Dear Mr. Bryon,    Best wishes for a HAPPY NEW YEAR for you and everyone following this discussion.    I am very, very glad that you started investigating about the new progresses in wastewater treatment procedures, you are not yet convinced, it might take some time,... They called it "Sweetwater Wetlands" probably to avoid critics from someone like you,.. ha,.. ha,.. however it is highly saline water,..    I would like to draw your attention that we are implementing this process for long years, we exposed ourselves to critics far more relevant than your critic of wastewater treatment, while we are in full control of the level of salinity of discharged water. Also we already faced the critics of our clients who scrutinized every aspect of our products. Still we are not stopping, we are working hard to make our equipment of smaller size and lesser expensive, despite that our present equipment is smaller than comparative Reverse Osmosis equipment and cheaper too.    I confess that probably if we patented our design, we would have attracted more audience than our "Open Source Design".

Happy New Year to you too, Maher! 

If you will notice, I have never once questioned the use of this system for waste water treatment. It has an obvious utility in that area as it is dealing with simple freshwater recovery from waste water. 

And it's application for that purpose entails there being infrastructure already in place as waste water is only generated from concentrated population centers or industrial facilities. 

That is not the case when you make claims of placing these all along the coasts of desert countries, with the promise of turning the coastlines into agricultural areas.

The shear volume of fresh water required for large scale agriculture precludes your technology from being feasible. As it also does with the disposal of the toxic salt solution discharge from large scale conventional desalination.

Simply because YOU choose to not call it toxic, does not change the fact that every chemist, environmentalist and agriculturalist recognizes that the salt solution from desalination to recover large volumes of fresh water are at extremely high concentrations, and are completely toxic to the environment. Denying that fact lessens your credibility in the field. 

Even just the 50% solution that large scale conventional desalination discharges thousands of meters out into the open ocean, increases ocean salinity to the level that even plant and animal species which live in a salt environment, are killed by the discharge.  So any discharge onto a confined marsh area which cannot be diluted a billion to one by the vast ocean, will in no way handle the salt content of that volume.  

Waste water treatment is by it's nature a small volume, in comparison to the vast volume of fresh water required for agriculture. The proof of this is in the fact that agriculture requires 15 times more fresh water than all domestic and industrial use combined. Therefore the effluent of waste water from human activity is 15 times less than what would be created if desalination was used to provide enough fresh water for agriculture.

This means that if fresh water was desalinated for agriculture, the effluent in the form of extremely toxic salt solution would be 15 times greater than any waste water discharge from human or industrial activity, and sweet water marshes are not in any way capable of handling that discharge at nominal salt levels.  

That's why desalination is not used to provide fresh water for agriculture, even when money is no object as in Saudi Arabia! 

As an environmental professional and the CEO of two environmental companies, I have a lot of experience in this field.  I created sweet water marshes back in 1996, planting a variety of species that absorbed toxic waste and conducted ongoing water and vegetation sampling over a decade as the marshes matured and the effluent levels fluctuated, so don't presume that I don't know anything about the subject, and I suspect I have more direct experience with sweet water marshes than you do. 

As a farmer and environmentalist I have conducted an 8 year study on the fresh water requirements for various crop species on 9000 acres of dry land agriculture in Canada so I believe I have enough agricultural experience to support me, probably far more than you do. I have also been invited to the Gulf Cooperation Council  states on several occasions to discuss this subject and partner with professionals in the agricultural and desalination industry who are looking for alternative means of providing fresh water, as they know they cannot do it with desalination, even at the tremendous volumes put out by Saudi Arabia....    

So, Maher, I know EXACTLY what I am talking about when it comes to judging the capacity of your technology to provide enough fresh water for agriculture, and as such I also know you have NEVER encountered critics who knew what they were talking about in regards to agricultural needs and what your technology can provide, nor the drawbacks of disposal of the effluent in remote desert areas.

If you had been asked these questions previously then you would have been able to provide the specific answers to my questions on output volumes, foot print of the units and method of handling the discharge of toxic salt solution for large scale agriculture....and you couldn't, so I know you haven't been confronted with these questions and formulated credible responses.  

I am not saying you should stop your research, but I see now that it is still just research, as making claims which the technology cannot preform means you haven't  encountered the problems yet that I have brought up, because you haven't tried to produce water volumes at any large scale as required by agriculture. 

I wish you luck in your efforts, but you should stick to the best utility of the technology, which is providing small scale potable water and waste water treatment, and remove your claims of providing sufficient water for large scale agriculture as anyone with a similar level of experience on this subject as I have, will shoot down your claims very quickly, and at that point any loss of credibility will also put doubt on it's ability to do what it can obviously do in waste water treatment and potable water recovery. 

If you will take some advice on your presentation to improve it, and I can offer any fair judgement it is this.

The lack of interest isn't because the technology isn't patented. It is your approach, and I have seen similar problems before when someone is trying to garner outside interest and investment.

First of all ... remove your religious references!  They aren't necessary. Refer to the great water cycle as a natural system. You know that God created Nature, and that's fine, but you aren't selling a religious ideology, you are looking for investors in new technology, getting that will still please God!  

Remove the negative language towards any form of conventional desalination.  Use terms like... "the difficulties with R/O systems"... or..."the huge expense" ... these are things they already know. Don't call them or their technology ..."ignorant, stupid and wasteful"... as you have.  When you make these kinds of insults you have instantly turned off the very people who have the funding to develop your technology at large scale. 

You spend more time on your youtube slideshow trying to discredit conventional desalination than you do at describing your technology and promoting it....that's a huge mistake!  Lose the negativity!  The desalination industry already knows those things, and the people who have bought into them know it, and want to find better and cheaper ways to extract fresh water.

But when you come across as too religious, too negative, and making outrageous claims like greening all the desert coasts, and then cannot provide the answers to match your claims....you are dead in the water before you begin. 

Moving forward: 

Do a new video, without a mechanical sounding voice narrating it. Find a friend to narrate who will sound upbeat, maybe a female voice, it will improve the listening ability.

Change the wording to be upbeat and positive as to providing a solution for current desalination processes which are very expensive.

Concentrate on what your technology can actually do and not make claims that are too far out there, as  when you do that, people instantly become skeptical and then they can easily disregard the benefits your technology could achieve in waste water treatment and small scale potable water desalination.  

Let future expansion and development deal with increased needs and then those claims can be made. You don't need to convince everyone that your technology will save the world, you only need to convince them to try it for their application. 

Getting new technology off the ground isn't a sprint, with the promises of glory already being celebrated... it is a marathon and each leg has to be tackled one day at a time, so making claims that are too vast to begin with handicaps you from the start. 

Good luck, and I hope you can take this advice to heart and improve your approach in 2017!  

If you can get things fixed up in time, I would suggest you attend the GFIA in Abu Dhabi in March, and be a presenter of your technology and concept looking for investors. You won't get corporations that wanna make a profit as they cannot patent it, but you will interest government agencies who seek to find cheaper methods to deal with waste water and provide small scale potable water.

Send me a link to the new video and your slide presentation for the GFIA beforehand (if you can get in at this late date) if you wish.

I will give you fair judgement on it and advice on improving it .... accepting it will be your choice! 

Published January 1, 2017 19:07 by Mervyn Byron

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