I was discussing my five items with a friend and another crucial component of modern living and sustainability came up – Sanitation. One factor we notice when looking at many of the great civilizations of the ancient past is when we see how much effort when into finding solutions for sewage and clean water supplies. It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that our modern societies started to recognize this in a way and essential this was to human thriving. Once we built large scale sewage removal and waste water treatment plants with ‘clean’ water on tap, health and life quality improved immeasurably. If there is one singular component besides energy that allowed our modern world to be as technological as it currently is – whether that be seen as good or bad – it is the revolution of sanitation around the middle 1800s. And we are now on the cusp of a new sanitation revolution.
Living Machines are a newish technology. First covered by Janine Benyus with the term biomimicry (see links 1 & 2) it is now a major field of research. The second international online Biomimetics Conference will be held this September. It indicates how inspired scientists and engineers are trying to understand how to use technologies that are beneficial not only to humanity but also help heal the natural world by literally mimicking natural mechanisms and processes. As described in a recent British mimetics conference: “The development of future real-world technologies will depend strongly on our understanding and harnessing of the principles underlying living systems and the flow of communication signals between living and artificial systems. The conference theme also encompasses biomimetic methods for manufacture, repair, and recycling inspired by natural processes such as reproduction, digestion, morphogenesis, and metamorphosis.”
In my last post, I briefly talked about photosynthesis – nature’s mechanism to produce energy locally that temporarily reverses the second law of thermodynamics. I don’t think most people recognize just how amazing is photosynthesis, let alone the plethora of ecological natural processes that allow nature to thrive. The field of mimetics is an incredible step in the right direction to becoming truly technologically sustainable. And it also reaches into how we think about energy. But first a little more history.
In 1995, the Findhorn Ecovillage community build one of the first living machines – a new way to think about sanitation systems. I visited Findhorn in 2010 and saw for myself just how marvelous a ‘Living Machine’ sewage system can be. From the outside it looked like a large greenhouse, maybe 15 meters long and 5 meters wide (45 ft by 15 feet). It was designed as a project to take all the sewage of the ecovillage (350-500 people) and let it flow through this greenhouse containing a series of tanks. Diverse communities of bacteria, algae, micro-organisms, numerous species of plants and trees, snails, and fish interact as whole ecologies in these tanks that act as biofilters that intensify and mirror natural processes. No chemicals are used, only natural species of flora and fauna. When I asked about the final water leaving the greenhouse, I was told that it was perfectly safe to drink, since it was by any municipal definition, pure clean water.
When you think about modern sewage treatment plants, they are usually sat on the edge of towns treating the sewage that is finally emptied into the river. This is usually on the downstream side of town, as the river heads to the next community downstream. There are always a number of water quality alerts, especially during heavy rains, as treatment plants release water that has not been fully treated. One solution I have long proposed is that communities must take in drinking water from the outflow of their own treatment plants to ensure it is safe, without any short-cut excuses about its quality before being released into the public domain. When what you use is what you create you tend to be more cognizant about its quality instead of leaving it for anyone else to clean up.
Now the Findhorn water is pure, but because it is an experimental project, the living machine purified water cannot be released directly into the nearby river or estuary. Instead, all the living machine treated water had to be released into the ground north of the ecovillage so that it was further natural filtered before it flowed into the North Sea north of the ecovillage. One notable observation I had when visiting the ecovillage was that the ‘gorse bushes’ that grow there, which are normally about 6 ft (2 meters) high, are more like ‘gorse trees’ some 25 ft (8 meters) high. I have never seen gorse grow so well. Whether or not that was a result of the quality of the living machine water might be circumstantial, but the coincidence was truly striking.
In retrospect, this living machine sewage treatment sounds quite logical, but until the early 1950s, it was still believed that plants could not tolerate high toxicity or excessive sewage pollution. Botanical researcher Kate Seidel discovered that bulrushes don’t just survive polluted conditions, they restore them. She went on to become one of the first ‘Wetlands’ restoration scientists using the Seidel (Krefeld) system now widely use throughout the world. These are vertical flow constructed wetlands with horizontal sub-surface flow systems. In essence, she showed that many plants and numerous micro-organisms were the primary plants and fauna that would naturally purify water, if allowed to do so. This is the basis for the Living Machine sewage treatment system (see link 3).
Looking at the biomimetic conference presentation topics showed me a range of biomimetics that are truly staggering in their diversity of applications – i.e., Biomimetic robots, biomimetic computers, active biomimetic materials and structures, artificial organs, intelligent prostheses, organism-level biohybrids, control principles for embodied perception, cognition, and action, synthetic biology, and synthetic consciousness. While I still have doubts into how AI is being managed by the technology information companies, the applications of AI as part of a biomimetic system is a promising and more balanced use of this innovative technology.
Since item 5 is about energy, and ultimately technology, it is fascinating how it is being used to resolve other major problems, especially energy generation. We readily will use most animal feces on our field to enhance organic drop production. Indeed, it is how humanity has increased soil fertility for millennia. But as our forebearers realized, human sewage is potentially toxic to be used directly. I found it fascinating how Matt Damon, in the film The Martian, used his own poop to grow food, but no mention of the toxicity problem. (Human feces contain pathogens including viruses, bacteria, and/or parasites.) Why human poop is so different to animal feces is probably due more to our omnivore diet and especially the density of human poop excreted into the environment. If we had millions of cows in a confined area, then their poop would be toxic as well (think large feedlots). But spread out over a wide area allows the soil microorganisms to purify it.
Now for a large global population, having a biomimetic system that can, purify human poop for clean water, clean fertilizer, and small scale energy generation would be a useful system. And that is just what is happening at this time. Another part of a multi-level energy portfolio that doubles as a crucial sustainability aspect for sanitation and agriculture.
To Be Continued …………….
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