Bøker i Synthesis Lectures on Sustainable Development-serien

Over the past half century, reverse osmosis (RO) has grown from a nascent niche technology into the most versatile and effective desalination and advanced water treatment technology available. However, there remain certain challenges for improving the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of RO desalination plants in various applications. In low-pressure RO applications, both capital (CAPEX) and operating (OPEX) costs are largely influenced by product water recovery, which is typically limited by mineral scale formation. In seawater applications, recovery tends to be limited by the salinity limits on brine discharge and cost is dominated by energy demand. The combination of water scarcity and sustainability imperatives, in many locations, is driving system designs towards minimal and zero liquid discharge (M/ZLD) for inland brackish water, municipal and industrial wastewaters, and even seawater desalination. Herein, we review the basic principles of RO processes, the state-of-the-art for RO membranes, modules and system designs as well as methods for concentrating and treating brines to achieve MLD/ZLD, resource recovery and renewable energy powered desalination systems. Throughout, we provide examples of installations employing conventional and some novel approaches towards high recovery RO in a range of applications from brackish groundwater desalination to oil and gas produced water treatment and seawater desalination.

Produced water contributes to the largest volume waste stream associated with oil and gas (O&G) exploration and production (E&P) operations. It is usually a complex mixture of inorganics and organics that is formed underground and brought to the surface during O&G production. Traditionally, produced water has been considered as a waste to the O&G industry. The conventional management strategies include disposal (typically by injection into depleted wells or permitted disposal wells), recycle (direct reuse within the E&P operation), and reuse (treatment and reuse offsite for food crop irrigation, livestock watering or industrial use). The O&G industry is going through a paradigm shift, where scarcity of water, economics of water management, declining oil costs, and increasing focus on environmental and ecological stewardship are shifting the focus toward integrated water management in E&P operations. Water is no longer a problem to be delegated to a third-party disposal or treatment vendor, but is becoming a cornerstone of O&G production. In this review, we summarize produced water characteristics, regulations and management options, produced water treatment fundamentals, and a detailed discussion of process equipment and advantages/disadvantages of currently available treatment processes. These results in peer-reviewed publications could provide a guide for the selection of appropriate technologies based on the desired application. Major research efforts in the future could focus on the optimization of current technologies and use of combined treatment processes of produced water in order to comply with reuse and discharge limits, under more stringent environmental regulations.

This book is an introduction to the many challenges of sustainability. The first half of the book develops a framework for sustainability thinking. The second half considers application areas and personal and corporate responses to sustainability challenges. Basic facts, figures, and information related to sustainability are presented in a way that should convey to readers a sense of scale for the many sustainability challenges we face. Throughout, the end-of-chapter projects and discussion questions focus on tradeoffs among competing goods and the ethical and social implications of decisions related to sustainability. This book was written for a university seminar course on sustainability but could be used in other small-group discussion settings. It is intended to be easy to read but hard to digest.

To address the complexity of today's global challenges requires new ways of thinking. The idea that technology is always the best, maybe only, approach worth taking needs to be reconsidered. Sustainable approaches must also draw from non technological areas. To that end, this book introduces the idea of just technology by rephrasing the idea of just war in order to include concepts of sustainability in future engineering design. The book begins by defining justice and relating these definitions to technology. This is followed by illustrating several notions of sustainability and the awareness that needs to be focused on societal challenges due to the finite resources available in the natural world. Four questions are enumerated to be addressed in order to qualify as a just use of technology: (1) Is the harm being inflicted by the problem on the community, the environment, or humanity, in general lasting, serious, and certain? (2) Have all alternative solutions been investigated first, including non-technology-based solutions? Technology is the last choice, not the first! (3) Do we have confidence in the successful implementation of this technological solution? and (4) Is the potential harm from the technological solution potentially worse than the issue being addressed? Have all unintended consequences been considered that could arise from the technological solution? The book ends with a description for implementing these questions into the traditional engineering design process. Examples are included for reflection and help to understand how the design process proceeds.