Life-Cycle Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of a Building-Scale Wastewater Treatment and Nonpotable Reuse System

Treatment and water reuse in decentralized systems is envisioned to play a greater role in our future urban water infrastructure due to growing populations and uncertainty in quality and quantity of traditional water resources. In this study, we utilized life-cycle assessment (LCA) to analyze the en...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental science & technology 2015-09, Vol.49 (17), p.10303-10311
Main Authors: Hendrickson, Thomas P, Nguyen, Mi T, Sukardi, Marsha, Miot, Alexandre, Horvath, Arpad, Nelson, Kara L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air Pollutants - analysis
Conservation of Energy Resources
Decentralization
Drinking Water
Emissions
Emissions control
Energy consumption
Gases - analysis
Greenhouse Effect
Greenhouse gases
Recycling - methods
Waste Water - analysis
Water Purification - methods
Water resources management
Water reuse
Water treatment
Water utilities
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Summary:Treatment and water reuse in decentralized systems is envisioned to play a greater role in our future urban water infrastructure due to growing populations and uncertainty in quality and quantity of traditional water resources. In this study, we utilized life-cycle assessment (LCA) to analyze the energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of an operating Living Machine (LM) wetland treatment system that recycles wastewater in an office building. The study also assessed the performance of the local utility’s centralized wastewater treatment plant, which was found to be significantly more efficient than the LM (79% less energy, 98% less GHG emissions per volume treated). To create a functionally equivalent comparison, the study developed a hypothetical scenario in which the same LM design flow is recycled via centralized infrastructure. This comparison revealed that the current LM has energy consumption advantages (8% less), and a theoretically improved LM design could have GHG advantages (24% less) over the centralized reuse system. The methodology in this study can be applied to other case studies and scenarios to identify conditions under which decentralized water reuse can lower GHG emissions and energy use compared to centralized water reuse when selecting alternative approaches to meet growing water demands.
ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.5b01677