GreenBuild Blog
Water Efficiency
Subjects dealing with water conservation, water efficiency, water reuse
Finding the Payoff in Rainwater Harvesting
Monday, July 05, 2010Most of the water used in commercial buildings – as much as 89 percent – doesn’t require drinking-quality (potable) water, making rainwater an ideal substitute for uses such as irrigation, toilet flushing, cooling-tower make-up and vehicle washing. What could be simpler? Nothing, except that you might pay $20,000 to $50,000 for such a system, an amount that’s not included in most new construction budgets.
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Sewer Mining: Extreme Measure or Viable Solution?
Friday, July 02, 2010A practice first developed in Australia, sewer mining is the process of extracting wastewater from urban sewers and treating it inside a building for reuse as recycled water. Developing additional non-potable water supplies through sewer mining reduces the demand for potable water, reduces the burden on municipal wastewater treatment systems and reduces the amount of energy used to transport wastewater and treated water, a rare “triple play” in the world of integrated/sustainable design.
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Ocean Water Desalination: Our Next Source of Drinking Water?
Friday, July 02, 2010If global warming consequences are as severe as many fear, the ocean may become part of mainstream water supply planning over the next few decades. Desalination represents one of the few drought-proof water resources, outside of wastewater reclamation and recycling. However, there are also environmental consequences related to the disposal of concentrated brine (process water) back into the ocean, so great care needs to be taken with its dispersal into the marine environment.
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Nega-gallons and Aqua-vores: New Approaches to Water Conservation
Tuesday, June 29, 2010More than 20 years ago, the energy expert Amory Lovins introduced the term “negawatts” to indicate that conservation of energy would be a reliable alternative way to supply “megawatts” of projected electricity demand. This “least-cost, end-use” approach distinguishes between supply (of energy) and usage (energy end-use demand). Lovins showed that it’s a lot cheaper (and faster) to conserve energy and use energy-efficient appliances than it is to buy more kilowatt-hours of electricity. This is because infrastructure investments (supply) usually cost a lot more (and take a lot longer) than investments in efficiency (demand reduction).
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Learning from Australia’s Continuing Drought
Tuesday, June 29, 2010Areas of urban Australia have reduced per capita daily water use to as low as 34 gallons (130 liters). By comparison the average per capita water use in California is 135 gallons per day, with a U.S. average of 150 gallons. Australia’s current multiyear drought has impressed a “culture of conservation” on the public.
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