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>>Eventually it’s hoped that buildings will be completely self-sufficient, or “water neutral,” using the same water over and over, potable and nonpotable, in a
by Ensorceled 3y ago
>>Eventually it’s hoped that buildings will be completely self-sufficient, or “water neutral,” using the same water over and over, potable and nonpotable, in a closed loop.
So a condo/apartment has it's own elevators, solar rooftop, and now a hi reliability water recycling system that can support a few hundred units.
Sounds financially viable at scale ...
- AHOHA 3y ago>Sounds financially viable at scale ... You will still have to pay taxes, fees, condo maintenance fees, etc. that are far more financially worse than if you just paid for these in the old traditional way.
- Ensorceled 3y agoI don't think you are getting my point ... waste and water treatment and power generation are things that go down in cost with scale. Trying to get waste treatment and water purification and power generation to operate at the scale of a few 100s of people isn't viable.
- AHOHA 3y agoAgreed, I see what you mean.
- jerf 3y agoYeah, that was my first thought too. It's a very San Francisco solution... expensive and ineffective, if not outright counterproductive, but very virtuous looking. A building being "self-sustaining" from an all-things-considered accounting perspective is not a bad goal, but there's no reason the "self-sustaining"-ness of a building needs to be physically co-located with the building. It's not like we anticipate the building taking off into space at some point in the future where it will need this functionality on its own. It is far more sensible to work proper water recycling into all the other fees they're paying anyhow.