I am taking a the Environmental Innovation Challenge course offered by the Foster School of Business, the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences, the College of Engineering and the College of the Environment. Today, for our final class, we had representatives from companies like Starbucks, Hydrovolts, Water First, and Engineers without Borders come talk about their water innovation challenges. Unfortunately, I arrived 15 minutes late so I did not hear two speakers (including Starbucks) but here is what I did catch.
Siemens Building Technology
Focused on commercial infrastructure, the smarts of building. Environmental control and fire safety systems. Energy and environmental solutiosn group focuses on demand side management. Talking about return on investment: they work with commercial/industries and identify multi-million dollar solutions. They have recently gotten into renewable technology. Initiative 937 is driving utilities in this state and Oregon as well to have to produce power generated from solar, wind or biomass or some kind of renewable resource. The challenges they had with utilities was to position renewable power plants so that they were not transmitting biomass, for example, over great distances. They identify where the supply is and where the potential is to create renewable technology facilities.
Boeing, Josh Binder
In addition to airplanes, they have a considerable business in space and defense, which is more specific to the water challenge. For example: recently, NASA is putting in and updating the system that they use to regenerate water. They don’t want to have to bring water up to the Space Station all of the time. What if you could do the same thing for households? We know that it’s technologically feasible, but it is not now economically feasible. Are there segments of households where we could reuse some of the water? There are some questions that come with that: What waste streams could you use? What price point does this make sense? What water price point does this make sense? What type of regulatory solutions do we need? There are some waste streams that people would feel uncomfortable with drinking. There is an interesting combination of technologically feasibility, business case economics and marketing that would have to come together to make this work. There are technological precedence and market precedence. If you drive around Seattle, you see people with rain barrels. These are people catching water and reusing it in their households. What other waste streams could you capture and reuse?
Hydrovolt
His company created a new type of turbine that is very simple to manufacturer. It is going to go into irrigation canals and other types of water ways. They are aiming for 1 to 5 kilowatts. He is interested in finding out if students are interested in something that they cannot make money at. “The power turbine that I brought with me could generate 50 watts with a current of 4 knots.” The car battery that is charged, in certain parts of the world, is a very important thing. If you live in Africa off the grid, car batteries are essential. The new LED light technology that does not take that much energy could be powered with car batteries. A charged battery makes people very creative. However, in these locations, people do not have any money. Is there a way to develop another business model, perhaps a non-profit, that would take this technology and make it sustainable in developing parts of the companies. I will give you an example, a student I am familiar with went to Sierra Leone, he met people from a village at 5 PM as it starts to get dark. The students walk 10 miles to the airport so that they can study in the lights. They have to work all day in the fields and then study at night. He brought students Patrick, and Alex, and Jeena from the Business School and the Engineering College, who are working on this. They think a non-profit foundation is a potential business model. Trying to electrify developing parts of the world is a great focus.
Katrina, MS College of Oceanography and Fisheries Science
Started MS in College of Oceanography and Fisheries Science. The state of world fisheries is in crisis right now. In the 60s and 70s, new technology allowed fishing to go out further than before. So, they had access to fish sources not seen before. There are predictions, however, that these sources are drying up. Peter Drucker, nobel prize laureate, “agriculture, not the internet, poses the most promising economy in the 21st century.” There is a team of engineers that came together to form subflex which is a new type of system, which unlike existing systems, can be placed offshore by 10 miles and this means higher water quality and lower mortality in fish (they got it down from 10% to 2%). The bottom line is very important with systems like this. Their pilot program has been running for two years and broke even. She is specifically interested in taking this to Kenya. She is gathering data and marketing research. She is looking for business students.
Rick McKenney, Water for Humans non-profit social enterprise
Been in business for 8 or 9 months. He is a recovered physicist/mechanical engineer. Now a social entrepreneur. He is working on a project that will provide an alternative to the five gallon jugs in the developing world that are commonly used for drinking water. We are primarily focused on in-home purification systems. He got the idea by traveling in Latin America; first looked at the environmental impact about driving around water bottles. There is a huge economic impact. A family can spend up to 25% of their income on water. Company is working with local, social entrepreneurs in watersheds, through the world to provide local employment, clean water and public retention of its common water asset.
Emerging Emeralds of Innovation: The Rooftop Watershed
To serve third world conditions existing in America — rural Alaska. Saniation water in Alaska is the culprit. Not having running water show 1/3rd of babies hospitalized. Even in semi-arid areas of Alaska, a roof could generate x amount of water (a lot of water, didn’t catch exact number). He has lived in a village that has to manually move around water. The rural Alaska market is well over 500,000 homes without running water. Three stage technology: rooftop installation, catchment, filtration system, etc.
