World Bank Water and Sanitation Initiative

Question

According to the speaker, knowledge is a key benefit outcome that can inform other communities in providing a basic water and sanitation system that has been realised by this iniative. How can the information be mobilised to accelerate the implementation in other districts?

Ron Pettengill · Accepted Answer

Key to Alternative/Renewable Energy adoption is the Developing World
Secure access to clean water has and is the biggest problem facing the developing world.  Waterborne illness is the largest cause of hospitalization and early mortality in the developing world.  Historically society cannot develop without proper sanitation and access to clean water and a secure food supply.  An economy cannot prosper if its citizens spend the majority of their time seeking the basic components of survival or are debilitated by disease that could easily be prevented.  
What limits the developing world from having a secure water supply besides sanitation infrastructure?  
Energy and lack of energy infrastrucure Money (or the effective use of funds) Engineering support
It has long been accepted that the use of renewable energy solutions are the way of the future for the developing world.  While the statement may be true the reality can and is quite different.  One of the biggest problems that the renewable market faces today is a denial of market forces.  Renewable solutions are often either too complex and/or too expensive.  The notion of multiyear payback on the investment in an renewable  energy system may play well in the developed world where stable finance is a given but in the developing world solutions need to be found that provide immediate payback - they must compete and be at parity or below the cost of a petroleum based solution.  This is critical and must be at the root of all renewable energy technology development.  
Lets view this in the context of recent history.  For decades residents Africa, China & the Indian sub-continent had little to no access to basic telephone service.  This was primarily due to the cost and complexity of installing a copper wire infrastructure that would connect people via a wired handset.  With the advent of cellular phone technology and the distributed wireless infrastructure that is was based on - we saw countries that had very little telephone service go to saturation within a decade.  Why?  Cost of wired infrastructure was able to be sidestepped.  The cost and speed of creating a cellular infrastructure was both cheap and fast.  Because of this speed and low cost to market, the ability to provide telephone service at a price most consumers could be used happened in a short amount of time.
I believe that the same model can be used in the development of water and sanitation systems that use renewable energy.  At my company, Epiphany Solar Water Systems, we have focused on the use of innovative materials to drive the cost of processing water to parity with a traditional fossil fuel based system.  Our advantage is not only cost but true sustainability - our systems are not dependent upon a shaky supply chain for fuel.  We have also been pitching the idea that building ten 100,000gpd  distributed water purification/desalination plants is a more secure option than building 1 1m gpd facility that requires a much larger infrastructure spend and is captive to ever rising fuel costs.  The point is that true sustainability is always green and should always be the best economic choice.  
In conclusion I believe that we can fix the problem of water and sanitation in the developing world by using market focused renewable energy solutions faster and more economically than traditional fossil fuel based systems.  This is the perfect opportunity for a "twofer"  The developing world can get what it needs a a true market price and become a leader in the development of a green, sustainable energy infrastructure.
Ron Pettengill - CEO
Epiphany Solar Water Systems ( www.epiphanysws.com )

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