Intel to Recycle More Water at Ronler Acres
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Business
Intel Corp. believes a new Hillsboro Ronler Acres campus project can further reduce the amount of water consumed by the facility.
The Santa Clara, California-based company is designing a new water recycling plant for Ronler Acres. The company plans to appear before Hillsboro city leaders for development review in September.
Construction could begin by the end of the year and last through 2017.
“Anytime we develop a new technology at Intel, with that we develop the environmental controls,” said Todd Brady, Intel’s global sustainability director.
“This time, we are making an added investment not only in water treatment but to clean it to a level to directly re-use it.”
The anticipated re-use includes running recycled water through cooling towers, scrubbers and other industrial process equipment.
In addition to allowing for onsite water recycling, the project will also make wastewater that leaves the facility cleaner when it enters into the Clean Water Services system.
Clean Water Services in the wastewater district that serves the Tualatin River watershed. The service area includes the cities of Beaverton and Hillsboro.
Water from the Ronler Acres campus is sent to CWS, where it is cleaned further and then discharged back into the Tualatin River.
CWS has four treatment plants, with an average daily flow of 60 million gallons. The Ronler Acres discharge constitutes about 8 percent of that, according to Mark Jockers, government and public affairs manager for CWS.
Intel isn’t releasing the capacity plans for the new facility yet, nor is it releasing the investment amount. Water is used during the chip manufacturing process, in which layers of material are deposited, removed and etched to create electrical circuits.
In the last 20 years, Intel has conserved more than 50 billion gallons of water worldwide. In Oregon, 813 million gallons of water were conserved at Ronler Acres over the past year. The site consumed 347 million gallons of water in the last quarter.
The added reclamation and recycling of the water on campus is a new move for the company, Brady said.
From the CWS perspective, the project will increase its own treatment capacity as, eventually, there will be less water coming in for treatment.
Source: Business Journal
Media
Taxonomy
- Conservation
- water treatment
- Sustainability
- Water & Wastewater
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Guys Also think of conservation of water by incentivising reduction in use of water and storage of surface water / rain water run offs.