More on bottled water

We’ve written about bottled water previously but only recently came across an interesting video about it over at YouTube. It’s part of the Story of Stuff project. It’s not a comprehensive ‘last word’ on the subject, of course, but it’s sufficiently engaging, well-produced and thought-provoking for us to pass it on here:

However almost as interesting as the video itself are the reams of comments that have been left about it. Looking beyond the rather offensive, ‘flaming’ tone of many of them, there’s a stereotypical mini-debate threaded throughout. It’s about the ability of the market to produce optimal outcomes for people and for the environment versus reliance upon greater regulation via state intervention to achieve much the same ends.

This issue is something I’ve touched upon for about the past decade or so (I first read about it in David Wallace’s 1995 book on Environmental Policy and Industrial Innovation). It’s the old ‘deregulation versus revisionism’ debate. It dates back to the 1980s at least - and particularly to Reagan and Thatchter’s views on the subject, specifically that ‘excessive’ regulation by the state was hurting business and enterprise at the time. Essentially, proponents of deregulation consider that unfettered market forces will pretty much sort everything out, to put it bluntly. By contrast, revisionists argue that regulations - and their associated targets and milestones - actually spur beneficial innovations that would otherwise not appear in a totally ‘free’ market.

It’s truly surprising how many times this heavily polarised debate resurfaces - particularly in the States. By now, especially considering the emphasis the Stern Review put upon climate change as the biggest ‘market failure’ in human history, you’d think there would be a bit more understanding of the need for regulation-driven innovation alongside just ‘pure’ market forces. Sadly, it seems not!

Duncan Thomas

Desalination: saviour or sinner?

We were delighted recently to read that the world’s largest seawater desalination plant has just begun operation in Hadera, Israel. According to WaterLink International’s news story it’s ‘part of a desalination master plan to help address the chronic water resource problems in this region‘. In the words of Dow Water & Process Solutions’ general manager:

The successful operation of this plant in one of the most water-challenged areas of the world speaks to the bright future seawater reverse osmosis technology has in addressing the needs of regions, that are facing growing demand and limited availability of freshwater resources.

The Hadera plant was opened by Israel’s President, Shimon Peres, on 26 May. The plant is situated about 25 km North of Tel Aviv, directly on the Mediterranean. The installation is vast by any standards and overall can supply 275,000m³/day or about 1 million m³/annum of fresh water. The WaterLink post states the plant is designed to deliver ‘about 20% of Israel’s domestic potable water requirement‘. (With its full compliment of 53,000 Dow Filmtec Reverse Osmosis elements, its membrane compliment theoretically could deliver 456,000m³/day.)

Investment to date has been $463 million (USD). It’s expected the plant will supply water at a cost of $0.57/m³. This figure is surprising. It’s about half that of other extremely efficient seawater desalination plants in other parts of the world. Perhaps the figure is more about political need rather than technology though. It relates quite closely to the alternatives - i.e. the costs to pump water from the Sea of Galilee to Tel Aviv or else to buy it by the tanker load from Turkey.

To achieve this output - even with what is being hailed as a highly energy efficient plant - will however require 450 Gigawatt of electricity per annum. (As a rough guide, to produce one cubic metre of freshwater from seawater by reverse osmosis requires about six Kilowatt hours of electricity.) What this will do to carbon emissions from the region - particularly when Israel talks about seawater desalination eventually delivering up to 27 times the output of this one plant - is a very moot point indeed.

Now, looking at the plant’s planned delivery of 20% of Israel’s potable water requirement - designed to help quench the country’s ever increasing desire for water - reveals other potential problems for the future. True, Israel recycles more of its water than any other advanced country in the world. However its does correspondingly little to restrict its people’s lifestyles by accepting that it resides in a region with such limited water.

Moreover, agricultural needs for water in Israel far outweigh potable use. It seems astonishing that Israel - which has fought so hard for its water - is at the same time squandering it by exporting ‘virtual water’ (a concept we’ve touched upon previously). It has been suggested that Israel is using about two thirds of its water on irrigation for its agricultural industry. Early in the development of the State of Israel this was very important. Now it represents around only 2% of the country’s GDP. So exporting virtual water in the form of oranges and tomatoes seems quite ridiculous. (Fred Pearce touches on this issue in his book, When the Rivers Run Dry.)

Let’s hope we can look forward in the future to Israel taking a more integrated and logical approach to meeting its increasing water needs. Rather than constructing large ‘cathedral type’, power-hungry, high-cost desalination facilities - or stealing water from its neighbours - perhaps it should investigate a little more closely where and how its hard-won water is actually used.

Roger Ford

Leakage lingers

Leakage from UK water company pipes was once again in tabloid headlines last week. In the face of potential hose pipe bans from United Utilities - and perhaps also by Thames Water - the Daily Mail had noted that enough water for 22 million people still leaks from water company pipes each and every day. This story quoted the Consumer Council for Water as saying that consumers want a better balance between restrictions on them (e.g. bans) and reductions in ‘waste’ by water companies (e.g. leakage). The story also quotes standard responses from UU and Thames, i.e. that (i) they are currently spending - and plan to further spend - large sums of money replacing old pipes and (ii) they have reduced leakage in the past few years.

We’ve noted some of the main issues around leakage several times before here at Waterstink. To counter selective information from Ofwat and the water companies we’ve showed a fairly long-run plot of recorded leakage levels since 1992/93 (see page 11 of our formal submission to the Cave Review). We’ve also noted that the ‘economic’ or ’sustainable’ level of leakage is far more contentious than is often acknowledged. In a nutshell though, here are some key points to help make sense of rather partial stories - like this one in the Mail - that do seem to crop up again and again with insufficient depth or detail:

• Going back to the earliest easily-available public records, leakage peaked around 1992/93, at about 31% of supply. It dropped to its lowest post-privatisation levels in 2000/01 (~20%). It then went back up quite sharply and only in recent years has started to come down again, to about 21% (i.e. not yet completely down to 2000/01 levels). Any statistics about reductions made in the last few years are therefore pretty meaningless, as they only refer to getting back to where we were in 2000/01…
• There do not appear to be readily-available, comparable data on pre-privatisation leakage levels. Given the black-hole in public finances for water sector capital expenditure from the mid-1970s to late-1980s however, I do suspect leakage was an issue. This of course depends on how serious the degree of degradation of the pipe network was during that period.
• Leakage has not just been tackled with pipe re-lining, refurbishment and replacement. There have been various other network management tactics that have been employed, e.g. reducing pressure, which led to complaints by fire services, some years back, concerned about their ability to fight fires! Such exercises are legitimate of course - to a degree. However if more people knew about them they’d be seen as slightly underhanded, I suspect.
• Ofwat and other stakeholders insist there is a trade-off point for leakage detection/remediation. They call this the ‘economic’ or ’sustainable’ level of leakage. It’s the point where it costs more to find/fix leaks than it does to simply let said leakage persist. Once again, this is a legitimate thing to do because there will always be diminishing returns for this kind of work. However, we do know that new technologies/systems already exist that could affect the determination of the trade-off point. At the very least, the economic/sustainable level of leakage is far more dynamic than most people in the water sector readily want to admit. The unit costs of locating and fixing leaks change - for which you can generally read, reduce - all the time.
• We also know that use of poorly-trained/cheap labour has led to poorly-jointed - and therefore leaky - connections being introduced into brand new plastic pipe replacements of worn out parts of the network. We have heard this independently from a range of sources. It’s worrying because what is supposed to be keeping the network sustainable for the next 50-100 years is actually introducing new problems for its future. Incidentally, we are paying top-dollar for this replacement programme - on the proviso that it’s soundly tackling leakage to leave behind a network fit for our children and grandchildren (who of course bear the debt levels currently being run up to pay for it!)…

It’s a real shame that the UK water sector can’t find a way to openly, honestly engage in dialogue on these issues - rather than just issuing standard damage-limitation PR statements. Dialogue is essential. Current levels of leakage - and people’s perceptions of them - are a major barrier to sustainably reducing water usage, say through greater voluntary uptake of meters or through personal water use reduction actions.

Every sector has some level of waste in its production processes - at least under contemporary business models (which may need to change as sustainability issues sink in). However, 20 percent does seem very high in the case of water. Besides the following was once shared with me during some fieldwork. Other utility sectors even in the UK have a much stricter approach to leakage. In the gas sector leakage is most definitely not tolerated (for obvious reasons!). And yet the gas and water utility sectors share many similar infrastructure issues - e.g. a product transmitted under pressure, through largely underground piped networks (with ageing networks and historical underinvestment), to almost every home and business in the country etc. etc.

One further aspect of the above story from the Mail is also worth mentioning to close. Apparently UU left a water leak unfixed outside a Lancashire home for around a year, even though the affected resident had reported it. This reminds me of my own personal experience. In my case I had spotted a substantial leak out of the surface of a fairly busy road in South Manchester. I promptly called it in to UU. I had to use an 0845 number as I recall, i.e. it cost me to do UU’s work for them! I also had to give as much - if not more - information to UU than I would have had to had I been reporting a crime to the police. Hardly a system to encourage proactive, altruistic behaviour, I’m sure you’d agree!

The piece in the Mail quotes assurances from UU that the system is now easier and more responsive. Sadly I can’t personally confirm this, having moved out of their service region some years back. Either way, UU - and the other UK water companies - are going to have to get their houses in order on the issue of leakage if they are ever going to get the UK public sufficiently onboard as active partners for much needed water resource sustainability measures that are bound to be needed throughout the coming decades…

Duncan Thomas

Arsenic in Bangladesh’s drinking water

Five years ago when Roger and I finished our first book together, The Crisis of Innovation in Water and Wastewater, we included some material about arsenic contamination of groundwater in Bangladesh. Our point there was whether this case, which involved the British Geological Survey and well water survey research carried out as far back as 1991/1992, would set any precedent about ‘duty of care’ in international water projects. We pointed out at the time that the World Health Organization (WHO) had already called this situation ‘the world’s largest mass poisoning of a population in history’.

At the time the BGS’ ‘parent’ body, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), planned to ‘vigorously defend’ accusations by a Bangladeshi NGO that it had been negligent in not testing for arsenic during its well water surveying. (The original survey work was funded by the then Overseas Development Agency, as outlined in this interesting piece in The Guardian.)

The health impacts of arsenic poisoning have continued to be explored since our book came out of course. For instance a new article in The Lancet has just been reported by the news service, WaterLink International. This article has confirmed that ‘[c]hronic arsenic exposure through drinking water‘ during the course of a longitudinal study ‘was associated with an increase in the mortality rate‘. Seeing this particular article today in fact reminded me to follow up on our original material for this post…

So what happened to the Bangladeshi/BGS case? In our book we could only write at the time that the High Court had dismissed NERC’s application to strike out the action in 2003; that this was overturned by a Court of Appeal in 2004; and that lawyers for the Bangladeshi villagers intended to go to the House of Lords in 2005. Doing a quick bit of follow-up research it seems that after the initial ’success’ of an individual villager complainant being allowed to take his case to the House of Lords (determined on 25 January 2005) the Lords later threw the case out in July 2006.

A comprehensive write-up of the story by the BBC indicates that Lord Hoffman’s ruling at the time was that the relevant agencies, such as the BGS, in cases like this were ‘liable only for the things they did and the statements they made, not for what they did not do‘. For the Bangladeshi complainant concerned, this sadly led to a conclusion that there was ‘no reasonable prospect of satisfying a court that in all the circumstances the NERC owed him a duty of care‘. At the time, NERC’s Chief Executive was also quoted as saying that this ruling confirmed that ‘scientists cannot be held responsible for the research they decide not to do‘.

As well as removing the prospect of a legally-defensible ‘duty of care’ for this kind of international water project, this does raise questions of how the legal system views research methods and the nature of science. Most academic institutions require ethical approval before research fieldwork is undertaken - particularly when it is especially invasive or has significant health implications for the people or population studied. The research design and methodology behind any framework is where it is systematically determined what to do and what not to do. Surely that means there is a transparent process around which a ‘duty of care’ can be contested? After all, during this process, someone somewhere decides what to include or not include in a research project - and justifies (academically at least, if not morally etc.) this choice. I’m surprised that this point was not raised (or if it was, was not accepted) in this particular case. It seems fundamental to the argument.

Of course critics and sceptics of this case quickly pointed out that the agenda here was unlikely to have ever been about ‘duty of care’ but rather was about cushioning British taxpayers from potentially huge claims for compensation. A write-up I found by the law firm Davies Arnold Cooper put it like this:

This case is a clear indication of the English courts’ reluctance to open the floodgates to mass litigants from overseas, particularly when the cost to the British taxpayer is potentially so great. [...] For the time being, organisations and companies with overseas concerns will be relieved by this ruling.

A separate website news story went even further:

If the legal action had been successful it could have cost the British taxpayer millions of pounds in compensation. It would also have set a precedent in making development aid more accountable.

The one slight ’silver lining’ to this unpleasant business is that at least some research is ongoing to determine the mechanisms whereby arsenic is getting into drinking water in Bangladesh. For example, MIT research work reported late in 2009 has shown that ‘human alteration to the landscape, the construction of villages with ponds, and the adoption of irrigated agriculture are responsible for the current pattern of arsenic concentration underground‘.

Disappointing though this all this, for the time being, we’ll have to just keep an eye out for any further developments on this Bangladesh arsenic issue. We’ll report back as and when there’s something new to share…

Duncan Thomas

ACQUEAU launched

Some interesting news was forwarded to me today about the launch a few weeks ago of ACQUEAU. This particular initiative seems to sit very squarely within our innovation-promotion remit here at Waterstink. According to its website it’s ‘industry driven‘, ‘dedicated to water related technologies and innovation‘ and aims to promote ‘innovation and market driven solutions to develop new technologies in the European water sector‘. ACQUEUA is also one part of the EUREKA ‘R&D platform’ initiative within Europe.

There’s some indication on the website that ACQUEAU is intended to cooperate with - or compliment, as appropriate - the existing Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform (WSSTP) and related ERA-NETs (these aim to harmonise public research funders’ practices and priorities in particular thematic areas throughout Europe, sometimes in partnership with relevant industries).

Looking at the current ACQUEAU flyer, five priority areas have been identified so far:

• Low enviromental impacts for disinfection and oxidation;
• Low energy wastewater treatment;
• Membrane technologies;
• Real-time system management; and
• Materials for pipes and coating.

These are areas we’ve researched and written about in the past as high priorities. So it’s good to see them highlighted within ACQUEAU. There are also nine ‘technological and working areas‘ that will be pursued, according to an executive summary document also found on the current website. These nine areas are arranged around the water cycle:

• Water resources - protecting water resources and prevent damages to the environment;
• Water treatment - anticipating emerging quality issues and protecting public health;
• Water distribution - optimising the cost of managing water;
• Customer - safeguarding consumers’ trust and confidence towards water;
• Agriculture - achieving sustainable production while protecting water resources;
• Industry - ensuring a sustainable use of water in industrial processes;
• Urban drainage and wastewater collection - preventing foul water flooding and avoiding inconvenience to the population;
• Wastewater treatment - changing from a consuming industry to one producing resources; and
• Bio solids and other sludge - turning sludges and biosolids into resources for tomorrow.

ACQUEAU also has a promising membership. There are 15 countries involved (the UK - leading, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Poland, Slovenia, Slovaquia, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands - plus the EU as a whole), a range of other interested countries, and some key companies too. Already there’s also a call for projects due to be issued. This will happen next month, on the themes of membrane technologies and real-time system management.

Seemingly then there’s a lot of good stuff in ACQUEAU. It will be interesting to see how successfully funds and projects are mobilised to achieve the initiative’s stated aims. I am heartened by the fact that the initiative seems to build on good work that’s already been going on - and involves some key innovation advocates I’ve met in the past. It does appear - although it is early days yet - more proactive than previous efforts. It already has a more positive feel to it than, for instance, my rather negative experiences with the more ‘talking shop’ style of the WSSTP in the past.

I’ll post back if I hear any more ACQUEAU-related news, in the coming months…

Duncan Thomas

10 water sector habits to kick in 2010, Pt 3: Feast now; famine later

For the third in our series on bad habits to ‘kick’ in 2010 (if you’ve missed them so far, you can also read part 1 and part 2) I’m considering whether, 20 years after privatisation, the UK water utilities can adjust to austerity.

At the time of water company privatisation great store was placed on the increased benefits both in terms of cost and improvement in service to customers and consumers. The new regulators would put pressure on the companies to deliver a more efficient service and yet still maintain control over the ability of the companies to increase prices above acceptable levels. Clearly benefits to shareholders were also used to encourage investors to the companies which at the time might otherwise have been seen as facing an uphill battle to overcome the stigma that had been applied to the UK as the ‘dirty man’ of Europe.

Since then the water companies have spent many tens of billions of pounds to rectify the problems of the past under increased quality and environmental regulations. One might have expected that such crippling demand to invest in new capital would have had an effect on the companies’ ability to deliver good profits to shareholders. To the contrary, both profits and dividends have held up very well (consistently above the FTSE 100 average performance). Together with the capital growth, especially just after privatisation, I suspect most long-term shareholders are very happy with their investment.

How did the water companies manage to achieve this ‘magic’? The answer is that they didn’t spend their own money to fund their capital programme. Many manage huge debt mountains that simply couldn’t be maintained by other private sector companies trading elsewhere in the open market. Additionally water companies with large capital programmes that they could deliver at a lower cost than agreed with Ofwat were allowed to drop this ‘profit’ straight through to the bottom line. It was this ability that allowed them to deliver large profits whilst building significant levels of debt. Reminiscent of the current banking crisis, the true cost of the UK water sector’s post-privatisation capital programme will in fact be borne by our children and grandchildren. The current generation of water and wastewater service consumers are in effect only paying the interest on that debt.

After 20 years opportunities to make profits from this debt continue. It’s now the start of the ‘reporting season’ for the water companies. Alistair Gray in the Financial Times (hardcopy 21 May 2010; online edition 20 May 2010) reiterated my above points: ‘The industry enjoyed a good run in the most recent regulatory period; profits were higher than expected as companies were able to borrow at lower rates than had been assumed by Ofwat‘.

United Utilities, the largest of the listed water companies - and the one almost certainly with the largest debt mountain - has also recently reported an increase in profits. Philip Green, UU’s Chief Executive, confidently stated: ’This is a sound set of results in a tough economic climate, reflecting our strong focus on cost management and efficiency improvement‘. But you’ll notice there’s no mention of debt interest there - and yet if interest rates had gone against the company’s projections I’ve no doubt it would have been quickly shouting from the rafters for a new settlement from Ofwat…

Understandably these massive (water) corporations established at privatisation had to develop good financial governance. However their continued ability to generate sizeable profits from ‘winning’ arguments with the economic regulator seems a very poor business model to perpetuate into the future. It is one that serves only a narrow set of stakeholders’ interests. It also seems especially crass when the UK, Europe and other countries worldwide are entering into a period of great fiscal stricture.

It could be said that the UK water utilities have so far had 20 years of  plenty. I only hope for their sake - and ultimately for ours as the consumers that support them - this doesn’t flip into 20 years of famine!

Roger Ford

Not a watered-down ‘coalition agreement’: Cave, Walker and more

For a climate change research project I’m working on, I’ve just been browsing the ‘new and improved’ Conservative/Lib-Dem extended coalition agreement. I was looking for changes that might affect the role of decision-makers in improving community resilience to extreme weather events. Happily I not only found plenty of those but also came across two passages with direct implications for the UK water industry.

Firstly, page 17 of the coalition agreement says:

We will examine the conclusions of the Cave and Walker Reviews, and reform the water industry to ensure more efficient use of water and the protection of poorer households.

It’s good to see the Cave Review and Walker Review outputs (hopefully) not being overlooked in the face of the high priority being given to deficit reduction measures. (The closing page of the agreement emphatically states: ‘The deficit reduction programme takes precedence over any of the other measures in this agreement, and the speed of implementation of any measures that have a cost to the public finances will depend on decisions to be made in the Comprehensive Spending Review.’)

Secondly, page 16 notes:

We will introduce measures to promote a huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion.

I imagine this objective has a fairly wide reach and may include promotion of projects at local, regional and national scales. Nevertheless it may also have the potential to provide a much-needed impetus for further investments, R&D and innovation in the wastewater side of the UK water industry (for instance, I’m reminded here of site visits to see enzymic hydrolysis in action during a project for UKWIR some years back). We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.

In addition to these two obvious pointers towards probable future water sector actions, there was a third passage that stood out. On page 31 of the agreement it states:

We will increase the proportion of tax revenue accounted for by environmental taxes.

The system operated by the England and Wales water industry is already quite controversial - at least for those who understand what’s bundled together in people’s water bills (this paper by Dieter Helm is a good place to start!). Currently water bills cross-subsidise national environmental improvements and major projects alongside funding the more traditional regional water and wastewater services are aware of. Consequently I think it’s not clear that this particular coalition pledge will result in any changes to whatever Ofwat or the EA have planned. Besides, why ‘rock the boat’? (Some might say that this de facto ‘tax’ burden is already being quite successfully - albeit rather ’stealthily’ - applied via the present water bill set-up…)

There were a few other items of note throughout the extended agreement that caught my eye. However these ones seemed to have the most significant implications for the water sector at the moment. Nevertheless we’ll be sure to listen out for any reactions to these passages in the coming weeks and months then report back here with whatever we find.

Duncan Thomas

World water scarcity

Back when we recorded our New Year message we said how disappointed and disturbed we were that the whole question of future world water scarcity and its consequences for global warming scenarios had not been included in the Copenhagen Conference final communiqué (COP15). Water shortage was, for many, to be one of the first consequences of global warming. And yet this issue was being largely disregarded by both legislators and the environmental politicians.

In an earlier post last year Duncan has also said how little appears to change as a result of these kind of international jamborees. Therefore it was really exciting recently to hear the The Independent’s report on the Cannes Film Festival (dated 15 May 2010). Shekhar Kapur, the Oscar-nominated Indian film director, who has publicly warned about the long term problems of water shortage in his native country, will make a science fiction disaster film on this subject. Encouraged by his friend Danny Boyle (director of Slumdog Millionaire) Kapur will direct Paani (Water, set for release in 2011). It is a love story set in a futuristic city where water appears to have almost run out and corporations war over its control. The city is divided into two halves in which the wealthy hoard the water and drip feed the slums.

In The Independent’s article Kapur is quoting as saying: ‘We want and have to get this story out there as widely as we can … One of the key drivers behind the project is an aim to bring the growing global issue of a world without clean drinking water, and the threat to humanity it represents, to the top of the global political agenda‘. He then gave a recent example where: ‘People in Bijapur where people were furious [because] for weeks no water was supplied to their homes. When the public attacked the local water regulation body they found there was water in the tank, but it was being supplied only to influential people like politicians and businessmen…‘

Kapur also said he has wanted to make this film for over ten years.

Roger Ford

10 water sector habits to kick in 2010, Pt 2: Plateaus/diminishing returns

Today I received a notice about the Future Water 2010 conference being held on 13th July. A quick look at the photos from last year’s similar event (Water 09) was enough to convince me that I don’t want to attend. Nevertheless some of you may wish to pop along - although like most water sector events, please note that it’s not exactly a snip at 200 to 400 GBP (and those are the early bird rates!).

All the same, browsing last year’s event reminded me that I’m well behind on our new ‘water sector bad habits’ theme. In the meantime others have joined us in ringing in on various ‘10 things for 2010′ notes, e.g. the European Environment Agency’s 10 messages for 2010 on biodiversity. Still a lot remains to be said about the UK water sector’s bad habits so the ideas has not gone stale by any means. Besides, kicking the ‘bad habits’ we are going to outline will be key to gaining any traction in facing up to the sector’s various challenges - and so is very much in tune with the ‘new decade/new approach’ tagline of the above mentioned Future Water event, in fact!

So, on with our round-up of UK water sector bad habits. Our first ‘bad habit’ was so-called monument syndrome, i.e. an over-reliance on big building projects, essentially depending solely upon installing ever-more capital assets to fix problems that have far deeper root causes than just a lack of installed infrastructure.

Our second bad habit is a common insistence by UK water sector members that the industry’s performance levels - in any particular area you may wish to choose - have reached some ‘plateau’ or else are always at the point of running up against ‘diminishing returns’.

So what exactly do we mean by a ‘plateaus/diminishing returns’ bad habit?

Well, say you felt that a 20 percent leakage rate from the clean water network was unacceptable. Say you decided to require the water sector to reduce that rate by preventing, detecting and/or fixing more leaks. What response would you hear from many in the sector? Most likely it’ll be along the lines of something like this: ‘But we’ve done all we can and now we’re coming up against diminishing returns.’

Whilst there is some truth that trying to get to the 99th percentile/Holy Grail/gold-plated standard on any particular issue is probably going to be an uneconomic, cost-ineffective line of action, at the same time the UK water sector has been long acknowledged as not exactly a hotbed of innovation. We’ve stressed this point so many times, I’ll not belabour it here (suffice to say, you can read our submission to the Cave Review on our Resources page for a quick recap on our overall stance).

This means that for any particular area of action there may well be many, many more effective ways of tackling a problem - or of tackling an issue by solving a problem of an entirely different nature altogether - already under development by various suppliers, university spin-offs, consultants and others in the UK and worldwide. Unless the water companies are engaging with these innovators however, they will continue to believe that there’s a ‘natural’ cap on performance possibilities for any particular activity and that to go beyond that level would be economically non-viable (it may still be environmentally viable to do so mind you, but that’s another issue altogether!).

The concrete example - with no pun intended on the UK water sector’s predisposition for ‘pouring concrete’ - of all this that we’ve used before is about audio technology, namely records, tapes, CDs and digital storage media. Each particular technology regime or paradigm (e.g. audio tapes), at its launch, is capable of a particular performance level. Over time this performance level (e.g. sound quality or available recording length) is incrementally tweaked and improved until it reaches a threshold somewhat intrinsic to the technology (or suite of technologies) involved.

Often this performance improvement profile over time resembles a ‘S’ shape angled to one side. A graphical illustration of this is shown below - with credit to the excellent book by Rycroft and Kash from where it is taken (it’s on page 84):

In the water industry, activities can be made up of many, many systems and sub-systems, involving dozens, hundreds or thousands of technologies (and of course we include social innovations like training, operations and management activities under our broad umbrella definition of ‘technology’ here too).

Inventors and innovators out there are tweaking, pushing or replacing entirely individual parts, whole sets of parts - or even whole technology systems - all the time. In isolation then or in systems overall to talk of ‘plateaus’ is often nonsensical. All that you’re referring to is reaching the limits of a particular technology. Radical, transitional or ‘breakthrough’ innovation to a new trajectory or paradigm of activity is commonly possible - and may bring with it performance and sustainability benefits. Of course there are costs involved - and appropriate support is needed for the innovation processes involved.

At the same time, as shown in other plots by Rycroft and Kash (and others) sometimes new technologies start out at a lower level of performance than their equivalent systems that are already in use. However they can have the potential to reach far higher levels of performance, if given the appropriate attention, resources and incremental development over time. An example of this is shown below (once again from Rycroft and Kash, this time from page 29):

This state of affairs is absolutely crucial to stress, we feel. It’s this exact moment in time where momentarily - and without any foresight about the performance enhancements accruing from future incremental innovation - new technologies appear ‘equal’ to existing systems, is where the UK water sector most commonly trips up on the whole innovation issue, we suspect. A lack of immediate benefits from innovations - or even the potential for temporary performance setbacks while they are bedded-in - is used as a justification for inaction.

A general lack of understanding about the nature of the evolution of technology also commonly crops up around this issue - i.e. an illusory belief that appears to be widely held in the sector: New technologies are always just waiting ‘out there’ at a sufficiently mature stage of development to be ready to outperform existing systems as soon as they are bought ‘off-the-shelf’ and installed.

Of course Roger and I have met people - at all levels - throughout the UK water sector that do fully understand these and related issues. Nevertheless we’ve found that talk of ‘plateaus’ and ‘diminishing returns’ typically re-surfaces during any calls for improved actions from the water sector - e.g. on energy usage, climate change or water conservation - say, by policy-makers, regulators, suppliers or other groups.

Overall we think it’s high time for the sector to kick this particular ‘bad habit’. It’s time to move on to face the challenges of regulated water utilities in the 21st century - and to adopt the same informed, realistic and yet proactive stance to technology and innovation that has already been vital in driving the commercial success of so many other industries in the UK and worldwide for decades.

Duncan Thomas

Yorkshire’s TV water ads bring back memories

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen water companies advertising on TV. In fact the last water-related ads I clearly remember were when the England and Wales water industry was being privatised over 20 years ago. Yorkshire Water’s current Edna and Mary advertising campaign is a world apart from the old rather flashy, Handel’s Water Music-driven ads that accompanied the privatisation process however!

Even seeing Yorkshire’s TV ad campaign is one of the benefits of my living in one water company area and working in another. Not only do I get to use and taste different water from different suppliers on almost a daily basis; I also get to see how different water companies promote themselves through adverts, billing, metering services and so on. (Having said that, it’s been a while since my last personal United Utilities bills, but the service approach was far less personal and responsive than it became when I moved into Yorkshire’s zone, that’s for certain…)

Yorkshire’s Edna and Mary approach is unashamedly parochial - far more so than any UU materials I can recall in the past decade or so. It also attempts to use humour as an entry point to education and learning about the water industry and the water cycle. Sadly after having my eye caught via the TV ad, the actual Edna and Mary site turns out to be a fairly standard Flash-driven, ’science-y’ type affair. It’s nothing like the Monty Python or League of Gentlemen allusions the TV ad had conjured up for me! Still it’s a fairly clear and informative batch of content in its own right - although it doesn’t really flag up any proactive, contentious or challenging issues like climate change or water resource pressures. The message is squarely in more passive ‘relax we’re on top of it on your behalf’ territory. That’s a bit of a wasted opportunity, if you ask me. Perhaps Yorkshire is pursuing such matters through other approaches or perhaps not…

It’d be interesting to know if Yorkshire’s move with this TV ad campaign is part of some wider strategy. Is it an attempt to cushion a blow of forthcoming price rises? If so will it lead to a backlash of public opinion rather than more thoughtful reflection on water-related issues? Are other water companies planning similar initiatives in parallel to price changes? I’m not sure. I’ll stay tuned.

If you happen to live within Yorkshire’s boundaries you may be able to catch the TV ad for yourself. If not, you can have a virtual tour of the material on Yorkshire’s website.

Duncan Thomas