
From Poop to Potable - mgalka
http://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Omniprocessor-From-Poop-to-Potable
======
jzwinck
Singapore implemented a system a few years ago called NEWater [1]. It's a
little different from the one in this article: NEWater centrally collects
waste water and filters it until it is drinkable. No burning, no electricity
generation (rather, NEWater consumes electricity). But it shows that not only
will many people use or even drink such water, they will even go on tours of
the plant where it is made [2].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater)

[2]
[http://www.pub.gov.sg/water/newater/visitors/Pages/default.a...](http://www.pub.gov.sg/water/newater/visitors/Pages/default.aspx)

~~~
lmg643
This technology is so cool and so crazy that I wonder if it takes a ton of
education to be comfortable with the idea that it works. I would guess these
guys would have better mileage selling the product to environmentalists in
California than going directly to third world locations. Let America be the
bleeding edge for stuff this advanced - "eat our own cooking", to use a choice
phrase. We are already consuming much of the world's resources - we can be a
model for how to do with less, rather than asking the other guy to start.

I read a disturbing article on Bloomberg last year about toilets - India has a
project to build toilets and try to get villagers to use them, but they won't.
Bill Gates says the world doesn't have the resources to build toilets and
plumbing - perhaps he is worried about a second order problem - there might
not be the desire, or education is so backwards that we need to solve that
first.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-03/india-s-toilet-
race...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-03/india-s-toilet-race-failing-
as-villages-don-t-use-them.html)

I still can't get this line out of my head:

"About 800,000 Indians worked as feces removers in 2008, often carrying
excrement in baskets on their heads, an occupation that causes them to be
excluded from parts of society."

Imagine almost a million people carrying shit in baskets on their heads.

~~~
soperj
One thing that really blew me away was my brother talking about his time
working in Western Australia, and when he was in a bar bathroom there an
Aborigine came in, didn't know what to do, so took a shit in the corner of the
room.

When you're not used to something, your actions will seem strange, but toilet
training a kid isn't easy, so what seems natural to us now, really wasn't too
natural at one time.

~~~
vince_refiti
No, that's not the reason. I have come across many rural towns in Australia
where business owners will not let Aborigines use the toilets, or demand a
fee. That is why.

------
dmritard96
I worked an internship where we were testing 'toilet to tap' in south florida.
For the most part it was effective and not too price with RO (Reverse Osmosis)
+ MBR (Memebrane Bioreactor) but the hardest problem (lol) was Viagra, quite
literally. Getting pharmaceuticals out took so much energy with the process
that the economics of it just weren't attractive enough.

------
ars
How do they remove Voc's from the water? Does it need a carbon filter? Does it
remove leftover medications found in feces?

~~~
gambiting
Yeah that would be my first question. Hormones(like the ones used for birth
control) frequently fail to be filtered out by regular sewage plants and have
an effect on the environment. I wonder if this would deal with them too?

~~~
WiggleYourIndex
A simple gravity-fed, activated charcoal filled pipe with a germicidal UV LED
final stage can remove and destroy everything, AFAICT. (I searched:
ultraviolet hormones water purification.) I found some good guides searching,
water carbon filter instructables. Sand and rock prefilters may also be
important depending on sizes of filtration targets.

We should also note: if we want these technologies, we need to develop and
deploy them by and for ourselves. This man will only lift a finger for
humanity if it brings his hand closer to our necks.

~~~
gambiting
Then please spend few billion dollars of your own money, or try to raise that
much if you feel inclined to do so, while I support the man who is already
spending money on those issues instead of complaining on HN......you might
think whatever you want about Gates, but the money he is spending is helping
people. Period.

~~~
WiggleYourIndex
Maybe you are too young to remember how his empire behaves toward people who
help themselves. Look into his past if you want to understand what he values.

Pointing out a solution that anyone can build for less than a quarter of a
day's worth of work should give you some indication about what's possible
without extravagant numbers of currency units extracted from people through
lies, manipulations, and other self-degrading acts.

Hopefully, this site, being for hackers, is where we can dismantle our broken
systems and build sustainable ones in their place. Ideologies are systems too,
just like water purifiers.

~~~
gambiting
"Look into his past if you want to understand what he values."

Jesus, I held some views 2 years ago that I wouldn't identify with now, and
you want to look at what he did 20 years ago and say he still has the same
values?

And I am all up for dismantling broken systems,but there is nothing broken
about him spending his fortune on helping the poor. If you can build things
like this in a quarter of a day......have you considered helping out yourself?
I mean if you went to India yourself you could be building over a thousand
purifiers per year, that should help, no?

~~~
WiggleYourIndex
"The tiger cannot change its stripes." (One can't change one's essential
nature.) More importantly, a guise of philanthropy is an understandably
effective front for profoundly immoral conduct.

Without going into detail, if you look underneath thin, shiny, white veneers
of people with exploitative, corrupt histories, you'll find worse in their
present day actions. Today, a fortune can be useful for "shaping public
opinion". A thoughtful person with a good memory can see past a fake smile and
a Blah Blah Foundation name by reading about what is happening in this world
through reports by self-directed journalists who work for reasons beyond
currency units.

Yes, I am a helper. And, I do appreciate your push to do more and to ground
this discussion in practicalities. People around our planet need water
purification today; and we may need simple, effective tools as well if winds
shift.

~~~
pyrois
> Without going into detail, if you look underneath thin, shiny, white veneers
> of people with exploitative, corrupt histories, you'll find worse in their
> present day actions.

I would be more likely to believe you if you did go into detail. What exactly
has Gates done in the past year or so that you object to? Or two years, or any
reasonable definition of "present day"?

~~~
WiggleYourIndex
* [http://www.geekwire.com/2014/teachers-protest-gates-foundati...](http://www.geekwire.com/2014/teachers-protest-gates-foundation/)

* [http://techrights.org/2014/08/11/rich-at-public-expence/](http://techrights.org/2014/08/11/rich-at-public-expence/)

* [https://www.popularresistance.org/protesters-want-gates-foun...](https://www.popularresistance.org/protesters-want-gates-foundation-to-stop-investing-in-private-prisons/)

* [http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/12/gates-foundat...](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/12/gates-foundations-24-most-egregious-investments)

* [http://www.thenation.com/article/181342/how-gates-foundation...](http://www.thenation.com/article/181342/how-gates-foundations-investments-are-undermining-its-own-good-works)

This is only a small part of a bigger story.

~~~
gamblor956
These show that the Gates Foundation is 99% invested in Coca Cola and Walmart,
and the remaining 1% in minor investments in fast food, energy, and private
prisons.

If we held things like that against people, we'd have to hate every person
alive, every company ever formed, and most charitable/non-profit
organizations, because way more than 1% of our everyone's voluntary income
and/or spending comes from or goes toward companies like that.

------
rhspeer
It would be interesting to see the Omniprocessor used to treat animal waste
from factory farms in the US. They are a significant source of multiple forms
of pollution in the states and contribute to some nasty algae blooms.

I also wonder how the heavy metals in the solid waste can be or are mitigated.

~~~
amckenna
That is an interesting idea. Putting one of these plants on a dairy farm for
instance could cut down on waste significantly. The machine would take the
animal byproducts and provide water and electricity that could in turn be used
to power the farm and hydrate the animals. It could close the waste cycle
quite a bit.

------
zaroth
Could such a system exist on the ISS at a miniature scale? Obviously a
candidate for the Mars journey and settlement. Processing and incinerating
shit for rich and poor.

Makes you wonder how sewage treatment could one day hold massive profits.

~~~
rab_oof
For extrasolar travel, efficient reuse of sewage would be a requirement.

------
voqk
I love pilot plant proof of concepts. The video didn't give any numbers but
this pdf has a bit more information:
[http://wastewaterinfo.asia/sites/default/files/downloads/S6-...](http://wastewaterinfo.asia/sites/default/files/downloads/S6-03-Shrestha.pdf)

~~~
fubarred
Thanks. Did anyone see an initial CapEx budget range? Also, OpEx ranges for
ongoing lifecycle maintenance by year?

------
stcredzero
The Omniprocessor sounds a lot like the Zimmerman wet oxidation process, which
involves oxidizing sewage at high temperature inside a pressure vessel. The
process is exothermic, so apart from the energy cost to get it started, you
don't have to input more energy. What you get is pure water mixed with mineral
ash, which is suitable for use in fertilizer. The process also tends to
demolish most toxic chemicals, though it can't do anything with substances
like heavy metals. (I read about this in _Colonies in Space_ by T.A.
Heppenheimer in the late 1970's, when my dad brought back that book as a gift
for me from a trip to New York.)

If the Omniprocessor can accomplish the same thing without high pressure
hardware, it would indeed be an advance. The Zimmerman wet oxidation process
dates from the mid 20th century.

------
ChuckMcM
_" Through the ingenious use of a steam engine, it produces more than enough
energy to burn the next batch of waste. In other words, it powers itself, with
electricity to spare."_

Score. We should have the park service install these systems near campgrounds
to provide revenue neutral services to the campers. I have this idea of
electric "trucks" driving to the camp grounds, swapping out the current waste
bucket at the toilets for a fresh one, then driving back to process it and
recharge.

~~~
pyre
> revenue neutral services

Just because they don't require power doesn't make then revenue neutral... You
still have to consider things like maintenance (which includes keeping someone
on-call to deal with the maintenance issues, whether on-payroll over via
service contract).

~~~
ChuckMcM
The article pointed out all of the ways these things actually generate more
value than they consume. They create water, they create electricity, and they
dispose of sewage. The park service pays for water, the park service pays for
sewage removal, and it pays for electricity (somewhat, gas for vehicles more
commonly).

So the budgetary exercise to run here is to take the cost of running the
septic system as it is today, and the cost of running it using one of these
gizmos and trying to exploit its benefits, and then doing a lifetime cost
comparison to compute the internal rate of return on the park service funds.

I note that this is the first sewage treatment system that I've read about
that actually provides net energy output. Energy consumption is usually the
'hidden cost' of most of these systems. Or water costs. This produces excess
energy and water, so someone in the park service should run the numbers.

------
Lancey
This technology seems almost too good to be true. It's simple, it's
deployable, it's self-sufficient. What kind of emissions does this produce? It
says they're within U.S. standards, but is that a high standard? How can it
burn at such high temperatures without some additional fuel source? While this
technology is incredible (and important for developing countries), how much of
what they're disclosing about it is true and what damage might it do in the
long term?

------
rab_oof
In case anyone missed how NYC deals with it:

[http://www.vice.com/video/you-dont-know-shit-
full-185](http://www.vice.com/video/you-dont-know-shit-full-185)

------
kumarski
It will be interesting to see if this works in implementation.

I remember when I was younger the UN Dropped pink bottles of food to the
Masai.

The Masai men didn't like the feminine implication and refused to consume.

Will be curious to know how this is marketed to the people.

~~~
riffraff
why would the masai consider "pink" a girl color? isn't that a western cliché?

~~~
DanBC
Wikipedia suggests that pink clothing, even with flowers, is not shunned by
warrior male Massai.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_people](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_people)
(the clothing section).

I do know that food-aid packages had to change colour because they were the
same yellow colour as bomblets dropped in cluster bombs, and these were
killing children.

[http://www.refuseandresist.org/newwar/111701clusterbombs.htm...](http://www.refuseandresist.org/newwar/111701clusterbombs.html)

> General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressing
> the similarity between food aid packages and cluster bombs said, "It is
> unfortunate that the cluster bombs - the unexploded ones - are the same
> color as the food packets."

> "We have dropped flyers that show the pictures in the proper language
> explaining why you want to go to one and you don't want to go to the other.
> We hope that helps."

(That's not satire. He really said that.)

[http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0111a/copyright/afghanfoodbom...](http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0111a/copyright/afghanfoodbombs.html)

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2912617.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2912617.stm)

Food aid packages changed to a sort of pink colour.

------
Vladipoteur
Now we can be astronotes on earth:-)

[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/behindscenes/water...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/behindscenes/waterrecycler.html)

------
duaneb
I'm less worried about poop than I am about drugs—someone's taking chemo, and
all of a sudden so are you (at a fraction the scale, but still).

------
BobMarz
"Hey Bill, eat shit!" \- FOSS enthusiast "Ok I will, using proprietary
technology!" \- Bill G

------
perseusprime
Bill gates is surely making a big difference in the world. Probably more than
he did with windows.

------
cromulent
I smiled when I thought about how homeopathy advocates would view this.

------
UhUhUhUh
Holy, uh,...

------
DodgyEggplant
The true added value of the price of a Windows license

~~~
ern
That's an interesting point. Assuming that the Windows monopoly imposed hidden
costs on the public in the First World, to what extent does Gates'
philanthropy offset those costs? If it hadn't been funneled to Gates (and
eventually, his foundation), where would it have been used? If the public had
known during the antitrust "Micro$oft" era that Gates would donate most of his
fortune to fighting disease in the third world, would attitudes have been
different?

Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to know the answers to these
questions, but it's an interesting door to open.

~~~
adventured
Assuming Windows instead generated gains of historic proportion to the public
in the first world, by consolidating a fractured ecosystem down to a dominant
standard, helping to generate mass public adoption of computing, and in doing
so driving productivity through the roof, then what Gates is doing is still
one of the greatest things any human has ever done.

People often assume that if it weren't for Windows, something better would
have existed in its place. I regard that as a fantasy. Windows was 85% good
enough, cheap enough, and easy enough to use for its time. There's a perpetual
and immense bias against Windows in hacker circles, but that says nothing of
the non-hacker users that voluntarily made Windows successful. Microsoft
didn't wake up one day with a magic monopoly, users voluntarily chose their
software over other options for a decade before their monopoly position was
finally in place.

~~~
CWuestefeld
Agreed.

Microsoft is criticized for not being innovators, instead just regurgitating
ideas pioneered by someone else. There's truth in this criticism, but we can
also view it differently. Microsoft's success was in figuring out how to
commoditize the bleeding edge tech.

For example, I remember early in my career the industry trying to argue out
CORBA standards, something that never achieved any widespread acceptance
because the perfect solution they were after was endlessly being debated, and
so complex. But Microsoft cut through that Gordian Knot, and put out their own
DCOM technology. DCOM didn't achieve all the goals of CORBA - not by a long
shot - but it put a viable object brokering technology into the hands of every
developer, a fundamental requirement that the CORBA folks couldn't achieve.

------
WiggleYourIndex
Rainwater arrives on location, cost-free, and pure && You can turn poop into
valuable manure through composting :: 0 fuel costs, 0 waste, 0 overly complex
machines with 0 "exciting business models".

~~~
pstuart
It doesn't everywhere, and not reliably. You might not be aware that the US
west coast is looking at a possible megadrought.

Your approach is fine for a rural compound, but doesn't scale for urban
environments.

~~~
WiggleYourIndex
Last month there was a record rainfall..... 6-10 inches in urban areas.

Perhaps these pieces of wisdom could offer some guide:

"When it rains it pours"

"Get it while the gettin' is good."

"Waste not, want not."

To me, rainwater capture can apply anywhere with a roof, a sky, and a mind to
build cisterns.

~~~
seanflyon
California already has a massive system of rain water capture and extra-large
cisterns we call reservoirs. The smaller the cistern the more expensive per
gallon it is.

