So you want to Build a Business?

Proteus will be turning three this October. I am very happy to report that we have seen steady development. Our backlog looks good and we have few repeat clients. Water+Energy initiative has really taken off, with the energy sector now very engaged  and excited about the next frontier in Water-Energy Nexus. Proteus is also working on launching two new software in the coming months. Talks are underway on the design and development of a web-based Water Audit database system for Commercial, Institutional, and Industrial sectors. This will be great fun!

Today's post however relates to Entrepreneurship. I mentor several start-ups as well as established businesses who are looking to enter the water world. Most come to me for sector specific knowledge, but I also find myself coaching them on business development, and more specifically CEO development. I prefer to talk directly with the CEO, and when I do I check for the following traits:

Clarity of Vision

Incurable Optimism

Limitless Curiosity

Abounding Creativity

Loving Risk and Taking Action

Tenacious and Persistent

Adept Communicator

Leadership Intelligence

Work Hard/Play Hard

CEOs represent the company and I have found that if they don't exemplify the above mentioned traits, it is very difficult for the company to survive let alone flourish. If any of these traits are lacking, it will drive the company towards mediocrity, and often times failure.

For example, few CEOs just rattle off the product/service description when asked what does their company do. This is unfortunate in so many ways. It shows that there is lack of Vision and ability to Communicate, and sub-par Leadership skills. If they cannot tell me what the company does, how will they make the customer happy, and then how will they keep their workers inspired? I coach some of them to start working on the WHY of their business, and it is often a 'change the world' story. That is the crux of why the business will grow, customers will love it, and people would want to come work for them.

I also look for the CEO's diversity plans, and answer to "what next?" I want them to relate to me their road-map for the next few years. No, I do not need the numbers and a leather bound business plan with pretty bar charts for every future product. But the CEO should demonstrate foresight, once he has the market, what will he do next? How will he remain competitive? Where are the gaps in his industry, how will he produce product / service to fill those gaps? How will he branch out?

Successful entrepreneurs are always asking questions. I find them asking me more questions than we have time for. Along with the questions they ask, I see their eyes light up, I find them connecting dots and ideas springing in their head and new concepts flow. They start finding new pastures, define new work products. Curiosity and Creativity combine.

Living with risk is an amazing trait. These CEOs are willing to stand at the edge with faith in their offering. There are too many armchair prospectors out there, who sit and discuss ideas but do not have the courage to get up and make it work. I also find many such people stressing out about whether to go for a corporation or LLC, where to incorporate, how to get VC money right away, etc. These people usually don't end up having a successful business, they are too risk adverse. They are not willing to go out on the limb for the sake of their ideas, they are too attached to a steady paycheck and cannot accept a 50-70% cut and live on Ramen noodles. You did that in school, so why can't you do it again for a few years? Why do you need the extravagant lifestyle? You can't play it safe. You have to take risk, yes smart risk, but none the less, you have to be able to risk a lot to gain a lot.

Last but not the least trait of a successful entrepreneur is their ability to switch on and off. When they work hard, they put their all into it, nothing held back - sleepless nights working towards a sale, relentless pursuit of quality deliverable, attention to details, no attention to personal grooming / eating (Ramen), ... Then, when the deliverable is done, they switch off for real, and get back to the world, reconnect, hang out with friends and get a refill on nutrition and emotion.

This has been my experience, both as an entrepreneur myself, and working with others in this realm.

SmartOperations is the Future

Last week at CWEA Annual Conference, I had some very interesting conversations with leaders of our industry about the future. Here is a gist of my perceptions that I shared liberally with everyone.

The Future of the Water Industry, at least for the next two decades, will be all about Smart Operations. Over the last hundred years, Engineering was leading the show. This was because we needed to invent processes and technologies that can clean water from rivers, lakes, and oceans to make them palatable and safe for human consumption. Once that water has been through the 'human system', we also worked on technologies that will clean the water to a sufficient level safe for reintroduction into nature. We are there; we have figured out the basic engineering technologies that can effectively produce clean water. Yes, there are still some frontiers to conquer, such as trace organics and pharmaceuticals, but engineering on those frontiers will unlikely yield a 'breakthrough' and will most likely have diminishing returns. I am not advocating that engineers and scientists should not spend time on those peripheral problems, it is just that the industry will shift towards effective implementation of what is already there. Operations will take primacy over Engineering.

This is a major shift for the industry, you can compare it to the way water bodies turnover during change of seasons. All major institutions in the water world is currently dominated by engineers, be it the EPA, the major trade associations like AWWA,WEF, WateReuse, the regulatory agencies, the agency leadership, etc. Engineering consulting firms also dominate the direction that the industry takes. But this is changing and this transformation will get faster by the day. Engineering consulting firms are already facing the choice of just becoming Planning firms or to become Design-Build focused companies. Planning firms will develop program level plans and when needed work on 30% design of facilities. Treatment plants of the future will be more equipment driven and packaged than custom designed (as they are now). Design-Build firms will be led by construction managers and engineers will assist them to take those 30% designs to fruition. For engineers, the choice is to quickly adapt to this new model or perish.

Smart Operations will mean redesigning the water and wastewater agencies as businesses and focus on continuous optimization. Most water agencies currently react to water demand and supply stresses and wastewater agencies believe that they exist to maintain regulatory compliance only. Water agencies of the future will get ahead of the supply-demand race and work to control both the issues. On the supply side, focus will be on reliability investments, water grids will become smart grids just like the electricity grid with infusion of software and sensors, and the demand side will see an increased management effort. Wastewater agencies will reinvent themselves to be factories with three designer products to sell - clean water, nutrient rich fertilizer, and electricity. The technologies to get there is already available, the only limiting ingredient is the foresight and confidence of the operations managers.

Water SmartOperations
(C) PROTEUS Consulting

To make this happen, PROTEUS Consulting is working on building bridges between the Water sector and other sectors - Energy, Information Technology, Economics/Finance, and Communications. Before the end of this year you will see Energy and Water Sectors forging new paths, where water sector will act as flexible loads to help balance the grid and in turn get to access a new revenue stream independent of water sales. Software will play a very important role in SmartOperations with business intelligence, knowledge management, gamification, text analytics, data mining, learning networks, etc. taking the center stage. PROTEUS expects to usher the growth of software solutions for the water industry and we will also champion the use of open source code to enable the maximum benefit to these publicly owned and operated water and wastewater agencies. Economics within the water agencies and financing of infrastructure projects will change. Water trading networks, real-time value chain operations, infusion of private equity, are a few initiatives PROTEUS is working on. As for communications, gone are the days when the water industry was churning out calendars with 'save water' sketches, you will find art, literature, theater, cinema, games, and mobile apps flowing all around you. Stay tuned!

Water+Energy Presentation at CWEA Annual Conference 2013, Palm Springs

It was a very good turnout at the CWEA Annual Conference this morning. We talked about the next frontier in Water and Energy Nexus. The reception was very positive. Some people who could not attend my talk caught hold of me in the corridor/hall and wanted to connect and learn about with Proteus' Water+Energy work. I could not have asked for more!

The ideas we present here are new and refreshing. The concept of flexible load on the grid is not in the mainstream, but it will soon become a reality. Discussions are ongoing at the CEC level on how to prepare for the future grid when renewables will change the peak load profile. Water industry stands ready to meet the challenge, to act as a flexible load!

The plan forward is to get pilots going for flexible loads using treatment plants and pipeline networks in all three IOU territories by spring next year. Once the concept is proven, the work will commence on pricing and program development. As the water industry amounts to 20 - 45% of California's total energy use, that is a lot of load that can act as a flexible load on the grid. Welcome to the future!

Text Analytics for the Water Industry

Knowledge management in the Water Industry is archaic, that is if it at all exists. Since the turn of the century there has been dire doomsday predictions of mass retirement of water professionals with 20 to 30+ years of systems knowledge. With the economic slowdown and its effect on public retirement funds, most of those professionals held on to their jobs and now we are seeing the exodus happening. Many water managers are concerned. As their staff retires, they leave with the institutional knowledge and that is quite scary. After all there is no structured method of information capture.

Image courtesy of jscreationzs/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Most of our industry's Operational Intelligence lies unstructured in text-rich data. This data resides in emails, text messages, alerts, notes, chats, reports, and documents (word, excel, powerpoint, database,) etc.  Currently all this data, and hence information, sits virtually unanalyzed and unused. Much of this information  has the potential to deliver operational insights that can be used to make informed smarter decisions in the future.

Text analytics has made great progress in the last decade. Deep language processing capabilities such as summarization, multi-faceted search, and sentiment analysis is mainstream now. Technology is readily available to gather, store, filter, and mine textual information for hidden signals and patterns, trends, and anomalies. And most of this is open-source technology, just the kind of 'fit' public agencies look for.

At PROTEUS, we are working on Text Analytics. With new tools available to handle big data, we can now get access to this unprecedented amount of data and extract value. We no longer have to rely only on models (hydraulic or process) and SCADA information to understand and draw conclusions about our system operations, we can now tap into  a mountain of unstructured and unused complex data and derive insight that can boost our system performance like never before.

PROTEUS model of Operational Intelligence

We believe that once our water clients can crack the code on this cross-enterprise textual data, they will see a significant improvement in operations. Asking the right questions will make all the difference. The more specific and focused the questions can be, the better results can be achieved.

Water managers do not need to do another 'master plan' and set about searching for the data to feed the Analytics engine.  They already have the components to start generating these insights. They can start with existing documents, even with just the organization's email and folders on the server. While every organization is different, we can assure you that results can be seen within just a few months of getting started.

To learn more about how to get the water industry's text analytics initiative underway, on to Smart Operations Intelligence, please contact us at www.consult-proteus.com.

Innovation Mentoring by Proteus

In the recent WBT2012, 110 companies gave six minute presentations showcasing emerging technologies representing a variety of industry sectors ranging cleantech to medical device, to software and advanced materials. These companies include university spin-outs, startups, market ready university and federal lab innovations. Most of these companies had been funded by the founders and their family, angel funds, venture capital, state and federal grants; and through the exposure at WBT, they were seeking angel capital, venture capital (including seed and early stage), exclusive and non-exclusive licensing partners, co-sponsored research partners, corporate strategic partners.

Five of those teams were mentored by Proteus Consulting. They were:

• eQube™ & EmirSM by Groundmetrics
• Water Conservation Technology for residential, commercial and Institutional Buildings by Eco Products Group, Inc
• "Super Whale" Caudal Cycle Propellers-Pumps and Fans by Admiral Fluidics
• GestyMe by Shailah Interactive
• iWatchLife

We also sat through dress rehearsals for six other presenters. Through the mentoring process we helped these companies to hone their presentations to make the maximum impact and gain recognition. Every company has their challenges, be it funding, communication, presentation skills or others. We helped them to stay on message and connect with the audience. 

It was great to see that mentees present during the conference with confidence. And we are VERY HAPPY to announce that one of the above mentioned teams, Groundmetrics, won the Runners Up award!

55,000+ water agencies in the US, and....??

United States is approximately 3,718,691 square miles in size, and has a population of 314,661,000 (mid 2012 estimate). To manage this, we have 55,000+ water agencies. I am not including wastewater agencies here. In several places, we have combined water and wastewater agencies, but in many places it is not so.

In San Diego county,  we have 4,525.52 square miles and a population of 3,095,313 (2010 census). To manage this, we have 24 water agencies and the San Diego Water Authority to oversee the region.

(In comparison, there are only a few dozen power utilities in the US, and only one that operates in San Diego.)

Let's do the simple math:
A typical US water agency manages about 67.6 square miles, and 5,721 people.
A typical water agency in San Diego manages about 188.5 square miles, and 128,971 people.

Yes, the simple math does not really do justice to the numbers. There are many agencies covering large swaths of land and support very small population, and vice-versa. But the underlying question is do these water agencies currently operate at their best efficiency point and giving the best value to their customers?
We are talking about efficient resource distribution, limited water loss, optimization of labor, connect with customers so that they understand and appreciate the impact of water usage patterns. And we all know that the answer is No. All these agencies get an A or B for effort, but about a D or lower for results.

So, what are the Solutions?

Everyone will jump up and down and say Innovation! (It's an over used buzz word these days.) Yes, innovation is the answer, but it comes in different forms. Just finding new treatment technologies is not enough. Unfortunately, water agencies currently define innovation = better water treatment methods. Innovation has to touch every aspect of the Water Industry, inside out. As a first step, there are four sectors where these agencies need to focus on:

Energy - Apart from working on energy efficiency projects (i.e. change the light bulbs, buy efficiency motors,etc.), the agencies need to focus on operating the systems with dynamic real-time optimization. More details on the concept can be found here. The result of this will not only be energy savings but also additional revenue that can then be applied back towards system improvements.

Technology - Adopt a SMART Operations and Maintenance concept. This will include model based control, real-time forecasting, advanced sensing and monitoring, dynamic data visualization, analysis and decisions. The water agencies have a Big Data problem, all we need is to adopt the technology tools and solutions from other disciplines and adapt them to our operations.

Economics - Change the pricing models to match supply and demand and reflect the 'real' value of water based on it's source and use. Move from the era of water development to the era of water allocation, test out the strategies and implement them. Move away from capital financing needs (historically met by Federal and State grants) to financial instruments from private sector as low-risk-low-return investment options.

Communication - Engage with public using communication channels beyond bill-stuffers and calendars with kid's drawings. Develop relationships with community organizations without explicitly trying the 'educate' the public. Lose the word "Outreach" from all your vocabulary. Be a partner.

For more details.

World Development and Change, the Pillars and Slabs

I am a civil engineer and much of my basic training was in structural engineering before I shifted to environmental engineering for my Masters. So I often tend to go back on analogies from my civil/ structural engineering training. Here is one of those analogies.

I believe that as we evolve as a civilization, our knowledge of the world around us gets more pronounced. Ancient humans were able to appreciate the world around us, their theories rested on empirical observations, and many things that they predicted based of these observations are pretty set on the mark. Science and Technology is relatively new and has found the 'reason' behind many a phenomenon over the last 3000 years. We are slated for even more fascinating times ahead.

This evolution of science and technology, I believe, has happened just like we build buildings. We lay a foundation, and then erect pillars, followed by a slab, then again pillars, followed by slabs, and so forth. For a structure to be stable, you cannot just go on building pillars, for without slabs, there will be no integrity and no use of the structure either. Slabs connect the pillars, transfer forces from one pillar to the other and ultimately to the foundation. Slabs are fundamental to the building as the pillars, they also enable people to make a home on them and live.

In the development of science and technology, the pillars are the discipline specific R&D that leads to great breakthroughs in those disciplines. For example, in the years leading to the Renaissance, there was development going on in physics, biology, engineering, astronomy, music, painting  and many such fields. When the Renaissance period came, a slab was built. The beauty of that period was that the foremost scientists and artists of the period started mingling with each other and sharing their ideas and approaches. That era afforded the opportunity and encouraged the cross pollination. As a result, there were many breakthroughs that can be directly attributed to the fact that the physicists sat along side the painters and discussed solutions together.

I think that we are at the threshold of another such era. We have made tremendous progress in individual fields, especially biology, IT, energy, etc. Now, it is time to share the discoveries across disciplines and cross pollinate again. The opening of the world due to the social networks make this even more easy to do. We need to build a slab that joins all the various disciplines and share the ideas and insights. This will yield a Renaissance of modern times. I sincerely believe this. And for this reason I work very diligently in the innovation space and consult with start-up companies. It does not matter if they are designing a new touchless mobile app for autistic kids to help them read books or if there is a group designing ground penetrating sensing devices to look for oil. It does not have to be linked to the Water industry, all I want is to learn about the edge ideas. This gets me thinking of novel applications in other fields, it opens up my mind to think differently and devise new ways to integrate technologies across disciplines. In that process I can identify for my start-up clients new markets, new possibilities, and have them be the defining and often disruptive technology in those markets. I enjoy this process a lot!

Watch this space, in the next few weeks I will be showcasing my fascinating discoveries at the WBT Showcase I am attending this week.

Emerging Contaminants and Cars-going-off-the-Cliff

"It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and THEN do your best." - W. Edwards Deming

The topic of Emerging Contaminants came up earlier this week while discussing future of wastewater treatment plants on the US. My opinion is that we are focusing on the wrong place with regulations and our hard earned money.

The metaphor I would like to cite here is often used but very apt and may help us understand what's happening with this issue. Consider a steady stream of cars driving towards a cliff and then plunging off into the abyss. The 'leaders' here look at this devastating situation, get all worked up and quickly decide to do something. Instead of going to the top of the cliff and diverting the traffic off the course of disaster, the 'leaders' decide to get a fleet of ambulances at the bottom of the cliff. That is exactly where the regulations related to Emerging Contaminants are headed, it is a waste of money and effort. This after-the-fact treatment rather than avoidance is really scary. Our 'leaders' have either given up rational thinking or do not think that they are leaders capable of affecting human thoughts and behavior.

The solution is - Think Differently!
How did Southwest Airlines make double digits profit when all the other US airlines were losing billions of dollars and shedding off thousands of jobs?
How did Zappos build a $1+billion company that sells shoes and also 'delivers happiness'?
How did Dr. Wiwat prevent 5 million people in Thailand from contracting HIV?

If the cause is right and the messaging is right, people will follow. We, folks in the water industry and beyond,  have to learn to engage with our customers in a whole different level. Let's start that now!

PROTEUS Redefined

Proteus will turn two this October. It has been a very satisfying ride and the future looks so promising. We have evolved over the last year and it gives me great pleasure to share with you our plan for the future.

PROTEUS Consulting is a boutique consulting firm with the goal to catalyze the synergy between the Water, Energy, Information, and CleanTech sectors. We exist to bring about metamorphosis.  With versatile high quality technical and management solutions we facilitate the transformation of business-as-usual to a high-energy and productive environment. We are known for our creativity and problem-solving skills, and clients appreciate the individual attention this small, flexible firm is able to provide.

Water+Energy Level I, II, and II Energy Audits, Renewable Energy Options, System Reviews, Energy Strategic Plans, Pumping and Process Optimization, Dynamic Real-time Energy Optimization, Revenue models, Energy Contracts Management

Water+Information IT Management Plans, Field Applications, Mobile Apps, Diagnostics, Process Mapping, Business Intelligence, Analytics, Visualization, Dashboard, Operations and Maintenance Optimization

Water+Economics Long-Range Risk Analysis and Scenario Planning, Funding Analysis, Grant Consultation and Grant Match, Grant Research and Writing, Traditional and Non-traditional Funding Sources, Intellectual Property

Water+Communication Print, Web, App and Media Strategy Materials, Public Outreach, Project Facilitation, Stakeholder Meetings

Water+Engineering Research and Reports, Alternative Development, Engineering Reports, Regulatory Approvals, Preliminary and Detailed Design, Construction Plans, Specifications and Estimates, Permit Applications,Procurement, Document Control, Quality, Construction Phase services, Field Engineering, Commissioning, Handover, Compliance Management. Both Traditional and Design-Build Engineering

Water+Innovation Strategic Business Development, Product Design,Technical Guidance, Process Engineering, System Review and Optimization, Mechanical Engineering, Pilot Testing, Commissioning

PROTEUS Consulting is minority and women owned, small disadvantaged micro-business. We have the CPUC certification for WMBE (Women Owned Minority Business) and several others.

Shared Desitiny

I recently had lunch with an old friend who currently works for an OEM. We used to work together, in fact sit next to each other in adjacent cubicles almost a decade ago. It is always so fun to meet up with old buddies and catch-up. We talked about our respective careers, family, etc. and then the conversation turned to how the current economy and the state of the world is affecting our lives. I realized that over the last nine years, we have drifted apart in our world view. My friend was definitely not happy with globalization and the fact that the OEM's products, manufactured in the US, are having great difficulty competing against global onslaught of similar but low quality products at a cheaper price. The current procurement system in the Federal and Municipal market picks low price over quality. While there is a mandate to buy American-made products, it is not working. My friend is also not in favor of the environmental qualifications required in US as opposed to the other countries who do not have those restrictions. Very valid points.

And I agree with my friend. Our policies are broken! Where we differ is that my friend thinks that the government should not be putting these environmental mandates in place and should block our import of cheap, and often times low quality, foreign products; while I think we need to work on fixing our purchasing policies. The purchasing decision should be based on 'total' cost including the capital, environment, and operations/ maintenance footprint instead of just basing the decision strictly on capital costs.

Why? Everyone on this planet now share a common destiny. The time for insularity is gone and it will never be the same again. For the last century, US was the major political and financial power, now we are seeing a multipolar world with India, China, European Union, and Brazil sharing the stage. Technology has made it possible to communicate across continents faster than we can bat an eyelid. Disintermediation is rapidly changing the marketplace, e.g. the market for phones, books, newspapers, etc. The markets are no longer the way we knew them to be for the last 60 years. The Water, Energy, and Food industries as we know are going through a dramatic transformation; their interdependence is becoming more prominent on a global scale.

The sooner we start appreciating the changed climate, the better we will be to compete in this new marketplace. We have no choice! We can all sit and complain that 'the past was better' and resist the change as much as we can, but the reality is that we are already on this one-way highway, all together. So, what should we do? Here are my ideas:

• Update the purchasing policies to reflect the new reality of global marketplace and shared destiny. The criteria for purchasing should now be based on the life cycle costs as defines in ISO 14000. This implies that when purchasing a pump for example, the entire footprint is considered along the entire supply chain, that is mining the iron ore in Australia, building the impeller and pump house in China, assembly in Germany, installation and use in the US, followed by re-purposed in India. When all this is accounted for, the 'true cost' of the equipment / technology will create a level playing field for all. When I worked with Water Corporation (Perth, Australia), we had reviewed this method of sustainable selection.
• As a manufacturer / service provider, we need to start looking to gather and furnish data that will enable purchasers to make an educated decision. Set up a sustainability program in your business to facilitate this process and you will notice that it will have a high return on investment. Your sustainability program will be your differentiator, and will focus on making your business more attractive to both your clients and employees.

These are not my words, but are so very true: We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them. Sustainability is about enlightened self-interest.

Value Based Water Management

Value based water management is a topic that I think of often. I believe that there is an intrinsic link between human values and what humans do to the water scape. Science and technological advances have enabled us to be better manipulators of our natural environment and made our lives more comfortable. We no longer have to walk five miles everyday to get a bucket of water and enjoy acres of lush green lawns and rain forest recreation in the middle of a dessert. We have indeed come a long way from how our ancestors lived. While we have devised new ways to secure a cocooned life, we have lost our symbiotic relationship with nature. That hurts us now in more ways than we can comprehend. In some ways, I think, in spite of all the technological advances, we have become 'stupider'!

Man is a part of nature, not above it. All ancient cultures recognized this. Be it Native Americans, the Tribes in Africa and Asia, or the Aboriginals in Australia... All these cultures had the same underlying principle (or philosophy) - "Respect nature". It was this respect that also allowed them to manipulate the environment, BUT with the emphasis on not doing any harm. Living in those days meant understanding and existing in harmony with the environment rather than dominating it. Nature was not the enemy, nor was it a commodity that can be exploited for wealth and power. Nature had a value of it's own in day to day life where every living thing (and sometimes non living thing as well) were interconnected and had a special function. Plants nourished animals, animals were then hunted for food, and then when humans expired, it became food for the pants. It was the circle of life. Yes, every ancient culture truly believed in this philosophy and practiced it diligently.  Yes, they all sought to "improve" their natural world all the time, but they limited such improvements to what was necessary. The operative words here are "as necessary", and not the indiscriminate slaughter and wasteful gathering. This material life was abhorred by ancient cultures through spiritual tenets, and these tenets were very sensitive to the balances in delicate ecosystems. They recognized that adverse interference in ecosystems threatened their own existence as wells as the natural world on which they depended and of which they were an integral part.

Where are we now? We are sitting in a big luxury motor home, cruising along a highway with no destination in sight. We are not in the driver's seat, we are just a passenger. We do not know where we are going, we don't even care. We love the comfort of this padded home and as long as the truck is moving, the scenery is good, there is fuel, water, and air conditioning, why do we have to care about anything else? Well, we have lost touch with the fundamental concept that no matter how much we think we have 'grown up', our umbilical cord is still attached with nature. There is no escape, and you cannot cut it off.

A friend put it another way: "We are like a bunch of youngsters, who got high on alcohol and drugs one night and decided to rent a boat and take a ride up and down the river. We pushed the boat into the water and started paddling away. We were drunk and drugged, mind you. We passed out after a while - it was a lot of work to just keep paddling! Dawn broke, we woke up.  We realized that we had not gone more than couple yards from the shore. What? How? Well, we forgot to lift the anchor! So there we were, paddling through the night, all drunk and drugged up and imagining a beautiful scenery go by."

Every decision and choice we make comes at a cost. We have been seasoned to not look at "total solutions" but only to put the brackets where it seems to fit us the best right now. This conditioning did not happen overnight. We all have evolved from the nature-loving ancient cultures very slowly, over 6,000 years. First we started looking at nature as a resource to be exploited, primarily for community, and hence for nation building. We justified it by saying that the common good and mutual benefits ranked higher than individual self-interest. Then, slowly that cause got morphed to a spirited individualism and an appetite for a perceived profit that heightened the exploitation of nature to new levels. Land, energy, and water got colonized in political and legal institutions generating colossal conflicts and social turmoil.

Oh well, we are where we are! What can we do now? We have to reverse engineer our way back to nature-loving humans again. The first thing we need is the will to do so. That will has to come from within each individual. The pendulum has to swing back from individualism to harmony with nature. And this swing can be accelerated by the terrific brains we already have. The brackets have to move further out, from individuals to community, and then to the whole world encompassing the entire life cycle of each element. For water, we will have to look at total water management - effectively manage every drop we have and use it most efficiently while not exploiting the natural resources. We have to become more creative on how to capture, use, and reuse water with zero discharge and waste. We also have to move away from central facilities to micro / community level facilities. We have to learn to appreciate the rhythms of nature and work with it to create opportunities, not fight it.

In subsequent blogs I will lay out my vision and plan of sustainable water management that will be synchronous with the values learned from ancient cultures. It will by no means be easy, and I am not saying that you have to go to a primitive hunter-gatherer lifestyle. We have to respect nature for what she is, and not fight her, but harmonize with her. We have the brains to do it, we just don't seem to find the will.

Australia and Singapore - How are they dealing with water problems?

Enclosed below is a presentation by Proteus at the Council of Water Managers on October 19th, 2010 at their Dinner Meeting.

Over the last couple years, I have been fortunate to be living in Australia while designing and building one of the largest recycled water plants in the world. During my stay in Australia, I was also managing a design team out of Singapore which required me to make frequent trips to Singapore. Thus I was able to observe the water management policies and programs in these two countries. By bringing these ideas to you, my aim is to promote a healthy discussion on opportunities here in San Diego County.

What is your Water Footprint?

Carbon footprint is a major topic of discussion these days and every one seems to have an opinion on it, one way or the other. While that debate goes on, I would like to introduce you to the concept of Water Footprint. Have you thought about it?

Several items play into creating our Water Footprint: the water that is consumed by us, the water that is used to create and dispose the products we use, and the global trade of these products. The total Water Footprint can be broken down into three major components: the blue, the green, and the grey. Blue water footprint is the volume of freshwater used up from the global water resources to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community. For example, the use of water to irrigate crops. Green water footprint is the volume of water used up from the global green water resources such as the rainwater stored in the soil as soil moisture. And, grey water footprint is the volume of  wastewater generated from goods and services used and is calculated as the volume of water required to dilute the wastewater to attain a quality better than or equal to international water quality standards. The graphic below shows your total water footprint.

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Source: Hoekstra,  A.Y. (2008) Water neutral: reducing and offsetting the impacts of water footprints, Value of Water Research Report Series No.28, UNESCO-IHE.

Historically, we have been aware of only the little box on the left named "water withdrawal" because that is what we see as the gallons of water consumed on our water bills. But we fail comprehend the amount of water we consume on a daily basis via the products and services we use.


Here is your water cost for common items used daily:
A cotton shirt = 2,700 litres (713 gallons)
A cup of coffee = 140 liters (37 gallons)
100 gms (~3.5oz) of chocolate = 2,400 liters (634 gallons)
1 kg (~1/2 lb) sugar = 1,500 liters (396 gallons)
1 kg (~1/2 lb) tomatoes = 180 liters (48 gallons)
1 glass of wine = 120 liters (32 gallons)
1 hamburger = 2,400 liters (634 gallons)
1 kg leather (as in shoes, bags, etc) = 16,600 liters (4,385 gallons)
1 sheet of A4 paper = 10 liters (2.7 gallons)

And yes, the 'green fuels' like bio-ethanol and bio-diesel have water footprints too. This footprint does not get incorporated into the case for "green" energy, but they should!! See the figure below.

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Source: Gerbens-Leenes, W., Hoekstra, A.Y. and Van der Meer, T.H. (2009) The water footprint of bio-energy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS Early Edition, doi:10.1073/pnas.0812619106.

Next, there is a global perspective to water footprint since global trade influences the water footprint to a great extent. Consumption of goods in one place has significant impact on the water resources in another place – and that is nothing new.


Here is a comparison of the countries with their water footprints – no surprises, really!

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[Hoekstra & Chapagain, 2008]

I am not against global trade, but buying local would be a good practice. It's hard, I know!
I don’t want you to get all guilty and stop drinking water and eating, but being conscious of your impact in this world is a good thing to be aware of. You can buy your way out of your carbon footprint and feel all giddy about it, but the only way to offset you water footprint is to be aware of the choices you make.

To the "Green Community", I urge you to start including water footprint in your calculation. A design / plan can only be truly sustainable if "WATER" is considered along with energy.

To all you tech savvy people out there who care about your water footprint, there is an iPhone App for you!!

Credit: Thoughts and information presented in this blog is from http://www.waterfootprint.org/ It is an amazing website with loads of information. I urge you all to visit this website and learn more about Water Footprint.

Desalination - US vs. Australia

It is interesting to note that over the last six years, Australia has been able to permit, design, and start construction on six major seawater desalination projects, and three of those plants are already in operation. That is amazing! On the other hand, desalination plants in the US tend to get embroiled in loads of problems, and California's first, the Carlsbad Desalination Plant, is yet to be constructed. It took ten years of planning and five years in the state’s permitting process to receive final approvals from every required regulatory and permitting agency in the state, including the California Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission and Regional Water Quality Control Board. After all that, every other week we still see lawsuits raised for one issue or the other, only to be struck down by the courts.

This makes one wonder - why is it such an issue in California and not so in Australia? Just like the Australians, Californians live on the coast and have very similar meteorological, environmental, and economic issues. (Oh yes, I know, I lived in Oz for couple years and have recently returned.) So what is going on?

The answer is in three parts:

One, California has not faced as severe a water shortage as Australia. Southern Californians can get water imported (transported) from the mountains at relatively cheap and subsidized rates; whereas, in Australia, when the reservoir levels dropped down below 21% in March 2007, it was a major crisis and projects got done.

Two, though California and Australia face similar environmental issues, the permitting process in California seems to be haphazard and irregular. There are several agencies regulating various aspects of the environmental regime and often there is no dialogue or synergy between the agencies, leading to excessive delays in the permitting process. Each issue is reviewed and judged by different agencies at different times! There is a desperate need of one supervisory authority that coordinates all the reviews.

Credit: WDR, Vol 46, No. 8

Three, project economics vary between the two regions. Projects in Australia are led by the centrally planned regional water authorities who spread the cost of the project over the entire service area. Here in California, the model adopted was of a developer led project, whereby the developer was guaranteeing the cost of desalted water would never exceed the cost of imported water. This later model gave a different dimension to the project and led to mistrust, suspicion, and even animosity against the 'private' approach and raised cries of 'lack of transparency' and complaints of 'aggressive behavior'. The general trend is that the public believes in the 'non-profit' nature of public agencies (even if they are sometimes fraught with inefficiencies) and tend to disapprove of developers.

So, where are we now with Carlsbad Desal Project? The project just broke ground on some initial sitework. Unfortunately, the lawsuits are still coming, check here for latest development on this project.

Also check out some interesting presentations on desalination at the 2010 Water Reuse Conference. My friend Joe Monaco and I will be presenting on Tuesday, March 9 at 2PM (Session C5).

Acknowledgment: Thoughts presented in this blog also appears in the Water Desalination Repot Vol 46, No 8, edited by Tom Pankratz, and is repeated here with the editor's permission.