Well, I think truthfully it's that we
live in very exciting times with regards
to wastewater treatment. I think we are
on the verge of a paradigm shift in our
industry.
I think the days of talking
about wastewater treatment
will soon be gone. I think the days of
talking about resource recovery
are where we are headed. I think
we're going to see resource recovery
facilities. So anybody that came in to be a
wastewater treatment engineer I think
you'll be out of a job. You want to be a
resource recovery engineer in the future.
I think the mantra that we're going to
see in the next ten years
is reduce
reuse, ...recover and reuse. 
So, reduce the energy demand,
reduce the chemical demand,
recover and reuse our water,
our nutrients, our energy,
and biosolids and also even bio-
polymers and metals and plastics that we
can create
from our wastewater treatment
facilities.
So, why is that happening?
Why is this the driver? Well,
it's many of the things that we know are
happening globally are challenging us as
a
as a generation,
but in general things such as
population explosion, we're seeing a
fifty percent increase in population in
the next fifty years.
We're also going to see an urbanization
of that population. Seventy percent of
those 9.5 billion people we
expect to have on the planet will live in
urban areas. So urban areas we 
unusually are finding more cities in
more arid areas. So the water supply
isn't where the water is needed. So I
think there's going to be a lot more
need for reuse.
Water demand is outstripping supply.
We're seeing water demand increasing at twice
the rate of population increase which is
incredible.
And, we're seeing a reduction in the availability
and the quality of water.
So, all this is making water a very
valuable resource. In fact, 
to the point that 
the UN stated that the wars of this
century will be fought over water.
And,
all of that... those issues, those driving
issues in our
in our globe at the moment,
are also compounded by the increasing
energy costs
and um...
and I think that's going to push us
towards what we need to do in our waste-
water industry which is focus on this
reduce energy, reduce chemical demand,
recover and reuse.
So, let's talk about how that is going to
happen. In terms of the energy
reductions as one of the big drivers I
think we'll see
a movement away from these
energy-intensive aerobic treatment
processes. More to anaerobic treatment
processes. And that may be facilitated by
things such as source separation so that
we have more concentrated
black water streams, yellow water
streams, and gray water streams that
we are treating.
It could also be driven by the
... new technologies that
we're seeing emerge on the market.
And we're seeing a greater interest, of
course, in
anaerobic processes with the use of
bacteria such as Anammox,
a bacteria that we didn't even know
existed until 1999 and now
we're using it at full scale.
Energy efficient, sustainable
bacteria that work in anaerobic
environments as opposed to aerobic
environments. So I think we're going to
recognize that there are the ways and
means to do this
but uh... we're going to begin to
engineer situations and environments in
which this can happen.
So, the wastewater treatment plant of the
future may have the same head works but
it may go straight to an anaerobic upflow
sludge blanket and then into
demodification process and
then into an EDC removal process. So,
things are moving in that direction.
We'll also see recovery of the other
elements such as ammonia and phosphorus.
Phosphorus is another finite resource
that we have
and yet every day at our wastewater
treatment facilities, we see an ample
supply of phosphorus come in in our
wastewater.
Recovery of phosphorus is probably a
very important activity that we'll see
much more of or beginning to see it now.
Recovery of ammonia. Both of these are
service fertilizers...
and fertilizers, of course, as we said with this
massive population growth, we need
fertilizers for food.
And ammonia also has other 
opportunities, even as a fuel resource.
And we're beginning to recognize the value of
ammonia.
A cubic meter of ammonia has more
energy than a cubic meter of hydrogen gas.
So, it is three hydrogens to two hydrogens.
So this is a very valuable resource.
So I think we'll see more recovery of
that.
I think we'll also see a greater
recovery of
the plastics, the bioplastics that
we can create out of wastewater.
And then...
so, finally I think then, just, uh...
the recovery of our
biosolids and reuse of biosolids.
So I think those are some of the things,
a paradigm shift
towards more sustainable
energy-efficient
technologies; a lot more recovery; a lot
more reuse and then to facilitate that,
of course, 
maybe source separation systems and
decentralized water reuse systems in
some situations.
