GineersNow Engineering Magazine September 2016 Issue No 007

oth rapidly developing and
developed countries.
Access to water is a key
factor in the growth of entire
economies, cities and many
different industries. Today,
on a worldwide scale, barely
2 percent of wastewater
is reused: that remaining
98 percent of wastewater
represents a valuable and
readily available resource that
we must tap into. Wastewater
also has the tremendous
advantage of being available
where water is needed. The
whole point of the circular
economy is to give back value
to things that had lost their
value, which of course applies
to water and wastewater.
When scarcity strikes, the
circular economy allows
economic players not only to
secure their supplies, but also
to reduce their expenditure
and create additional
revenue. This approach does
not arise exclusively from
environmental concerns; for
the regions, it is a factor in
their development and for
businesses, it is a source of
competitiveness and wealth.
Last year Veolia unveiled its
energy efficient desalination
pilot plant for Masdar in
Abu Dhabi. How much
emphasis does Veolia put into
desalination technologies and
why? Veolia has always been
very active in developing new
technologies in all disciplines
of water treatment; you
could even say that it is a
part of our DNA. Particularly
in desalination, we have
constantly innovated over the
years on design and processes
involved in desalination
plants to improve their
efficiency and reliability,
and cope with changing
economic parameters and
physical conditions, especially
in the Gulf. One of the great
advantages Veolia has to
ascertain its own design, and
the suitability of the whole
conception of a desalination
plant in a defined technical
and economic environment,
is its dual competence and
experience as designer and
builder in addition to operator.
Veolia is also a leader in all
desalination technologies,
be it thermal or physical,
which allows a fully objective
approach towards our clients
to put forth the most suitable
solution to address their
specific needs and objectives.
We have pioneered energyefficient
hybrid desalination,
which combines Multi Effect
Distillation (MED) and Reverse
Osmosis (RO) to optimize
electricity use and reduce
production costs.
We are very involved in
the coming challenges of
desalination that are linked
to environmental protection
and energy savings. These are
two major components that
still have to be improved for
the ever growing desalination
demand in water-scarce
regions. That is why, when we
found out about Masdar’s bid
for the development of new
desalination technologies, we
applied without hesitation as
we were eager to implement
ongoing developments
on several process parts.
Many developments will be
coming in the near future as
innovation is in the genetics
of Veolia. Most of these
developments converge to
better power efficiency and
at the same time, to extend
the lifetime of the plant.
Contributing to building ever
more reliable and efficient
desalination plants is one of
our main drivers.
ADVICE TO THE YOUNG
ENGINEERS
GN: Please give advice and
words of wisdom about
water and wastewater to our
young global audience. What
would you like to tell to the
millennials? Any inspiring
words that you can share?
Froment: Water treatment
and more widely
Environmental Engineering
contribute directly to creating
a better world tomorrow and
are necessarily attractive to
young engineers wanting
to take an active role in this
task. With its “Resourcing the
World” motto, I believe Veolia
is definitely contributing to
this aspiration of making
a better use of the Planet
limited resources particularly
as the population develops.
SEPTEMBER 2016
Clean Water Technologies
11