The Great American Algae Rush is in full swing.

Dozens of companies and hundreds of scientists are working hard to engineer algae to produce green — literally and figuratively — fuel.

The endeavor is at the crossroads of energy and science, and the trend is spreading worldwide.Why? Because some algae strains can produce 10 or more times more fuel per acre than the corn that is used to make ethanol, or the soybeans used to make biodiesel.

Better still, you can grow algae on arid land and in brackish water, which avoids competing with food production, unlike the corn and soybeans that coat much of the Midwest’s farmland.

Best of all: algae consume carbon dioxide, combating greenhouse gas emissions.

But a new profile of the industry in the New York Times demonstrates that this technology has its share of pitfalls.

For one, efforts to engineer and manipulate the organisms has environmentalists concerned because algae are the base of the marine food chain.

For example: Screw up and over-engineer a strain, and suddenly you have an organism that’s out of whack with the biosphere, stripping water of its oxygen and harming fish — and maybe humans — in the process.

Source: Simply Green

Companies will increasingly have to be established in coastal areas owing to the desperate shortage of water in South Africa.

A new report by the international McKinsey consultancy says government needs to make an annual capital investment of $365m (about R2.8bn) in its national water infrastructure. If it does not do so, South Africa could experience a 30% shortage of water by 2030.

Johan van Rooyen, director of water resources planning at the Department of Water Affairs, says government is intensely aware of the situation and is working hard to avoid future water problems.

He points out that it is important for water to be used more economically. South Africans need to learn to employ it more effectively. Consumers in the metropolitan areas could, for instance, with little effort use up to 15% less.

The aim is to save more, but that is only a start. Some water borne toilet systems, for example, use up to 20 litres of water per flush. That’s 20 litres of water that needs to be re-purified. Toilets that use five litres work just as well, Van Rooyen points out.

Linda Page, spokesperson for the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, says the McKinsey report was compiled with the cooperation of various parties, including the department.

These include bodies from the private sector, such as SABMiller and Coca-Cola.

The McKinsey report indicates that, if South Africa experiences a water shortage, various industries – like the industrial, agricultural and mining sectors – will have to compete with each other for the available water sources.

This could considerably elevate water prices, Van Rooyen points out. He says it could result in industries’ increasingly having to settle at the coast.

Sea water would then be substantially cheaper to desalinate and use than fresh water.

Source: Fin24

Sometimes, in our struggling to apply sustainability strategy to things of industry — electricity in particular — we forget about protecting the simpler, more basic stuff, like water.

Based on what I’m hearing recently from some of the largest high-tech companies, this isn’t an oversight we’ll be able to tolerate for much longer. I’d be willing to lay odds that you will start hearing just as much about water management during 2010 as you’ll hear about the smart grid and carbon management.

Two examples from just the past week:

• Hewlett-Packard has come out big as a sponsor of Summit on the Summit: Kiliminjaro, a celebrity-driven climb that is intended to raise awareness of the “global clean water crisis.” For every view of videos on its Summit on the Summit Facebook page, HP will contribute 100 liters of clean water. It’s a unique example of how you can use social media to promote a worthy cause AND your brand at the same time.
• On the more tactical side, IBM just announced three different relationships illustrating how its resource management software and technology can be applied to the water problem. The first relationship is with the Lower Colorado River Authority, a public non-profit that manages water supply and other resources across Central and South Texas. The utility is specifically using IBM Maximo Asset Management software along with a mobile application that was developed by one of its business partners, Syclo. Here’s more information. In a second agreement (worth $14.5 million to IBM), the company is designing an asset management system for Power and Water Corp. in Sydney Australia. The arrangement will focus on how to balance the utility’s very diverse geographic territory, which ranges from desert to tropic climates. The final deal is with the Fukuoka District Waterworks Agency in Japan, which plans to use IBM technology to help design a system for increasing the availability of the usable water supply and to improve water quality in communities across its district. Among the district’s assets are the Seawater Desalination Plant, which supports 2.3 million residents. Here’s more information about the system.

Source: Smart Planet