Intel's Video on Reusing Water in Fab Facilities

Intel has a nice video with 19,000 views after a month on water reuse in its wafer fab facilities.

Published on May 12, 2015
Meet Geetha Shankar, Environmental Health & Safety Engineer at Intel. Her job is to manage water treatment facilities that recycle and purify the water used during the manufacturing of silicon wafers within Intel Fabs.

City water is used to clean silicon wafer during the production process at Intel, that water is then filtered back to drinking water standards and re-used, or filtered to gray water standards and re-used throughout the community in a variety of forms. Geetha and her team insure that the water treatment facilities run correctly, thereby providing the necessary water for production while also providing usable water back to the community in which Intel is a part of.

Relationship between Power and Fresh Water, Desalination Plant scenario

MIT's Technology Review has an article on San Diego's current state of the art desalination plant.

Desalination out of Desperation
Severe droughts are forcing researchers to rethink how technology can increase the supply of fresh water.

By David Talbot on December 16, 2014

One of the graphics shown is the amount of power used to produce a cubic meter (264 gals) of water.

What the article doesn't mention is the amount of water consumed to generate power in San Diego.  The DOE has a paper you can check out on water use in thermoelectric power generation.  67% of SD power comes for natural gas plants.  24% renewable

“Each kWh of thermoelectric generation requires approximately 25 gallons of waterd, primarily used for cooling purposes – a 500 MW power plant would use approximately 300 million gallons of water per day. However, power plants also use water for operation of pollution control devices such as flue gas desulfurization (FGD) technology as well as for ash handling, wastewater treatment, and wash water. When discussing water and thermoelectric generation, it is important to distinguish between water use and water consumption. Water use represents the total water withdrawal from a source and water consumption represents the amount of that withdrawal that is not returned to the source.”

— http://www.netl.doe.gov/File%20Library/Research/Energy%20Analysis/Publications/PowerPlantWaterMgtR-D-Final-1.pdf

Here is a graphic to show the areas of water use in thermoelectric power plant.

For an example of thinking about water use in the data center check out this Google video on the use of gray water.

Remembering a Great Thought Leader in DC Industry, Olivier Sanche - a water well was built

4 years ago at this time of year we lost one of great thought leaders way before his time was to depart us.  Olivier Sanche was a dear friend and passionate about data centers and the environment.  One of things Olivier's family did in memory of Olivier is sponsor a water well in Mali.

It is in this desert area that the well bearing Olivierʼs name has been built because ” Water is the Source of Life”.

Here is some background on the well that Karine Sanche, Olivier's wife shared.

-  The well was Bernard Sancheʼs idea ( Olivierʻs dad) because he wanted to honor Olivier with something useful and that would last.

-  He shared this idea with Olivierʼs mom, his brother and myself and we all agreed that instead of having people bring flowers to Olivierʼs funeral, we would have a fundraiser for the well instead and we ended up raising 4500 euros ( almost 6000 dollars).

-  The idea of building a well came to my father-in-law because he had been doing humanitarian work in the Northern Mali since 1984. His associationʼs main goal was to help the Touaregs ( nomad populations) and he knew that one of their biggest problems is having access to drinking water. In an area ( the size of Belgium) called Adeil.hoc, some people must travel over 18 miles to get water to drink, to cook and to give to their herds. It is in this desert area that the well bearing Olivierʼs name has been built because ” Water is the Source of Life”.

-  The exact location of the well has been decided by a local mayor ( the mayor of Abindnage) because he is a liaison with the association; this location was found to best serve the local populations. It was a difficult project because of the wellʼs location which is at 2 days of the nearest town meaning that all the building supplies ( gravel, ciment, steel, the molds ( form work) for reinforced concrete etc...) had to be transported through the desert.The well is 72 feet deep and has several “bowls” so several herds can drink at the same time.

-  Olivier was closely following his dadʼs efforts to help the Touaregs in Mali. These efforts include the construction and/or repair of 180 wells, the construction of schools and infirmaries in the bush, as well as the training of several bush nurses. The association also bought a truck to transport feed from Gao ( over 310 miles away).

Here are a few more pictures showing the construction of the well.

Doodle 4 Google 2014 winner draws a water purification system

June 9, 2014 the Doodle 4 Google 2014 winner was on the home page.  All of you google search users saw it.  For those Bing users, this is what was on the page.  What is it?  It is a water purification thing drawn by 11 year old Audrey Zhang when she learned not everyone has clean water.

"To make the world a better place, I invented a transformative water purifier. It takes in dirty and polluted water from rivers, lakes, and even oceans, then massively transforms the water into clean, safe and sanitary water, when humans and animals drink this water, they will live a healthier life."
- Audrey Zhang, 11

Here is a video for the contest.

The Performance of Water Based Cooling Systems have Problems Because of Bad Words, No Don't Listen to Gwyneth Paltrow

I like discussing water in relation to data centers.  So I pay attention to when water shows up in the news.  Didn’t expect this one though.  Water’s performance is affected by bad words according to Gwyneth Paltrow.

I am fascinated by the growing science behind the energy of consciousness and its effects on matter. I have long had Dr. Emoto's coffee table book on how negativity changes the structure of water, how the molecules behave differently depending on the words or music being expressed around it. Below, Dr. Sadeghi explores further.

The Dr. Sadeghi says.

In his experiments, Emoto poured pure water into vials labeled with negative phrases like "I hate you" or "fear." After 24 hours, the water was frozen, and no longer crystallized under the microscope: It yielded gray, misshapen clumps instead of beautiful lace-like crystals. In contrast, Emoto placed labels that said things like "I Love You," or "Peace" on vials of polluted water, and after 24 hours, they produced gleaming, perfectly hexagonal crystals.

So maybe what’s wrong with the performance in mechanical systems is the staff doesn’t spend enough time saying “I love you” and “Peace."

Gwyneth spoke at the Code Conference and said bad social media comments are like war.

Green Beret slams Gwyneth Paltrow: ‘Twitter hate is not war’