title: Life-Cycle Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of a Building-Scale Wastewater Treatment and Nonpotable Reuse System.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California , Berkeley, California 94720-1710, United States.
authors.forename: Thomas P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Hendrickson
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California , Berkeley, California 94720-1710, United States.|ReNUWIt Engineering Research Center, University of California , Berkeley 94720, United States.
authors.forename: Mi T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.affiliation: San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, San Francisco, California 94102, United States.
authors.forename: Marsha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sukardi
authors.affiliation: San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, San Francisco, California 94102, United States.
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Miot
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California , Berkeley, California 94720-1710, United States.|ReNUWIt Engineering Research Center, University of California , Berkeley 94720, United States.
authors.forename: Arpad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Horvath
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California , Berkeley, California 94720-1710, United States.|ReNUWIt Engineering Research Center, University of California , Berkeley 94720, United States.
authors.forename: Kara L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Nelson
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D003246:Conservation of Energy Resources; D060766:Drinking Water; D005740:Gases / Q000032:analysis*; D017752:Greenhouse Effect; D059027:Recycling / Q000379:methods*; D062065:Wastewater / Q000032:analysis*; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D060766:Drinking Water; D005740:Gases; D062065:Wastewater