IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 58

3. tiny test beds

singapore

de salination

malta

siNGaPore BeGaN its JoUrNey
to sovereignty with a mighty jolt. The
island was still an exotic outpost of the
British Empire when World War II
reverSe-oSmoSiS
delivered the shake-up. Japan's army
membraneS
at a n e wat e r
was preparing to invade from the Malay
p l a n t, o v e r S e e n
by harry Seah
Peninsula, and the British forces beat a
[top right ], produce
retreat to Singapore across the one bridge
t h e n e wat e r S a m p l e d
by ch i l dr e n.
connecting it to the mainland. To thwart
the Japanese troops, the Royal Engineers
blew up the bridge behind them.
The blast sealed the island's doom, for
it also ruptured a critical pipeline that
brought water from Johor, a Malay state.
The people of Singapore discovered they
had only a few days' water stored in
their meager reservoirs. The island was
truly defenseless. The Japanese swiftly
repaired the bridge, bicycled across the
strait, and claimed victory.
Sixty-eight years later, this port city
has both gained territorial independence and managed to bootstrap its
way to wealth in spite of a lack of water
and energy. And now, against all odds,
complete water independence-from
both Malaysia and even the weather-
is within easy reach. Rather than flushing waste into the sea, the water utility
collects the country's wastewater, cleans
it to pristine levels, and returns it to the
public supply. Singapore has thus shortcircuited the water cycle by reducing it to to this tropical dollop of land, its ample
an island-ringing loop.
rainfall-some 237 centimeters a year.
At first, no one relished the idea of It built dams to interrupt the flow of its
drinking wastewater. Rejuvenating streams and tiny rivers and built 15 resthe waste stream requires electricity ervoirs to store rain. Such reservoirs
to power an intensive cleaning process, are crucial because they stand in for the
and that investment makes the recycled groundwater that Singapore lacks.
water more expensive than what's used
Then the utility did a radical thing.
by cities blessed with nearby freshwater After half a decade of research and tests at
lakes, rivers, and aquifers. But presented a pilot recycling plant, Singapore's planwith a set of tough choices, Singapore ners unveiled their ultimate strategy for
chose water recycling-and so far it has water security. They would force wasteworked admirably.
water through filters under high pressure to remove all microbes, viruses, and
larger impurities. The utility called its
W h e N S i N g a P o r e F i N a l ly S e Pa r at e d
from Britain and then Malaysia in the product NEWater, and it called the treat1960s, water was at the top of the agenda. ment plant a factory. With great emphaThe government negotiated two treaties sis on its sparkling newness, treated
with its mainland neighbor to guarantee a wastewater made its public debut in 2003.
The real work was about to start. One
water supply, at a cost, for the next century.
With a base supply in place, the water by one, the utility cajoled its customers
utility went looking for more. The agency into accepting the water. Manufacturers
started with the one resource available wondered what residues the water might
58

nA * ieee spectrum * june 2010

three choices: NeWater,
bottled water from
Malaysia, and a glass filled at
the tap. your correspondent
sat down to drink. the
NeWater was bland to
a fault, like paper made
potable. the Malaysian
water delivered a cloying aftertaste-a perplexing
blend of dryer lint and berries. the drink from the
tap, however, was just right.

NEWater
TASTE
TEST

leave in their factories, but Harry Seah, the
utility's director of technology and water
quality, pointed out that NEWater was
cleaner than most drinking water. "At first
I had to convince them," Seah recalls. But
soon enough, he had signed on the island's
12 wafer-fabrication plants and other electronics manufacturers, and the utility
laid dedicated pipes to deliver NEWater.
Now Systems on Silicon Manufacturing
Co., which uses ultrapure water to wash
its silicon wafers, champions NEWater.
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum June, 2010