Coming up in a future edition of World Pumps will be an interview with Jesper Kjelds, Vice President of Global Market Segment Wastewater, Grundfos. Among the many topics discussed are the impact of climate change on the pump industry and what developments Grundfos is likely to pursue in the future. Below are a couple of extracts.
“We will see more extremes and less predictability in the weather pattern. The climate scenarios that I’ve been looking at certainly predicts that China, particularly southern China, will be affected by changing climate drastically, and that’s also where we see a significant increase in population, and the migration to cities. That’s a stress on the whole infrastructure, both on clean water and wastewater.
The investment level in urban infrastructure is today already behind what it should be. New populations are making huge demands for new build and upgrading existing infrastructure, we’re talking billions and billions of dollars that needs to be invested.”
As to the future, the whole concept of recovery and, re-use is one that we’re working also in terms our research. Take a waste water stream as an example. We call it wastewater, and then we pour in lots of energy in treating it and removing all the unwanted material. But, turn it around a little bit and look at wastewater as a source of energy. There you have organic material and nutrients, so why don’t we spend some energy? Instead of extracting it turn it back into usage again.”
