Sustainability Technology Combinations Can Help Alleviate India’s Water, Energy, and Other Issues

As efforts to support thriving communities exist on a global level, environmental and other concerns of different regions highlight similarities in problems, challenges, and solutions.

Team Gemini and its team members combine a variety of technology applications to solve environmental and economic issues related to waste streams created by communities and industries, as well as issues related to drought and other climate change effects. Biomass processing is one of the primary technology pillars in Team Gemini’s developments because all communities produce related types of waste—and providing solutions that factor in water stress levels, energy supply and demand, and sanitation requirements, helps provide holistic advantages of sustainability.

Water-stressed regions in India highlight how a variety of environmental factors can have debilitating impacts on communities. Agriculture supplies get severely impacted by limited water resources, and are made worse by sludge waste that is harmful to health as well as water and food quality.

As India’s summer intensifies, many states are already in the midst of a drought—and the hottest days have yet to arrive. At the same time, water-intensive agriculture, rapid urban expansion, increases in industrial activity and growing energy production are driving the country’s water demand upward. More than half of India is now considered severely water stressed.

This combination of challenges—which is applicable to many regions besides India—can best be alleviated by waste-to-energy systems in combination with water treatment solutions.

Team Gemini treats biomass as a joint effort between waste processing (strictly organic and non-organic waste, cellulosic waste, and contaminated organic waste) and resource generation. Many technologies ultimately impact this goal, including protecting and treating valuable water resources, employing sustainable agriculture, and implementing proper methods of waste management.

Sludge-to-energy systems can make the dream of a circular economy a reality by turning waste into an input, instead of just an output. These systems can be developed as independent, decentralized units that require minimal outside energy for operations. From raw sewage, they generate three useful products: energy, digestate and water that can be reused for agriculture, industry and even domestic uses such as watering gardens and flushing toilets.

There are only enough treatment systems in India to treat 37 percent of the country’s sewage—and that’s if they were all operating at maximum capacity. In reality, even less than 37 percent of sewage is probably treated—the rest is often dumped in waterways or on land. Untreated sewage contains large concentrations of pathogens and other contaminants that can make people sick.

For ongoing Team Gemini bioenergy developments, both small– and large-scale technologies are utilized. These can be combined to beneficial effects in communities within India and elsewhere. If applied and used effectively, including through use of highly-efficient CHP units (by 2G) and water treatment (by A3), biomass resources can make communities and industries significantly more independent and sustainable in terms of decentralized energy supplies and waste processing.

Design and development are essential in creating economic viability, as various cost factors, technology configurations and applications, and other details vary from project to project. Team Gemini and its industry connections are part of this process, helping ensure that all requirements are met and implemented for clients to most effectively apply sustainability measures in their operations.

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