Leading the Clean Technology sector

In a commentary posted on Grist.org, uber- venture capitalist Vinod Khosla argues that clean technology needs a global leader in order to reverse the effects of climate change.

We still have a chance to reassert our leadership. Our educated workforce, top-level universities, and culture of innovation still position us to capitalize as the world moves to clean energy. We have to decide whether we’re going to lead the world — and claim the economic benefits — or follow, and send money to other countries for clean energy technology, in the same way that we now send money to the Middle East for oil.

Khosla, along with Tim Wirth and John Podesta, posit that the new competition for leadership in the global energy marketplace requires that we change the rules. Dramatically change the rules. In fact, this is what other nations have been doing with success.

Because of their rules, our competitors are farther along than the United States in the transition from old energy to new energy, and they have captured most of the growth and jobs along the way. Just 10 years ago, the United States produced 44 percent of the world’s solar cells; today its market share is less than 10 percent. Japan is now the world leader, producing 43 percent of the world’s solar-energy products. Europe, meanwhile, produces 90 percent of the world’s wind turbines. Brazil, where the government requires all gasoline to contain ethanol, has led the way on biofuels.

One major university stepping up to the challenge is Auburn University’s newly formed Natural Resources Management & Development Institute. It plans to grow switchgrass — and study new flavors of energy friendly switchgrass — that can be used to quench our thirst for gasoline while making us less dependent on corn-based ethanol. Another initiative underway at Caltech is aiming to put the sun’s energy to work in a cost effective way. Business and government would be wise to partner and fund the top-tier activities of these forward thinking universities. The consumer marketplace will not move away from inexpensive fossil-based energy sources until the clean technologies are cost competitive.

Are Your Medicines Affecting Fish?

AU researcher, Dr. Willie Harper, seeking to improve wastewater treatment

AUBURN – Synthetic chemicals designed to help human health may be having unintended consequences downstream from wastewater treatment plants, according to an Auburn University researcher. The problems can include fish with both male and female characteristics and the creation of antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms.Willie Harper, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, is looking into how synthetic, or manmade, chemicals are broken down by wastewater treatment plants and the possible effects on the environment. He says pharmaceutical and personal care products, such as aspirin, antibiotics and birth control pills, contain chemicals that can pass through treatment plants either unaltered or only slightly degraded. “These chemicals serve their intended purposes and then are passed through the human body into the wastewater,” said Harper, who has been studying wastewater treatment for 15 years, the last five at AU. “We are studying how well they are broken down by bacteria at the treatment plant and we want to create new technology for use in wastewater treatment. We want to prevent problems downstream.” Chemicals that act as endocrine disruptors are designed to affect hormonal stability, such as in birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. However, after the chemicals pass through the body, a residue can remain intact even after going through a wastewater treatment plant.

“These chemicals can affect fish by disrupting their endocrine system. If this happens, then they develop abnormally,” Harper said. “Some synthetic chemicals can ‘feminize’ a male fish, giving it female characteristics. Some male fish have been found with ovaries.”

In September, fish were found in the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., that had both male and female attributes. While scientists are concerned about this situation and others, Harper says the first step is to learn the fate of chemicals as they pass through the treatment process.

“The treatment plants are doing a good job to clean the water based on current regulations, but they not designed to remove certain chemicals to even safer levels,” he said. “We want to help treatment plants address these concerns.”

Using National Science Foundation grants, Harper has set up three small-scale treatment plants in his laboratory where he can control the treatment process and the kind and amount of chemicals being treated. His lab, like large plants, removes chemicals through a process called activated sludge treatment in which biomass, or biological material, is used to remove harmful pollutants.

Harper’s AU research group was one of the first in the world to show that the biomass particle size is a critical factor in the adsorptive removal of steroidal compounds. As these clumps of microorganisms get smaller, he says, they have more surface area and thus they provide more sites for removal of synthetic chemicals.

“Biomass particle size can be controlled by practitioners both at the design stage and at the operating stage,” Harper said. “The information we have provided will be of interest to water pollution control facilities that are concerned about pharmaceutical compounds.

“We were also one of the first groups to show the specific degradation mechanism of how the active ingredient in birth control pills is broken down.”

Ultimately, these kinds of results hold great promise for long-term impact. For example, these research results may be useful to chemical engineers and pharmacologists in the design of synthetic chemicals that degrade well during treatment, or for identifying chemicals that will be persistent. The results also should help regulators development water quality criteria.

Another problem that Harper’s group is addressing is the possibility that antibiotic residues help create antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms. Along with Mark Liles of AU Biological Sciences, Harper is investigating the idea that biological wastewater treatment plants are an important source of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms.

“We want to learn more about the reservoir of antibiotic-resistant mechanisms available to the activated sludge microorganisms,” he said.

This is a major public health issue, he says, and it has become more important as water quality surveys have revealed the broad range of antibiotics present in water after it goes through wastewater treatment plants.

“Antibiotics are designed to kill infections, however, if they get into the environment, they can cause naturally occurring microorganisms to develop antibiotic resistance. We would then have a microorganism that is much more difficult to kill,” he said. “We have already found evidence that some activated sludge microorganisms are extremely resistance to a broad variety of common antibiotics. We need to direct more research into this issue.”

Water research at Auburn University will be highlighted June 14-15 during AU’s 2007 Water Resources Conference hosted by the newly created Water Resources Center. The center, part of AU’s Natural Resources Management & Development Institute, has an interdisciplinary team of more than 50 faculty who specialize in various types of water research.

Harper holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from UCLA, a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Cornell University and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a recent recipient of the 2007 AU College of Engineering Junior Faculty Research Award, and the highly competitive National Science Foundation Early Faculty Career Award, one of the most prestigious research awards granted to junior faculty in engineering.

His research group consists of two Ph.D. students in AU civil engineering, two master’s degree students and two undergraduates in biological sciences. He is also collaborating with two Ph.D. students at Virginia Tech University and the University of Buffalo and a professor at Technical University of Denmark.