Water Needs More Respect Says Bourne Energy

Bourne Energy develops technology to protect river water quality.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) - "Humankind is running out of water at an alarming pace. We're going to run out of water long before we run out of oil” - Peter Brabeck, chairman of Nestlé. As a nation, we need to better care for the water we use and ultimately reuse. This starts with respecting water and treating its sources with more respect. Bourne Energy, developer of river, tidal and ocean power systems, believes this begins by protecting our rivers, remediating them and preparing them for climate change. It has developed the RiverStar BPP to do just that.

The RiverStar-BPP is designed to protect, monitor and safeguard our rivers. The unit is a portable, multifunctional hydrokinetic energy generator. It displaces one cubic meter, weighs 30 lbs and produces 600 watts. Various special purpose modules can be plugged into the unit to allow it to perform a number of functions. The BPP’s portability, modularity and compact all-in-one design allows the RiverStar to play a number of key roles in improving river ecology, water quality and supplies.

The RiverStar can be interconnected into multiple arrays stretching across and down a river to create a “flow-thru dam”, a viable alternative to building power dams. Dams compound pollution problems by reducing a rivers' ability to flush out pollutants. A dam’s reservoir accumulates upstream contaminants thus the water released from a dam can be highly toxic causing significant ecological and human-health effects downstream. While free-flowing rivers with adequate oxygen and natural nutrient balances can remove or reduce the toxicity of river contaminants. Meanwhile greenhouse gas emissions produced in a dams’ reservoir can be significant while at the same time the dam’s reservoir loses considerable amounts of freshwater to evaporation. The RiverStar-BPP can also retrofit old dams and levees thus reducing the need to build more new dams.

Other versions of the RiverStar can serve as backup power for wastewater treatment, industrial and power plants protecting rivers from possible toxic spills while at the same time cooling hot water outflows thus reducing bacterial growth. The units can also be modified to serve as a WiFi connected sensor network the length of the river to monitor water quality while quickly locating any new source of toxic dumping. The RiverStar’s mobility allows it to be rapidly placed in areas to filter and neutralize oil, coal ash, and other toxic spills. And the units can be used to clean dirty rivers utilizing aeration and other proven technologies.

Large scale application of RiverStar systems will renew river ecology and its natural abilities to rebuild its shoreline, clean its waters and provide for its fish and biosystems.