The Silicon Valley is riding the clean-tech and the cloud computing waves. At their West Summit on water energy and smart technology, Sustainable Silicon Valley unveiled today their EcoCloud platform to foster local actions in the South Bay area and more discussions on sustainability, water, energy and materials.
The first project targets water recycling. “Why? It was suggested by some of our members who like Santa Clara Water District.” explained Drew Clarck from IBM Venture who is the Program Manager. “The local recycle water system is a great asset for the community and it is not known.” EcoCloud will bring more visibility to such projects and engage local actors.
Some of IBM buildings for example are only yards away from the pipe system. The benefits are substantial for semiconductor factories who consume large amount of water. The Bay area recycles 20% of the water disposed. It is significant but less than other areas who can rely less on rain and snow water.
Despite a happy atmosphere as holidays near, much work remains in America when it comes to water. Countries like Australia have worked for a long time on water conservation and used recycling solutions. It was not a surprise to see among the commercial brochures in the bag for the conference attendees to see an ad for Aussie Rain Tanks.
The cost of water in Northern California is relatively affordable at $8 per 1,000 gallons compared to other countries. Denmark, who is also the happiest country on Earth per Dan Buettner’s book Thrive, tops the list with 25$. The value of waste water is high at more than $1 per 1,000 gallons, much more than other commodities like Nitrogen used in the Silicon Valley.
Jeff Risberg of SSV provided a demo of the “virtual industrial ecosystem” during one of the panels. Members can view the pipe system in the EcoCloud portal and identify where to connect to benefit from the existing recycled water resource.
Another benefit will be to aggregate more vetted data and provide some needed benchmarking with other initiatives internationally.
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