by Ilkka Pollari, Kemira R&D
Let’s sing about water, which there is always enough of – these are the lyrics of a well-known Finnish student song. Well, this axiom is not exactly true anymore, and no wonder – students aren’t the experts on drinking water, after all. The usable water resources of the Earth are declining, and they are quite unevenly divided. Some areas, like Finland, have plenty of fresh water but elsewhere, not necessarily so. In ever larger areas, water is used and needed more than it is available. The demand increases but the supply does not. A simple equation: There will be a lack of water.
Nature’s own purifier – evaporation empowered by solar energy, condensation into drops and drain, and filtering through layers of soil – it does its best, but faces a much more challenging situation. The changing climate seems to favor extremes – on one hand extreme drought, and on the other, local floods and rainstorms. A consequence of erosion and the environmental load caused by man is that more soil, biomass, nutrients and detrimental elements are washed into the water system.
The majority of the clean water on the Earth is used for agriculture – so mostly for irrigation. The worst example of forced cultivation is growing cotton in Central Asia, the consequence of which is that one of the largest basins of fresh water, the Aral Sea, has practically been destroyed. The rivers flowing east in China have mostly been sucked dry. In many densely populated areas the ground-water reservoirs are sucked dry, or they have been contaminated by salt water.
Fresh water saves and enables life, but on the other hand, it also kills. Diseases spread by contaminated water – malaria, diarrhea, dysentery – kill more people than anything else in the world, even at an accelerated speed. What adds to the challenge is that lack of water is often greatest in areas where the available funds are lowest.
So the immediate business possibilities are elsewhere. Systematic treatment of waste water is still not very common in the world. In the areas of the highest growth it is still in its infancy. In the so called civilized world there is still plenty to do. For example, Brussels, practically the capital of European Union, began to treat most of its waste water only a couple of years ago.
The hit product of this millennium will be water. The demand of it increases all the time, therefore also its value, that is, price. Water is no longer a given thing, not even a commodity, but a strategic raw material. Value chains related to water will also provide ever more business opportunities for water specialists. This is necessary, so that sorely needed innovations can be created on a sustainable basis. We must – and we will – learn new ways to purify water, to conserve water and energy and the environment.
Kemira has decided to be one of the companies which will build their future on water. The aim is to not only survive in the tightening competition, but to also grow into our vision: a leading water chemistry company and at the same time contribute in saving the world.
The world is not ready – and we believe that it is not yet beyond repair, either. The water route we have selected requires competence, creativity, cooperation, and courage.
Read more about topics relating to the International Year of Chemistry 2011
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