• About
  • Top Stories
  • Topics

    Green Energy News

    Solar News
    Hydrogen News
    Nuclear News
    Wind News
    Hydropower News

    Transportation News

    Electric Vehicle (EV) News
    Fuel Cell News
    Aviation News
    Public Transit News
    Commercial / Shipping News

    Sustainable Agriculture News

    Biomass Energy News
    Biofuel News
    Agtech News

    Utility News

    Smart Meter News
    Energy Storage News
    Demand Response News

    Environment News

    Recycling News
    Water News
    Pollution News

    Smart Cities News

    Energy Efficiency News
    Internet of Things (IoT) News

    Climate News

    Decarbonization News
    Climate Tech News

    Green Tech Innovation News

    Robotics News
    Nanotech News
    Batteries

  • Contact
No Results
View all Results
  • About
  • Top Stories
  • Topics

    Green Energy News

    Solar News
    Hydrogen News
    Nuclear News
    Wind News
    Hydropower News

    Transportation News

    Electric Vehicle (EV) News
    Fuel Cell News
    Aviation News
    Public Transit News
    Commercial / Shipping News

    Sustainable Agriculture News

    Biomass Energy News
    Biofuel News
    Agtech News

    Utility News

    Smart Meter News
    Energy Storage News
    Demand Response News

    Environment News

    Recycling News
    Water News
    Pollution News

    Smart Cities News

    Energy Efficiency News
    Internet of Things (IoT) News

    Climate News

    Decarbonization News
    Climate Tech News

    Green Tech Innovation News

    Robotics News
    Nanotech News
    Batteries

  • Contact
No Results
View all Results
Home Environment News

🌊 Water Tech Week: What’s coming down the pipe

Katie Pyzyk by Katie Pyzyk
September 4, 2020
🌊 Water Tech Week: What’s coming down the pipe
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Happy Friday, readers! To close out Water Tech Week, today’s focus is expert predictions for the future of water innovation in the Midwest and beyond. Check out their thoughts after today’s tech headlines. Appropriately, the first news tidbit is water related.

Today’s headlines:

🚰 WATER: Indianapolis-based startup Peril Protect launched its high-tech, in-home water monitoring system that uses sensors to detect leaks and emails or texts alerts to notify the consumer, in addition to a 24-hour call center and contractor network for fixes, reports the Indianapolis Business Journal.

***SPONSORED LINK: Minnesota heating tech startup 2040 Energy wants your opinion. Click here to take our survey and help shape the future of clean energy heating!***

🌱 BIOFUEL: The University of Illinois and the Michigan Aerospace Corporation are among the six recipients of a collective $16.5 million in funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) for developing technologies to bridge gaps in the biofuel supply chain.

🛢️ OIL: Researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology are working on an innovation to decrease the energy needed for extracting oil at shale oil reservoirs and ultimately reduce the need to dig new oil wells.

Abdulmohsin Imqam working in his lab at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. Photo courtesy of Abdulmohsin Imqam.

🏆 COMPETITION: The U.S. Air Force innovation initiative AFWERX launched a competition seeking technologies to boost the Department of Defense’s resilient energy production, transmission, use, and storage while reducing fossil fuel use. Submissions are due Oct. 1.

💻 VIRTUAL EVENT: Representatives from the Great Lakes Energy Institute at Case Western Reserve University and Argonne National Laboratory are among the speakers for a virtual event on Sept. 25 to provide an overview on Department of Energy laboratories and how students can apply for internships and fellowships.

Now, back to Day 5 of Water Tech Week on Centered. This week we’ve covered what’s driving Midwest water innovation, how advanced sensors and digital data are transforming water monitoring, the growing role of project partnerships, and challenges to water tech development.

Today, subject matter experts share where they see the industry going and emerging trends that will shape its future.

Environmental and social justice

A trend that’s already gaining momentum is a focus on water projects that improve disadvantaged communities and help them achieve environmental and social justice. Similarly, more diverse voices are being brought into the water tech mix.

  • “We were founded to make sure new technology goes into neighborhoods and communities where it can do the most good. … For us, that’s moderate- and low-income neighborhoods and minority neighborhoods. Those historically do not have as much green space and water funding,” said Hannah Grooms, senior project manager at Greenprint Partners, a green stormwater infrastructure developer in Chicago.
  • “Chicago will be stronger if its economy is built on an inclusive economy,” said Alaina Harkness, CEO of Chicago nonprofit water innovation hub Current. “We’re thinking about both environmental and economic justice — those are the twin pillars of the work. Organizations in partnership with us often are thinking about what technology and data can help lead to change.”

Cheaper technologies

The cost of advanced sensors and related connected technologies has prohibited their rapid, widespread implementation. But cheaper sensors and data-transmitting technologies are expected to create a boom in Internet of Things water technology projects.

  • “Generally, you send data through cyber modems, which works nicely but you incur a cost for each sensing device and need a modem for each one,” said Greg Cutrell, an environmental scientist at LimnoTech, which has deployed high-tech, sensor-laden buoys into the Great Lakes for water quality monitoring. LimnoTech is among the innovators working on more reasonably priced solutions for transmitting sensor-gathered data. “If you can place a lot of cheap sensors and not incur modem costs … that’s something we see is going to get popular,” he said. “There are going to be more point sources for measurements.”
    A LimnoTech water quality monitoring buoy near Toledo.

    Predictive solutions

    Predictive analytics is another area that’s just starting to be tapped. Sources see huge future opportunities for predictive technologies — leak detection or flood prevention, for example — as water becomes a more valuable resource amid changing climate conditions.

    • “To be able to do the predictive aspects — to know where the water is flowing, what water quality is like, and where is it going to rain so they can set up the valves to open and close for wastewater and stormwater management — it is helpful for speed but also from a preventive standpoint,” said Dean Amhaus, president and CEO of Milwaukee-based water economic development nonprofit The Water Council.

    Water education and public participation

    Public attention to water stewardship increased in the past couple of years with the prominence of government and corporate sustainability commitments. This is an opportunity for expanding public education about and participation in water solutions.

    • “There is now a better trust in education and citizen science. Students are getting involved in water testing. They have kits that are validated against the data in the laboratory. They are not only creating more data, but they are helping us to create more awareness of water,” Biswas said.

    Agriculture

    Farming’s negative environmental impact is well-known, but the topic isn’t exactly well-positioned on the public’s radar. The number of water innovations that improve farms’ sustainability, reduce their emissions and carbon footprint, and reduce their resource use is anticipated to grow. Already, there is more demand for agricultural water innovations due to more sustainability-conscious consumers or entities downstream on the supply chain, as well as the increasing prevalence of cost-effective technologies. Nutrient runoff and groundwater contamination solutions are among these innovations.

    • “I’m closely involved with a project that deals with carbon injection into the subsoil as a way to remediate water as it passes through crop roots. We’re testing this technique for improving groundwater quality,” said Dan Snow, lab director at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Water Sciences Laboratory.
    • “The nutrient [innovations] are very much in demand — trying to have more analysis of nutrients and installing sensors close to streams for monitoring,” said Saptashati “Tania” Biswas, research laboratory manager at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Water Sciences Laboratory.

    Attention shift

    The public view of “water” often centers on the tap and therefore on utilities. But the coming years will bring a greater focus on the diverse entities besides utilities that use or process water in some way and could therefore benefit from modern water technologies.

    • “In the water industry, everyone thinks innovation all about the utilities. … But you have a huge market of industrial users that have much faster adoption of technologies. They will pay for it and implement it much faster. There’s less bureaucracy,” Amhaus said.
    • “A lot of companies right here in Chicago don’t think of themselves as water companies, but they have lots of water needs. … Think of the food and beverage industry. They can use technology to meet sustainability goals and water quality goals,” Harkness said.

Centered is your cleantech news source for the Midwest

Subscribe to receive free weekday news updates



    Previous Post

    🌊 Water Tech Week: Innovators are inviting more partners into the pool

    Next Post

    GM motors into a hydrogen fuel cell agreement

    Related News

    Ohio researchers found that marine viruses could help channel carbon absorbed from the atmosphere into permanent storage on the ocean floor.

    Going viral: Marine viruses could hold a key to climate change mitigation

    by Katie Pyzyk
    July 6, 2022
    0

    Ohio researchers found that marine viruses could help channel carbon absorbed from the atmosphere into permanent storage on the ocean floor.

    The University of Kansas' Watson Library, where the KU engineering team retrofitted a chiller to use a new hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) refrigerant called Opteon XP10.

    Chill out: Kansas engineers test more environmentally friendly cooling system

    by Katie Pyzyk
    June 14, 2022
    0

    The new HFO refrigerant called Opteon XP10 is touted as potentially less ozone-depleting and bearing a lower global warming potential. 

    Next Post
    GM motors into a hydrogen fuel cell agreement

    GM motors into a hydrogen fuel cell agreement

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Centered is your cleantech news source for the Midwest

    Subscribe to receive free weekday news updates



      Trending News

      Courier app aims to transform an “antiquated space” in industrial supply chains

      May 11, 2020

      Renewable raw materials making their way into consumer products

      June 2, 2020

      On bootstrapping and angels: Insight on getting funding as a Midwest-based tech startup

      May 7, 2020

      Popular Topics

      • Green Tech Innovation News
      • Transportation News
      • Electric Vehicle (EV) News
      • Green Energy News
      • Environment News
      • Water News
      • Batteries
      • Sustainable Agriculture News
      • Solar News
      • Energy Efficiency
      • Climate News
      • Agtech News
      • Smart Cities News
      • Decarbonization News
      • Recycling News
      • Electrical Grid News
      • Utility News
      • Hydrogen News
      • Wind News
      • Biofuel News
      • Nanotech News
      • Aviation News
      • Biomass Energy News
      • Robotics News
      • Energy Storage News
      • Pollution News
      • Nuclear News
      • Hydropower News
      • Commercial / Shipping News
      • Climate Tech News
      • Fuel Cell News
      • Smart Meter News
      • Internet of Things (IoT) News
      Centered



      © 2022 Centered. All Rights Reserved.

      Centered is a publication of the Energy News Network, in partnership with the Illinois Science and Energy Innovation Foundation.

      • Privacy
      • Terms of Use
      No Results
      View all Results
      • About
      • Top Stories
      • Topics
        • Green Energy News
        • Transportation News
        • Sustainable Agriculture News
        • Electrical Grid News
        • Environment News
        • Smart Cities News
        • Climate News
        • Green Tech Innovation News
      • Contact

      Centered. All Rights Reserved.

      Centered is your cleantech news source for the Midwest

      Subscribe to receive a free daily roundup of underreported technology stories from around the region.



        Contact Us