Water drives life, economies, and security – it is essential to our everyday life. Dangerous biological and chemical pollutants that make their way into streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans can result in the spread of disease, contamination of crops, and negatively affect vital ecosystems – ultimately impacting the water we drink and food we eat.
Wastewater treatment removes impurities that come from homes, businesses, farms, industrial plants, and runoff from streets. Treated water can be repurposed or released back into natural waterways. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 34 billion gallons of wastewater in the United States are treated by facilities every day, playing a key role in the public health of communities nationwide. NASA Earth observation data from the Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources (POWER) project plays a key role in assisting companies treating wastewater both domestically and around the globe.
There are several energy efficient and cost-effective ways to treat wastewater. NASA POWER data helps two companies, Produced Water Ecoservices (PWES) and HUBER SE, who use two different methods.
PWES is a company based in Columbia that treats wastewater from oil and gas industrial facilities, also known as produced water. PWES treats produced water using a method called mechanical evaporation. Mechanical evaporation is 14 times faster than natural evaporation, turning water into vapor to more easily separate the waste.
Since mechanical evaporation is highly dependent on weather conditions, the company uses NASA POWER’s Data Access Viewer (DAV) to access meteorological parameters such as precipitation, relative humidity, air temperature, wind speed and direction, and surface pressure. PWES said it uses POWER’s historical meteorological data to input into its systems to simulate the mechanical evaporation process.
PWES treats wastewater on oil and gas field sites, which saves on transportation costs, shortens the water treatment cycle, and reduces the risk of environmental spillage. The treated wastewater can be recycled as feed water to continue the industrial process. NASA POWER data has made it possible for PWES to treat more than 2.5 million barrels of wastewater, enabling the production of 300,000 barrels of oil. Hubert Borja Quintero, a vice president at PWES, said NASA POWER data is more reliable than its local weather stations, and accurate data is essential for the mechanical evaporation process.
"POWER Data Access [Viewer]’s weather database is fundamental to ensure that any engineering design for mechanical evaporation…solution is viable," said Quintero.
HUBER SE, on the other hand, treats wastewater by managing the sludge that is left over once water has been removed, using a process called solar drying – when sewage sludge is dried by the sun. This reduces the volume and weight of the sludge, allowing for easy and cost-efficient storage, transportation, and disposal. HUBER SE, a global company founded in Bavaria, Germany, manufactures process engineering systems to treat wastewater. The company has more than 250 solar drying machines around the world, including in Utah near Salt Lake City and in Florida. In 2024, HUBER SE’s American subsidiary, HUBER Technology, Inc., expanded its production facility in Denver, North Carolina so 100% of HUBER USA production is made in the United States, fulfilling requirements of the Build America, Buy America Act.
Utilizing NASA POWER’s global data, HUBER SE can bring to fruition large projects, such as the 650,000 square meter solar sludge drying plant in Bahr El-Baqar, Egypt, which broke the Guinness Book of World Records in 2021. The canal, which runs from Cairo to the Mediterranean Sea, is known as one of the most polluted in Egypt and was dangerous for the surrounding environment and people living nearby. HUBER SE turned to NASA POWER data to help design its systems for the highest level of efficiency. The efficiency of solar drying is heavily dependent on various factors, such as humidity, temperature, and solar radiation. The company uses NASA POWER’s DAV to access solar and meteorological data, using parameters such as all sky surface shortwave downward irradiance, temperature at two meters, and relative humidity to inform its system modeling. On average, this plant alone has five million cubic meters of water flow through its system and produces 1,300 tons of sludge per day; and POWER data helped make it possible.
“The climate data that we obtain via the NASA POWER system provides us with a reliable and precise basis for optimally adapting our systems to the respective needs and site conditions of our customers,” said Moritz Marschall, a representative from HUBER SE.
Although PWES and HUBER SE utilize different wastewater treatment methods, what both companies have in common is NASA POWER’s global solar and meteorological data leading to efficient wastewater treatment. This allows PWES and HUBER SE to save on costs and helps you remain healthy while taking advantage of all that is connected to our waterways around the world.