Water, Whence it comes, Where it Goes.

There is a story in every culture’s store of folklore and reproduced in Paul Coelho’s famous book “The
Alchemist” that goes something like this:

A man sets off from his home in search of a great treasure, he ventures far and out to strange lands, he
travels the four corners of the earth and beyond, and still does not find what he seeks. Desolate, tired and
forsaken of hope at the end of his journeying he returns to the place that he had started from and finds
for the first time, what he had wandered the world looking for.

Today in the UAE & indeed the entire GCC we are in a similar search for the greatest treasure, water,
abundant and usable, economical and accessible, to all, the farmer, and the householder, the factories
and the hospitals, the hotels and the golf courses, the fountains and the flower nurseries, the poor and the
rich, the laborer and the tycoon, the servant and the Buerauecrat, the birds and the bees, the cattle and
the horses,need aqua vitae, aqua purae, where there is water, there is life.

"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water."

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Poor Richard's Almanac, 1746

The wells are indeed dry or fast becoming so. To belabor the point that we are the world’s largest per
capita consumers of water and have no significant natural sources of fresh water which is but to state the
obvious. The demand supply gap is already huge and growing at an alarming rate. For district cooling,
for consumption, for production of goods, nearly any item of daily use uses up to several times its body
weight in water to produce, be it a newspaper or a computer,or whatever, it has as its most basic raw
material of production water. Enough about the problem, the situation is known to all, or at least those
willing to listen. However, just like the warnings from those on the look out post on the Titanic went
unheeded, the calls of those warning of the impending crisis and those proposing solutions are like the
voices of prophets crying out in the wilderness. This cacophony has created confusion and and a
paralysis by excessive analysis of the situation.

It is the aim of this article, to rather than try and find a one size fits all solution, or to postulate a magic
bullet that kills the vampire that sucks the wells dry, to point out a readily implementable, economic and
significant sustainable, perennial source of very good water: Thin air.Seriously, that is if we consider the
air to be thin anymore.

Given the fact that every year a trillion plus tones of water goes into the air, ie the atmosphere. This is
not the water evaporated from ponds, lakes, irrigated lawns or ground moisture, this is the water
produced when millions of cubic meters of natural gas and LPG are combusted, as they are daily in
power plants, process plants and anywhere these gasses are fired, be it in boilers or gas turbines or driers
or furnaces or kilns.
To rephrase the saying “there is no smoke without a fire,” “there is no fire without some water.”
(Firewater however is The Native American term for alcohol and not our subject of discussion here).

To keep the science simple, (Stephen Hawkins the eminent astrophysicist & author of a Brief History of
Time once said that for every equation you put in in an article for the general public, you lose one
thousand readers) all fossil fuels and in general any Fuel, barring the nuclear fuels, hydrogen is a major
component (that is why we refer to the Petroleum industry and its cousins as the hydro carbon sector). In
fact hydrogen by itself is also a fuel, and a very attractive one at that barring a few kinks. But then again
since when has kinkiness been an obstacle to attractiveness. To get back on track, hydrogen is a
component of fuels, fuels combust to produce, products of combustion. The products of combustion are
nothing else than the end results of the chemical reaction to completion of the individual elements that
make up the fuel. Carbon combines with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide; hydrogen combines with
oxygen to produce water. This water is carried away with the exhausted products of combustion,
collectively known as flue gas, up the stack and into the atmosphere.

Obviously the quantity of water produced varies directly with the hydrogen component of the fuel. All
fuels are not created equal, some have more hydrogen percentage and some have less. Natural gas by far
has the best hydrogen percentage composition followed by lpg and that is why for every kilogram of
natural gas combusted 1.5 kilograms of water are produced. (This is a prorata ratio so works for any
unit, kg for kg, pound for pound etc).The figure 1.5 kg/kg is very conservative.1.75 is a more
representative figure as the following data sheet will attest.

                                    COMBUSTION PROPERTIES OF COMMERCIAL FUEL GASES 
                                                        Combustion Products & % CO2 
                     
    Combustion Products, Cu Ft/Cu Ft Gas  Combustion Products, Lb/Lb Gas  Ultimate 
CO2 
No.  Gas  CO2 H2O  N2 Total  CO2 H2O  N2 Total  %*

1  Acetylene  2.00  1  9.41  12.41  3.38  0.69  10.19  14.26  17.5 

2  Blast Furnace Gas  0.39  0.02  1.14  1.54  0.59     1.08  1.67  25.5 
3  Butane (natural gas)  3.93  4.93  24.07  32.93  3.09  1.59  11.95  16.63  14 
4  Butylene (Butene)  4  4  22.59  30.59  3.14  1.29  11.34  15.77  15 
5  Carbon Monoxide  1     1.88  2.88  1.57     1.89  3.46  34.7 
6  Carburetted Water Gas  0.76  0.87  3.66  5.29  1.85  0.87  5.64  8.36  17.2 
7  Coke Oven Gas  0.51  1.25  4.02  5.78  1.76  1.76  8.75  12.27  11.2 
8  Digester (Sewage) Gas  0.92  1.42  5.44  7.78  1.74  1.1  6.53  9.37  14.5 
9  Ethane  2  3  13.18  18.18  2.93  1.8  12.25  16.98  13.2 
10  Hydrogen     1  1.88  2.88     8.89  25.9  34.79    
11  Methane  1.00  2.00  7.53  10.53  2.75  2.25  13.23  18.23  11.70 
12  Natural (Birmingham, AL)  1.00  2.02  7.48  10.50  2.54  2.11  12.03  16.68  11.80 
13  Natural (Pittsburgh, PA)  1.15  2.22  8.37  11.73  2.86  2.27  13.18  18.31  12.10 
14  Natural (Los Angeles, CA)  1.16  2.10  7.94  11.20  2.51  1.87  10.88  15.26  12.70 
15  Natural (Kansas City, MO)  0.98  1.95  7.30  10.23  2.39  1.95  11.25  15.59  11.90 
16  Natural (Groningen, Netherlands)  0.89  1.73  6.74  9.36  2.17  1.73  10.45  14.35  11.70 
17  Natural (Midlands Grid, UK)  1.05  2.19  7.94  11.78  2.67  2.29  12.84  17.80  11.70 
18  Producer (Wellman‐Galusha)  0.34  0.17  1.59  2.11  0.61  0.13  1.82  2.56  17.60 
19  Propane (Natural Gas)  3.00  4.17  18.82  25.99  3.00  1.70  12.03  16.73  13.70 
20  Propylene (Propene)  3.00  3.00  16.94  22.94  3.14  1.29  11.34  15.77  15.00 
21  Sasol (South Africa)  0.48  1.00  3.28  4.76  1.76  1.50  7.63  10.89  12.80 
22  Water Gas (bituminous)  0.41  0.47  1.86  2.74  0.89  0.42  2.55  3.86  18.00 
*In dry flue gas sample                   
 
 
The point is, and by this point it must be self evident, every day in the UAE & the GCC we burn over a
billion meter cube of natural gas & LPG. The water of combustion produced from these fuels goes up
the stacks of power plants, refineries, process plants and hundreds of other units of various types. This
water conservatively runs into a trillion plus liters every year. The question is can we recapture it,
economically, sustainably, feasibly?

Yes We Can. (somehow I seem to recall hearing these words recently before).

How? Why? When? Where? (I think what has already been addressed: Whater).

How: In North America and much of Europe for over three decades it has been a common practice to
pass exhaust flue gasses through an indirect contact multi pass heat exchanger where the water vapor in
the gas is cooled to the dew point temperature. The dew point temperature is the temperature at which
water vapor condenses at atmospheric pressure.
Hence this technology is called condensing technology. Obviously to cool the hot gasses some source of
cooling must be provided. This cooling comes from cold water fed to the heat exchanger at temperatures
as low as possible. The lower the temperature the more quickly will the water in the flue gas condense.
The source of this cold water is an equipment called an absorption chiller. Absorption chillers take in
heat from a variety of sources, preferably waste heat and cool and provide cold water or gas as its
output. They work on the principle of endothermic reaction and consume negligible peripheral electric
power.

So to simplify, combine an absorption chiller with an indirect contact heat exchanger and you can
recover all the water going up the stacks for the next twenty years and more. That simple, right? No,
theres more to it. You also get air-conditioning almost free of cost as a side benefit and energy saving
too all with a reduced carbon footprint that is encashable. Sounds too good to be true.

Consider the following examples:

Tiger Woods golf course project in Dubai consumes a minimum of 4 million gallon liters per Day and
pays for the water and electricity to pump it from 20 kilometers away.

The greening of Tiger’s golf oasis

The fairways are already looking lush but irrigating Tiger Woods’s Dubai dream is proving to be a
great challenge. Four million gallons of water are needed daily just to nourish the course, and there are
300 workers on site to tend the plants and trees. Tom Brooks reports

It would be cheaper for Tiger to pipe natural gas or LPG, fire a gas turbine with it, generate electricity to
use for his golf club and feed the exhaust gasses to the condensing system to recover the water he needs.
To meet his 4 million gallons a day requirement a very modest gas turbine would meet the case. The
money he would save? At 5 fils a gallon, 200,000 AED daily conservatively. Even for Tiger that is
significant shekels.

We come to a cultural issue now. Some while ago, a team from Singapore,(another water critical city
state) demonstrated to a panel of UAE decision makers the technology of recycling water from sewage
and went so far as to drink a glass of the stuff to make their point. They were informed in no uncertain
terms that cultural taboos here in the UAE & the GCC makes that proposition a non starter. Looking at it
even from a purely economical point of view, recycling sewage is expensive, upto 150 times more
expensive liter per liter compared to condensing technology. However a measure of the desperation that
is creeping in can be gauged by the Headlines in a leading newspaper:

“Crops may be watered By Sewage”

Treated effluent would be used for first time to irrigate crops as the Government acts to
counter an impending crisis in water supply

Desalination plants, the conventional thinking inside the box route, again have obvious limitations:
Huge costs, blockage of harbour space and environmental impact. Again liter per liter of water produced
1500 times more expensive. What about quantities, skeptics ask, can condensing technology produce the
quantities that a desalination plant can?

The answer is, how many desalination plants can you build and in what time? Condensing Technology
units can be added on equal to the capacity of a desalination plant in 1% of the time it takes to build a
desalination plant. upper limit to the number of condensing technology units, the same as the upper limit
of the number of natural gas and lpg firing units in the region.It is said that a good engineer does the
same thing anyone else can,only faster and cheaper.Hence it is good engineering to go the condensing
route.

Let’s now look at a few typical feasibility case studies

a) A Cola factory
With 5 tons/hr gas fire boiler which is a very small boiler.

b) A ceramic tile producing factory

 c) An aluminum plant
23 gas turbines, 16 turbines, 6 evaporators
Natural gas consumption corresponding to 500 MW water recoverable per hour 500 metric
tonnes

d) A power plant
46 gas turbines, 8 steam turbines
Natural gas consumption corresponding to 3000 MW water recoverable per hour 3000 metric
tonnes

It is self evident from the case studies based on actual operational units here in the UAE that the
implementation of condensing technology would be cheap, (six to 9 months pay back or ROI).Effective
water independence is achieved in most huge consumers cases, and does not disrupt any of the existing
systems or set ups in the units it is implemented in. It also saves fuel, and reduces the carbon footprint.

The question then is why is there no discussion of this approach, why no knowledge about it in the
public domain, why are we going around the world looking for water? Like the treasure seeker when it
is right here in our backyards and workplaces. Every decision maker, opinion maker, stakes holder must
ask themselves that question.

Ultimately in the words of the Green Peace Movement:

“When mankind has killed the last fish and cut down the last tree and polluted the last drop of water and
rendered the air unbreathable, then and only then will we learn, you can’t eat, drink or breathe money.”
 The Cree tribe of the Native American people has a legend about a mythical group of superheroes
called the Rainbow Warriors, these are the defenders of Mother Earth and every time throughout the
ages that she has been endangered, they arise to do battle on her behalf. Today Mother Earth needs
her defenders like never before and we must be her Rainbow warriors.