Pictures of the Future Fall 2008
Raw Materials – Interview
Solving the Global Drinking Water Problem
Interview with Rhett Butler
Siemens manager Rhett Butler, who established the Skyjuice Foundation, has transformed a high-tech water treatment process into an everyday application for third world countries. In recognition of this achievement, he was presented with the 2007 Siemens Corporate Responsibility Award
Ensuring that the world has an adequate supply of clean drinking water is considered one of the major challenges of the 21st century. Does your membrane technology solve the problem?
Butler: Naturally, the problem is far from solved—and obviously I’m not going to solve it alone. Nevertheless, I’m firmly convinced that we now have the technology to provide everyone on the planet with clean water, even in the most underdeveloped regions of the Third World. Membrane technology has made this possible. What we need to do now is to make the technology widely available. Skyhydrant, which was developed together with my colleagues at Siemens and the Skyjuice Foundation, enables people in developing countries to use the most advanced water treatment process known.
High-tech for the Third World—that sounds expensive.
Butler: That’s what many people think, but actually the opposite is true. Membrane technology is much less expensive than any other method of providing clean water. It’s fairly easy to calculate. One Skyhydrant can be purchased for $3,000. That one unit can then provide 1,000 people with clean water for drinking, cooking, and washing every day. And it can do so for ten years—that’s how long the membranes last if they’re well-maintained. So in the end, it comes out to 30 cents per person per year.
Sounds great. Why isn’t there a Skyhydrant in every village from the Congo to the Mekong Delta?
Butler: Because we’re just getting started. I didn’t even begin working on it until 2001, after working for more than 20 years as a manager at Memcor in Sydney. The company was developing highly complex filtration systems, but at some point I asked myself if it would be possible to use the membranes in simple, low-cost applications in the Third World. I then began experimenting in my garage after work with left-over membranes from the factory. The biggest challenge was how to clean the filters. But then I discovered that the filter fibers could also be cleaned using a hand-operated mechanism.
In 2005, you took a temporary leave of absence to establish the Skyjuice Foundation…
Butler: Yes, because I thought if I wanted to solve the world’s water problem, I would never be able to do so by just working long hours on nights and weekends. So I got in touch with several development aid organizations, who were initially skeptical. Ironically, the big breakthrough came in December 2004 after the tsunami hit Southeast Asia. There was suddenly huge demand in the impacted areas for easily-transportable equipment for treating drinking water. Conventional units that use traditional procedures involving sand beds or active carbon weigh more than a ton, while one Skyhydrant weighs only 20 kg—and has the same capacity. My Siemens colleagues and our team of volunteers then collaborated in a massive effort and ultimately succeeded in building more than 100 Skyhydrants and shipping them to Sri Lanka in just a few weeks. That was more or less our practical test run.
How many Skyhydrants are now in operation?
Butler: More than 400, which isn’t very many really. This summer, however, the Skyjuice Foundation put its own factory into operation. This plant has the capacity to produce 200 Skyhydrants a week. Production isn’t the only challenge; we also have to actually get the devices to the people who need them.
Siemens has donated many Skyhydrants to disaster areas, and aid organizations are also now getting involved…
Butler: That’s only one possible approach. If you look at the history of development work, you’ll find that people will use water treatment facilities most often and in the most responsible way when they have to contribute for themselves—or at least cover a portion of the costs.
Are you saying Skyhydrant could be sold commercially?
Butler: Market mechanisms can do a lot. Right now, for example, we’re talking to micro credit banks that could theoretically sell Skyhydrants to operators of "water kiosks." At the same time, Siemens and the Skyjuice Foundation, which together hold the rights to Skyhydrant, both agree that we will not seek to make a profit here but instead make the technology available at the lowest possible cost. We already have the technology and good concepts to solve the drinking water problem, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t use sensible and ethical market mechanisms, such as micro-entrepreneurship to achieve our mutual objectives.
Interview by Bernhard Bartsch