peace. And peace needs farmers.”

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was a body blow to an industry that has been hammered by various events for more than a year. Russia typically exports nearly 20 percent of the world’s nitrogen fertilizers and, combined with its sanctioned neighbor Belarus, 40 percent of the world’s exported potassium, according to analysts at Rabobank. Most of that is now off limits to the world’s farmers, thanks to Western sanctions and Russia’s recent fertilizer export restrictions.

“If you speak to a farmer in North America or Oceania, the main talk is fertilizers, specifically the price and availability of fertilizers,” de Jager told a virtual conference on the subject recently. “Prices are more or less 78 percent higher than average in 2021, and this is cracking up the production side of agriculture. In many regions farmers simply can’t afford to bring fertilizers to the farm, or even if they could, the fertilizers are not available to them. And it’s not just fertilizers, but agrichemicals and fuel as well. This is a global crisis and it requires a global response.”

Most of the response thus far has been pretty ad hoc, with every farm and government for itself. But last week, the U.S. and global development banks announced a major “action plan” on global food security totaling more than $30 billion in aid, in hopes of staving off a repeat of the food riots that toppled governments during the last food price crises in 2008 and 2012.

JOEL K. BOURNE, JR.. Global food crisis looms as

fertilizer supplies dwindle. National Geographic. 2022. Adapted from: <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/global-foodcrisis- looms-as-fertilizer-supplies-dwindle>. Accessed on: May 26th 2022.