Transcript:
Wastewater treatment plants remove pollutants from sewage before it returns to lakes, rivers, and oceans.
But that treatment process can produce some harmful pollution of its own.
Jose Porro is CEO of Cobalt Water Global, a company that helps water utilities reduce their nitrous oxide emissions. Nitrous oxide is a powerful global warming gas.
Porro: “Nitrous oxide is also an ozone-depleting gas.”
And it can be created as an unintended byproduct of wastewater treatment, during the removal of nitrogen.
Nitrogen is present in people’s urine and has to be removed because if it ends up in waterways, it can cause harmful algae growth and other problems.
But under certain conditions, the microbes that break down nitrogen can produce nitrous oxide.
Porro says the problem can often be fixed through simple tweaks – for example, aerating the water less at certain times so less oxygen gets in.
So his company uses machine learning to help utilities monitor and fine-tune their processes.
Porro: “We’ve been able to achieve up to 80 to 90% reductions in the N2O emissions from making simple process adjustments.”
So water treatment plants can clean the water – without adding as much pollution to the atmosphere.
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media
