The Cost of Copper
The United States has some of the most stringent environmental regulations in the world. Enforcement is also not lacking. When other countries in less developed places don’t have this level of protection, their industries will have a significant advantage. In spite of a high level of protection when it comes to the environment, it is almost impossible to get permits for new logging, oil drilling, mining, or other similar activities to produce the raw materials that we all need and use every day. New Logic has been working with a new proposed copper mine in Northern Minnesota who have been running the gauntlet of litigation and permitting pitfalls. We pilot tested for this project ten years ago and demonstrated that any effluent produced could be handled safely and produce very clean water for discharge. But still after all this time and $100M USD in permitting costs, the mine is still not able to start.
Even though there are vast resources here domestically, because it is almost impossible to harvest them, we rely on other countries for basic commodities that we need. This includes Cobalt from the Congo where child labor is used and rare earth metals from China who could decide to blockade these at any time. Russia is one of the biggest Nickel producers. We get copper from South America. Copper is also produced in Zambia by a Chinese owned mine where there are very little if any labor and environmental regulations. There have been many examples of mining disasters where acidic tailings ponds have failed. The Mariana dam disaster in 2015 in Brazil occurred when a tailings dam failed and destroyed a nearby town and killed 19 people. Three years later, another tailings dam at the Córrego do Feijao iron mine in Brazil failed and the mudflow killed 270 people. The list goes on and on.
One month ago, a copper mine tailings dam in Zambia owned by Sino-Metals Leach Zambia failed. This time nobody was killed by the flooding, but 50 million Liters of acidic waste flowed into the Kafue River. Locals report that the birds have gone and the river is completely dead with no fish left. The Kafue river had provided drinking water and sustained fishing and farming for 12 million people or about 60% of the population of Zambia. Authorities then dumped 600 tons of lime into the river to alter the pH. Zambia owes China about $4B dollars and has sold much of its mineral resources as a way of paying debt. The company that experienced this dam failure was given fine of $9,700.
When mining copper, sulfuric acid is used to leach the metal out of the crushed ore. After the copper is retrieved from the acid leach, this effluent is normally just stored in large ponds. New Logic’s VSEP has been used many times to treat and purify acid waste like this. Instead of using the acid once and then storing it for decades, VSEP can filter and recycle the acidic wastewater. By doing this, the cost of acid production is reduced and the need for storage ponds is eliminated.
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
If you are engineering something that has been done a million times, it’s a pretty safe bet that there won’t be any problems. You can just take out the book and copy what others have done and you can avoid the mistakes that others have made. But, anytime you are engineering on the cutting edge and are doing something for the first time, it is not so easy. You can use standard formulas and templates for engineering, but this will not cover all of the what ifs. The fact is you don’t know what you don’t’ know. You need to find out, often the hard way.
This was the case for the Tacoma Narrow bridge built in 1940. A new bridge design was settled on that was sleek looking and less expensive. The original design was to cost $11M and the new sleek design only cost $6M, a huge savings. Rather than incorporating a truss design for the undercarriage, solid steel I-beams were used to simplify the design. But the open truss design would allow wind to pass through the structure, whereas the solid beam design blocked the wind passage and made the structure like a sail on a boat.
The bridge connected the Olympic Peninsula to the mainland of Washington State which was previously served by a ferry system. The bridge was known as “Galloping Gertie” and would move even when it was first built. It was an example of a catastrophic failure of engineering. Only four months after opening on the morning of November 7th 1940, the bridge collapsed during a wind event with speeds of 42 miles (67 km) per hour. The 2800 foot span went into a series of torsional oscillations and the amplitude of these steadily increased until the convulsions tore loose suspension cables. The roadway broke up and fell into the Puget Sound. As a result of this engineering failure, the study of aerodynamic forces is now standard practice for bridge design and the use of solid plate girders has been abandoned for suspension bridges.
This is the common story for engineering risk takers. Sometimes bad things can happen, especially when it involves vibration. New Logic has also gone through the process of cutting edge engineering design. All mechanical engineers are taught in school that vibration is bad and must be avoided at all costs. With vibration, you can get runaway resonance that can lead to structure failure. While resonance and vibration can hold many valuable benefits, there are risks as well. Brad Culkin, a founder of New Logic, knew about these benefits and designed a vibrating membrane filter known as VSEP. The benefits would lead to the expansion in the use of membranes for very difficult applications. But at the beginning, the new design was unproven and we did not know what we did not know. The VSEP design evolved over time and we encountered unforeseen flaws. Eventually, these were corrected and now 38 years later, the design is mature and proven. So if you can harness vibration in the right way, many good things can happen.
Recycling Water at a Plastic Recycling Plant
Polyethylene Terephthalate, or PET, is one of the most common plastics used for beverage containers. These plastic bottles are recycled all over the world and there are thousands of small recycling companies that process the used bottles to recycle them into polyester materials that can be used to make carpet, clothing, sheets, or other materials.
One of these PET plastic recycling companies is PetStar located in Mexico. They process about 5.5 billion plastic bottles per year. Due to water scarcity and a need to improve sustainability, they explored options to recycle their wastewater from the recycling process. They ended up installing a system this year from a large multi-national water treatment company.
The process first involves flocculation in a clarifier where polymer is added to enhance the separation of suspended solids. Then the clarified water goes to an immersed MF membrane bioreactor (MBR) system. Then the MF filtrate is treated with a conventional spiral RO system and sanitized using UV. This process involves three steps using different technologies. It also involve the addition of expensive polymer chemicals during flocculation. Finally, the size of the plant is large with both the open air clarifier and the MBR reactor taking up a large footprint. This system treats 550 m3/day and recovers about 67% of the volume as clean water that can be recycled.
That is one way to treat PET effluent for recycling. A system this large will require the client to become water treatment experts and to dedicate staff to the operation. New Logic also pilot tested this project with what we believe is a superior option. The effluent is first screened with a 140 mesh screen. Then this raw effluent is fed directly to a VSEP RO system. Except for screening, this is a single step treatment option with a very small footprint. In addition, no chemicals would be used so the operating cost would be much lower. During pilot testing, we achieved an average flux rate of 25 gallons per square foot per day (42.5 LMH) using a RO membrane. We achieved a much higher 83% recovery of clean water for recycling.
For whatever reason, our equipment was not selected this time, but the reason must not have been the cost or performance comparison. The most common method of treatment is polymer addition for sewer discharge. But this is wasteful and expensive. It is important to change the mindset about always using polymer for wastewater treatment. But for our system, VSEP performs much better without it and does not have limits for TSS.
If the purpose of your company is to recycle plastic, wouldn’t it make sense to recycle your water?
Playing Catch-Up with PFAS in Europe
Europe has been all in on climate change and greenhouse gases. They have enacted draconian rules and regulations to address this perceived threat to human health and well-being. However, there are many much more acute problems that have not gotten enough attention. Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, or PFAS, are being addressed by environmental agencies around the world. But the problem of PFAS chemicals being found everywhere in the environment, including rain water, has been around for a very long time and has only recently received attention. There have been hundreds or thousands to academic studies on greenhouse gases, but very little scientific work has been done to fully evaluate the potential danger that PFAS represents to human health. It is suspected that these can cause cancer and other health issues, but this is only preliminary suggestions. Nobody knows at what concentration of PFAS this can occur or even which of the many PFAS chemicals are a problem. There are dozens of PFAS chemicals that have migrated everywhere in the environment and are found in drinking water for many municipalities. However, the EPA is only going to regulate five of these in their upcoming rule.
The subject of PFAS contamination in the environment has finally made its way into the public debate in France. The French National Assembly has passed a law that bans the manufacture, import, export, and marketing of products containing PFAS chemicals including cosmetics, footwear, consumer textiles, and ski wax. However, it bans only certain products and others are still allowed to use PFAS such as Teflon lined frying pans which have been banned in the United States for a long time. The law will take effect in 2026 Currently the EU legislation requires drinking water to be analyzed for PFAS. The second part of the new French legislation requires the French government to make a plan for mandatory control of PFAS in drinking water and to regulate the discharge of effluent with PFAS. The plan for regulation will focus on Trifluoroacetic Acid (TFA) primarily. TFA is not a PFAS chemical that the US EPA is regulating.
Fines and taxes are a common way in Europe to penalize certain activity. For example, there are taxes and fines on greenhouse gas producers and on tech companies. This activity generates a lot of revenue for the governments. The third part of the new French law is to estimate the cost of removing PFAS from the environment and then require companies that manufacture these chemicals to pay a polluter’s tax. The tax will be set at one Euro per gram of PFAS chemical that is measured. The European Federation of municipal water supplies are strongly advocating stricter rules on PFAS use and discharge. These municipal drinking water providers have no control of PFAS entering the environment, but will be the ones who eventually need to deal with the problem and remove it from drinking water supplies.
Manure Headache Management
For thousands of years while society was founded on an agricultural based economy, small family farms would operate in a sustainable way that did not impact the nearby ecology. Farmers would raise crops that would feed their own livestock. The manure from the livestock would be used to fertilize the crops that were grown and this provided a very nice cycle of life that was very efficient with little impact on the environment around the farm. With the advent of the industrial revolution and the resulting urbanization of the economy, farming and livestock raising became more and more concentrated to supply food to the growing populations in concentrated cities. Over the last 100 years, this concentration of city populations has dramatically increased. As a result, livestock breeding operations have grown exponentially as well. This has changed the dynamic when it comes to the impact on the environment. Huge livestock operations now need to consider the effects of manure disposal and land application. Too much manure in too small of a space can cause many problems. Because cows and pigs eat plant materials for food, the main constituents found in manure include the main nutrients plants consume to grow. These include Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium (NPK). Common inorganic manufactured fertilizer includes these three components as well. But, applying too much of the nutrients on the land can have adverse effects.
High levels of Nitrogen in surface waters can stimulate the growth of algae which can then block the light to deeper levels of the water limiting the growth of other types of plant life. Phosphorous, can also be problematic if applied in excess to agricultural lands. Too much Phosphorous can lead to increased weed growth and stunted crop plant growth. It will also decrease the plants ability to uptake Zinc and Iron which are essential to proper development. Too much Phosphorous also harms beneficial fungi in the soil that helps the plant to absorb water and nutrients. Phosphorus does not move as well as Nitrogen and so an accumulation of Phosphorous can easily occur with repeated applications of manure. There is no level at which Potassium becomes toxic to plants. But when plants get too much potassium, the absorption of other nutrients is inhibited, which leads to the symptoms caused by the deficiency of these nutrients.
Because of the need to use large areas of land for disposal of manure, hauling costs can be high. Treating raw manure with VSEP RO can solve the problem of having too much volume. New Logic recently conducted a full-scale pilot trial at a dairy in Colorado. The objective was to volume reduce the manure to save costs on hauling. The VSEP concentrate was then trucked to a local anaerobic digester. The VSEP RO system was followed by two stages of conventional spiral RO for polishing. The results showed that almost any level of Nitrogen and Phosphorous removal is possible with multiple passes.
The Fluoride Debate
Fluoride has been added to drinking water for 75 years. It is suggested that this has resulted in 25% fewer cavities since the addition of Floride is intended to remineralize and protect the teeth. Bacteria can combine with sugar present on the tooth enamel. This combination creates an acid byproduct that dissolves Calcium and other minerals weakening the enamel layer. Fluoride promotes remineralization by combining with Calcium and Phosphate to create a new surface that is acid resistant.
Fluoride is added to tap water, but it is also found in many other products and is added to toothpaste as well. Different Tea products are made from the Camellia Sinensis plant. When the plant grows it absorbs Fluoride from the soil and accumulates it in the leaves. As a result, tea can have as much as 6 times the Fluoride found in tap water. Public health services recommend about 1 mg/L as an optimum addition to drinking water. Fluoride is also found as a bioaccumulator in fruit juices, crab, fish, chicken, and rice.
Many studies have been conducted with mixed results. There is no lethal dose for fluoride, but there are some health concerns if too much is consumed. The biggest worry is that the babies of pregnant women may have depressed IQs resulting from Fluoride. One anti-Fluoride organization, The International Association of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, asserts that consumption of Fluoride can lead to acne, cardiovascular problems, diabetes, low fertility, thyroid dysfunction, lower IQ, and immune system complications. That certainly sounds bad and some have questioned the format of the study leading to these conclusions. You would think that by now and after 75 years of use, more definitive studies would have been done. Partly why this has not happened is that Fluoride skeptics have been labeled science deniers.
Some toothpaste can have 1500 mg/L of Fluoride and if swallowed this could lead to serious health problems. That is why there are warnings about swallowing toothpaste. The State of Utah has become the first state to ban the use of fluoride in drinking water. This came after some new studies were conducted that concluded Fluoride in drinking water leads to lower IQ levels in children. Some were questioning the need for the addition to drinking water because if people brush their teeth, they would get more than enough Fluoride and would not be ingesting it. Some cities and municipalities have also banned Fluoride. But Utah is the first to do the statewide. In 2019, a Fluoride dosing pump failed in Sandy Utah and released massive amounts of Fluoride into the drinking water and hundreds of residents got sick. This also was an impetus for the new Utah regulation. If you are told that swallowing toothpaste requires immediate medical attention, how is any ingestion OK?
El Paso Converts Sewage into Drinking Water
There have been some examples of municipalities treating municipal sewage for beneficial purposes. This is known as reclaimed water. It is very common for reclaimed water to be used for non-potable uses such as irrigation water for golf course or cooling water for power plants. In more limited cases, the treated wastewater is made clean enough to indirectly put back into the drinking water supply. In Orange County in California, this water is reinjected into the aquifer. More and more municipalities are taking this approach as their existing clean water sources become stretched. But there are few cases where the treated water is directly put into the drinking water storage supplies. Singapore has done this for many years. The international space station also has a system to recycle water in this way.
El Paso Texas is located in a very hot and dry area with limited sources of clean water. Also, the population has been steadily growing. El Paso has one of the largest inland brackish water desalination plants that use membranes to filter salty groundwater. So they are familiar with the safety of membrane filtration. The city has been using RO membrane filtered water for many years. El Paso has also discharged clean treated water into the Rio Grande river since the 1940s. This river is a source of drinking water for towns downstream. So in a sense, there has been indirect recycling of treated sewage for decades.
El Paso Water is now spending ~$300 million USD to build an advanced water purification facility that will convert reclaimed treated sewage into fresh drinking water. Located in the Chihuahuan desert, El Paso receives its water from river water, fresh ground water, and desalinated groundwater. The new facility will purify water that has already been extensively treated at the Bustamante Wastewater Treatment Plant. This facility will be able to produce 10 million gallon per day of water to supplement the city’s drinking water supplies.
The advanced purification process is the same as has been done for other direct water reuse project. First, a microfiltration system is used to remove biological materials and suspended solids. Then the filtrate from that will go to a Reverse Osmosis membrane system that will remove dissolved solids and other contaminants. The RO permeate is then treated with ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide as a third barrier for organic materials. Activated carbon is then used to remove the hydrogen peroxide and other trace chemicals. Finally, the water is sanitized with Chlorine which is normally done for drinking water supplies. New Logic has participated in pilot trials using VSEP for brackish groundwater brine that was managed by the University at El Paso for the El Paso Water District.
Biogas Production Expands in the US
In 2024, 125 new biogas projects came online. This is a 17% increase from the year earlier and represents more than $3 Billion dollars in new investments. Much of this is driven by ESG investment funds and by power utilities seeking to broaden their energy sources. Inflation is reaching this sector as well. The $3 billion in capital investments for 2024 resulted in 17% more projects but at a cost 40% higher than in 2023. The total number of biogas facilities in the US is almost 2500. This is growing but is still small compared to the number in Europe where heavy subsidies have helped to propel the industry. The current biogas generation in the US is equivalent to generating electricity for 2.4 million homes.
Biogas, or Methane, is mostly produced by landfills with Methane capture systems. This amounts for 72% of all the biogas produced. The other organic feed sources for biogas include manure, food waste, and various wastewaters. The number of agricultural biogas facilities has surpassed the number of landfill facilities for the first time last year. Of the 125 new biogas facilities brought online last year, 93 were farm based plants and 24 were landfill gas projects. Out of the total 615 farm based systems, 86% of these are for dairies. Hog farm based projects are catching on and 29 new facilities were added in 2024. Only 3 new food waste projects came online last year bringing the total to 114. But 16 new food waste projects are currently under construction. 95% of the new biogas projects in 2024 produced renewable natural gas (RNG) that is purified and then connected to natural gas pipelines. The others burn the gas in generators to make electricity. Americans send 1.4 billion tons of manure, 33 million tons of food waste, and 1 million tons of municipal bio sludge to landfills. Many landfills capture the methane that is generated, but, 470 landfills flare and burn the escaping Methane.
It is estimated that an additional 24,000 biogas facilities could be built to make use of all the organic solids available. So the biogas industry is only about 10% built out. Biogas production has been designated a “green” source of renewable energy on par with wind and solar. But there is the issue of the effluent that is generated from these anaerobic digesters. This effluent needs to have a home. The typical method has been land application of the effluent. But there are concerns about over fertilization and contamination of ground water and surface with Nitrates. After the Methane is removed from the manure, it is still a manure like substance. It will contain high levels of Ammonia and Phosphorous. Regulators are working on rules for how much Nitrogen can be applied per acre of land. This would be similar to the Nitrogen rules in Europe. In addition to Nitrate run-off, when Ammonia is land applied it can convert to Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) which is a greenhouse gas.
If Carbon is Evil, What About Nitrogen?
The European Union (EU) created a new rule that went into force at the end of 2016. The directive calls for ever increasing reductions in Nitrogen emissions including Nitrogen Oxides, Ammonia, and other gases. It also addresses agricultural run-off. But the primary purpose of the Nitrogen rule is to limit air emissions of Nitrogen Oxides. One of these is Nitrous Oxide. Nitrous Oxide is said to have global warming potential that Is 300 times greater than Carbon Dioxide.
Nitrous Oxide is also known as laughing gas. It is used commercially as an anesthetic and to stabilize whipped cream and to keep it free from bacteria. It is produced by chemical reaction for industry but is also created naturally. The Nitrogen contained in manure is primarily Ammonia (NH3). When the manure is moist and is stored or applied to soil as a fertilizer, a microbial process known as denitrification will oxidize the Ammonia to create various forms of Nitrogen Oxides including Nitrous Oxide gas. Anaerobic bacteria facilitate this reaction as a form of respiration. They require low levels of Oxygen as well as organic Carbon for energy. These Microbes will convert the Ammonia to Nitrate (NO3), Nitrite (NO2), Nitric Oxide (NO), and Nitrous Oxide (N2O). The most thermodynamically favorable reaction is for Nitrate, but some Nitrous Oxide can leak out as a gas.
The focus in Europe has been to place strict limits on manure land application by farmers and livestock industries. This climate change initiative is not about Carbon, it is about Nitrous Oxide. Even though Nitrous Oxide is suspected to be a very potent greenhouse gas, the concentrations in the atmosphere are only about 333 parts per billion. Concentrations of Carbon Dioxide are much higher. People who fear global warming claim that Nitrous Oxide is an atmospheric Ozone scavenger. The Ozone (O3) layer is located in the lower portion of the stratosphere about 10-20 miles above the Earth. The Ozone layer contains 10 parts per million (PPM) of Ozone compared to 0.3 ppm in the rest of the atmosphere. This layer absorbs most of the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. When N2O migrates up to the stratosphere, it is converted to NO, which reacts with O3 to produce NO2 and O2.
Regulations have been in place to restrict farmers for a long time. But, Manure spreading is only one source of Nitrogen Oxides. Municipal sewage treatment plants are also suspected of significant amounts of Nitrous Oxide releases. There is no current regulation regarding this, but, it is being studied. One problem is that nobody knows for sure how much Nitrous Oxide may be released at sewage treatment plants. Also, the amount will vary depending on Nitrogen loading, temperature, and other factors.
To help learn more about this topic, the Dutch water research institute, KWR, is monitoring Nitrous Oxide emissions at the Utrecht effluent treatment plant in the Netherlands. This has been ongoing since 2023. Recently, they also started monitoring at Nieuwe Waterweg, a second plant in the Netherlands. Gas discharges are being collected in a closed hood. This is connected to a gas analyzer that also records temperature and pressure. This work will help to quantify the amount of Nitrous Oxide released and may lead to methods for control of this bad form of Nitrogen.