A Low Carbon Water Industry in 2050 - Environment Agency

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There is a better metric of success: the carbon footprint per litre of legitimate water need met. At first this may seem an odd construction. The current sustainability metric, embodied in the Water UK sustainability reports 1 , is carbon footprint per litre of water produced. The problem with this latter definition is that it suffers from the same problem as talking about the energy efficiency of each thing we purchase. The carbon footprint per litre of water produced can go down as overall emissions go up because we all consume more water. The way out of this dilemma is to bring a similar pressure on reduction in water use, making sure water consumed truly meets a “legitimate” human need. This calls for a partnership between the utilities and consumers, with the utilities agreeing to supply water with the lowest feasible carbon footprint per litre and the consumers agreeing to use this water in ways that focus on meeting legitimate human needs with the fewest litres of water. Introduction of Code for Sustainable Homes levels 5 and 6 will provide pressure in this direction, but there is no substitute for consumers agreeing to their role of increasing the efficiency with which they use water. A feasible target, a wedge, is 100 litres of water per person day as a national average for domestic use, which is about a 33% decrease on current use 1 . With a similar reduction in non-domestic water uses, through improvements in industrial efficiency, there would be a 33% decrease in the carbon footprint for treatment and distribution. This will not affect the emissions associated with offices, transport, etc, but could result in a 10% to 15% reduction in overall carbon footprint. Catchment scale responsibility The utilities have traditionally served as backstops for practices that load pollutants into receiving waters. Do we have a problem with soil being eroded into the rivers Let the utilities remove it from the water. Do we have a problem with microbes being carried into aquifers under animal farms Let the utilities treat the water to kill the microbes. This is both immensely wasteful and inequitable. The carbon footprint of cleaning water after it has been contaminated is almost always significantly higher than preventing the contaminant from entering the water in the first place. The embodied energy and carbon of maintaining a riparian buffer is well below that of reducing turbidity at the treatment facility and provides a number of other benefits (preservation of habitat, the social amenity of an un-eroded riverbank). Catchment-scale policies that distribute the burdens and responsibilities across the residents of a catchment are not simple, but they have been accomplished in the States and there will be increasing pressure in the U.K. as the Water Framework Directive is seen as an adjunct to climate change policy. Given that the carbon footprint of treatment is approximately 40% of the overall footprint of the water industry 1 and with an expected load reduction of 20% to 30% using best management practices, this approach is a wedge that will bring a 10% reduction. Regulatory reform This is likely to be a controversial topic. One of the great successes of the engineering and environmental communities has been the improvement of water quality and the accompanying benefits to human health. And yet, with the increasing sophistication of monitoring instruments and epidemiological studies, the regulatory limits on waterborne contaminants have become more stringent. We have moved from the realm of avoiding threats to human health rooted in historical experience to increasingly speculative improvements rooted in the mathematics of risk assessment. Climate change policy calls this process into question. The efficiency of contaminant removal goes down as the level of contaminant goes down. The carbon footprint of removing the last 20% of a contaminant is significantly higher than that of removing the 26 A Low Carbon Water Industry in 2050
first 20%. At some point a balance must be met between the threat of climate change and the threat from the contaminants being regulated. Such a balancing act was difficult enough when society considered risks from microbes and disinfection byproducts, both of which were under the control of the utilities and their regulators. The new balancing act will require regulatory reform, because institutions such as the Environment Agency, Defra and Ofwat were established with particular remits that did not include a balancing of climate change and water-borne risks. The newly created Department of Energy and Climate Change does not have a remit to consider the risk to human health if reductions in carbon emissions by the water industry reduce controls on contaminants. Someone needs to perform this balancing, but at present it is not clear that any one authority has the power or incentive to supply this balance. Decarbonized grid Just as a rising tide lifts all ships, a decarbonized grid reduces the carbon footprints of all consumers. It is the key to the water industry meeting the 80% reduction target. In fact, it is hard to imagine the target being met without decarbonisation of the grid, given that renewables generation by the utilities is unlikely to rise above 25% in the time needed for the 80% reduction. At first, this seems an area in which the water utilities have little influence. However, they do have two strategies here. They can produce renewable energy themselves and feed that energy back into the grid when they don’t need it for their own operations. Renewable Obligations Certificates provide a financial incentive for them to do so, even at the currently low price of £26 per MWh. They can also support efforts to bring about decarbonisation by lobbying as consumers for national renewable energy portfolios or by supporting an increasingly stringent capand-trade system that will push carbon prices above £100 per tonne. This is the level at which technology change is likely to happen; the currently much lower prices are being absorbed as operating costs in the energy system. With calls for increased carbon costs, the water utilities must be ready to join the energy utilities to ensure costs are borne equitably. It is likely that the costs of water and sewage will rise, so Ofwat must be brought into the discussion to re-think a strategy that has focused on providing inexpensive water, rather than providing water that reflects the environmental costs of its greenhouse gas emissions. Closing comments Technological innovation will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the water industry. More efficient pumps, better control of pipe sizes to reduce pressure losses and improved treatment methods, all go towards reducing the carbon footprint per litre of water. However, solutions must include significant social reform. Cheap energy rooted in fossil fuels got us to where we are today and our institutions and practices reflect these past realities. Technological innovation must be set within a framework of reform in which all who affect water quality (as sources of contaminants), all who consume water, all who regulate water and all who provide it become an integrated system in which responsibilities fall equitably and effectively. Changes in the system of water protection and provision will provide half of the needed wedges for a solution, with a larger societal effort to decarbonise the grid providing the other half. A Low Carbon Water Industry in 2050 27
Page 1 and 2: A Low Carbon Water Industry in 2050
Page 3 and 4: Evidence at the Environment Agency
Page 5 and 6: • make appropriate and effective
Page 7 and 8: 1 Introduction This introduction su
Page 9 and 10: Infrastructure Implications Regardi
Page 11 and 12: and with this some of the responsib
Page 13 and 14: directly into the gas distribution
Page 15 and 16: that ensures that costs are recover
Page 17 and 18: emain very difficult and often unec
Page 19 and 20: Final Effluent Uses By 2050, consen
Page 21 and 22: In 2010 the water industry will fin
Page 23 and 24: • SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainag
Page 25 and 26: this will result in the emergence o
Page 27 and 28: e diverted to communities to reduce
Page 29 and 30: Figure 2 - Technology/Interventions
Page 31: provision and sewage treatment are
Page 35 and 36: 6 A Low Carbon Water Industry by 20
Page 37 and 38: However, energy efficiencies are be
Page 39 and 40: Conclusion As can be seen from this
Page 41 and 42: The 2050 low-carbon vision The wate
Page 43 and 44: efficient high tech processes to op
Page 45 and 46: Figure 2: The ‘tipping point’ c
Page 47: List of abbreviations AMP Asset Man

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