 Aloha. It's Wednesday afternoon over the hump day. And this is Mitch Yuan. I'm your host today. And this is Hawaii, the state of clean energy. And our sponsor is the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. We try our objective is to develop good policies, support good policies to develop a clean energy energy infrastructure here in Hawaii. The funding comes from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, which is where I have my day job. So I'm very pleased to have Dennis Furukawa. He's the CEO and founder of Real Green Power. And he's been in Hawaii for about 10 years, and he's developed the modular sanitation systems, which is also based on UH technology, but I'm not going to steal Dennis's thunder. So Dennis, welcome to the show and talk to us about modular sanitation systems. Well, thanks for having me, Mitch, and glad to be on the show. So yeah, as you mentioned, we have technology that came from UH, but it was originally from the College of Tropical Agriculture. And with the cooperation of UH, we adapted that technology for use in domestic, so human sewage. And we came up with an alternative means of treating sewage. And it is particularly low in its energy demands. And it also has a lot of positive environmental aspects to it. So we can talk further about that. What is the actual basis of the technology? What's the kind of the secret sauce? Without giving away any secrets, what's the, you know, for the fundamental technology behind this that you were able to license from the University of Hawaii? The fundamental technology is anaerobic digestion, which is pretty common and well understood in a sort of worldwide. But the way that we've, you know, improved the state of the art, as it were, is through the way that we apply anaerobic digestion technology. Originally, we came in with the way that a lot of people come into the renewables area with anaerobic digestion, which is to focus on the possibility or the, you know, the focusing on producing methane as the primary outcome. And, you know, methane from biological sources is is well understood. And they're applying it in India and Mexico and in China and in Europe. So they use sealed vessels where the bacteria break down organic, you know, like food waste or sewage. The bacteria breaks that down and produces methane. Just let me interrupt. Just so people know what anaerobic means, that's, tell us what the anaerobic, that's like a big word. Most people might not understand what that actually means. Right. So it means in the absence of air. So in the absence of oxygen is the real objective there. And a whole species of bacteria live in anaerobic situations. So they exist. Actually, there are some of the oldest life forms on the planet. And they live in there. They're all around us. They're in the soils. They're in the mud underwater. And they're active in breaking down, you know, like bits of, you know, woody detritus or algae or whatever that settles down in the bottom end. One of the aspects of anaerobic biology is that there's, they have a powerful ability to break down macromolecules. And it's, and the outcome of methane is actually the product of a whole chain of biological processes with a whole suite of bacteria. So it's not just one kind of bacteria. It is a, it's a whole chain of bacterial processes that goes on. And it's the same sort of thing that happens. So if you take a, you know, if you use yourself, your body as an example. So right, you take in food from your mouth. That's one process. You chew it. It's breaking it down. And then in your stomach, there's, you know, acids that are deployed. And those are, you know, further break down the molecules. And then the food slurry gets into your intestines where it is progressively broken down by intestinal bacteria. And once those bacteria solubilize, which means like turn it into liquid, they solubilize the food's nutrients, then they're absorbed through the intestinal walls. And then, you know, when you talk about, you know, passing gas, right? I mean, that is, that's methane, methane and carbon dioxide. And those are the same bacteria inside your gut that are being utilized in anaerobic digestion to produce methane. Thank you for that. All right. Yeah. So what we've done is focused our efforts, not necessarily on methane, but focusing the bacterial processes on breaking down the macromolecules, so like undigested food in particular or toilet paper. Those substances require some, you know, real strong biological processes to break it down. And typically, those processes are performed in sewage treatment plants by aerobic bacteria. And aerobic bacteria that are doing that work are actually relatively large. I mean, you can see these bacteria and, you know, they're actually visible to the naked eye, a lot of them. So rotifers and amoeba and those sorts of things that you can see with a magnifying glass. Whereas the, and so those larger critters, they actually, they literally take, you know, bites out of the food stuffs and toilet paper. And then they excrete out broken down wastes that are the foods for, you know, smaller chains of bacteria. And those are the ones that will solubilize. They will actually turn the solids into liquids. So what we're looking to do is to harness the anaerobic bacteria that do that same work. But you don't have to provide oxygen in their environment to do that. And the, the, so this is where energy gets into it. So when you have a leader of water that have bacteria in it and that you feed the bacteria, so we're talking about aerobic bacteria, if you feed them some things, they will, as they're consuming the food stuffs, the substances in the water, they also utilize the dissolved oxygen in the water. And very quickly that oxygen level goes down to zero. And then those that aerobic bacteria die. So you have to continually replenish the oxygen level in aerobic sewage treatment plants. And that's a huge, huge expense in energy. So by harnessing anaerobic bacteria to do that same work of breaking down, solubilizing the food wastes and toilet paper, then you have not expended any energy or, you know, relatively little, you're only using the energy to move the, the, the wastes into the environment where the anaerobic bacteria are. In Hawaii, you don't need to use any energy to keep them warm. These bacteria are very much akin to the same bacteria that's in your intestines. And so you know that they're, they're, they're comfortable at, you know, sort of like human body temperature. So Hawaii's environment allows us to take advantage of the, that, that, you know, the efficiency of performing these biochemical reactions in, in a temperature band that is suitable for our, you know, bacteria. So what we're able to do is to take the food wastes and toilet paper and break them down into soluble substrates that, and we can do that with very, very little energy. So we're looking at about 15% of the energy that's going into sewage treatment. So compared to a normal sewage treatment plant, we're using about 15% of that energy to get our wastes into the anaerobic digester and, and have that waste broken down. And then what we do is we put our wastes into an aerobic treatment vessel. And that aerobic treatment vessel utilizes the high rate of metabolism that aerobic bacteria are, they're characterized by. And they quickly absorb, consume the solubilized wastes. So just to be perfectly clear in case people keyed on 15%, you're actually saving 85% of the energy. It's 85% more efficient. Well, actually, correct you. So we're about at, we are, the results of our, of our trials, our pilot trials was that we saved 50% of the energy. But what we were able to do is reduce the sludge that comes out of sewage treatment by 85%. And that's another one of those real important sustainability, you know, outcomes. Because sewage sludge is a real, that's actually one of the most expensive and time consuming, like in man hours, activities is like managing sewage sludge. So what happens when aerobic bacteria are fed, they reproduce very quickly, and that reproduction produces biomass. So it's actually a conversion of, of solubilized, you know, substrates, converting it into actual bacterial bodies. And those, those are, it's actually a bit of an explosion of, of additional mass by introducing, you know, soluble foods into aerobic environments, which is one of the situations that that that people are familiar with, like algae blooms and whatnot. So what you have there is you have nutrients that are flowing into, for instance, like Chesapeake Bay. And those nutrients feed algae and there's an explosion of algae. And quickly those algae, they create dead zones because they consume all of the dissolved oxygen in the water. And they also exude toxins that kill fish and sell fish. So let's talk a little bit about the modular sanitation systems now. I think you brought some slides along. So why don't we walk our way through your, you know, your system and show, show what it looks like and how it works. Okay, so let's bring up the first slide. Well, modular sanitation systems is a, is a subsidiary of real green power. And real green power holds the technology license and modular sanitation systems is our vehicle of actually getting the technology out there and putting it to work. So one of the, so really our first commercial project is at a homeless camp. So the homeless camp is designed to be a temporary facility. The idea was is that we would not put any permanent buildings or any permanent improvements on the site. And the site is situated near the port of Honolulu. It's close to the small boat harbor. And, and right on the edge of the inundation zones, in case there was like a, you know, tsunami, it would be one of those situations where, yeah, there would be a limited amount of flooding. But what we were tasked with was to find or design a replacement to a whole suite of blue portable toilets and, and replace them with an onsite treatment system. And the objective would be to really save money as well as to provide more, you know, homey facilities for the residents of the homeless camp. So if you go to the next slide, what we put together was in shipping containers, there's a whole series of private bathrooms. And if you go to the next slide, those portable, those individual bathrooms are connected to what you see here is a miniature sewage treatment plant which has solar panels on the top of it. And those solar panels actually operate all of the wastewater treatment as well as they provide the energy for operating the toilets and the pumps that the bathroom module relies on. So, and as I was saying that the energy efficiency of our system is very high. It really doesn't take very much energy at all to actually perform the sewage treatment itself. And we have lithium batteries that store the solar energy and that runs the whole sanitary system entirely. So it's suitable for off-grid use, absolutely. Okay, let's have the next slide. So that's the design of the basic module. And if you go to the next slide, so that's in a 20-foot shipping container. What we've got is we've adapted this design actually to, because the original module was designed for a very large, so it's about 100, 115 people of our full-time residents there. We're looking at smaller units which would use individual toilet cassettes, essentially, that would plug into a shipping container that already had the wastewater treatment equipment already mounted in there. So that would be designed for a drop and operate kind of situation. So for instance, like you had a disaster, you could get one of these things up and running in a couple of days. So that's what that design was for. And if you go to the next slide, I think you'll see. All right, so this is just an interior plan of the treatment unit. And it's quite simple. I mean, so basically we have, on the far left, a receiving tank. And then we have a series of anaerobic digestion vessels and followed by anaerobic vessel, treatment vessel in yellow. And then there's a holding tank for the treated water on the right. It's pretty lean and it's very effective. So there you go. In a 20-foot shipping container, this will handle, you know, like I said, the toilet waste of at least 100 people like full-time. And showers as well. They're incorporated. Well, the showers actually, if you go to the next slide. So showers we've broken out as a separate process. This shows the whole, essentially the guts of the operation showing, you know, the relative position of the solar panels and the electrical systems and water filtration. But I think if you go to the next slide. So what we've done is we've taken the treated water and water from showers, which is filtered. And we're irrigating a dedicated garden, which features bananas and papayas and tea and calicoñas. And those are, they're growing fast and they're situated right next to the homeless camp. So really the next step there is there'll be additional bedroom units added to that camp. And so we'll be expanding all of the facilities to accommodate. I think we're looking at about, you know, 60 to 80 more residents. And so we'll have to add more capacity into our system. So what's been the reception by the actual residents there? I mean, what's been the reaction and how long have we been in operation? And what are some of the... Yeah, it's been a little over a year in operation. And the, basically the wastewater treatment system, it's out of sight and out of mind. I mean, the main issue is that, you know, the residents don't have to rely on going to blue porta-potties. They use, you know, flush toilets. And it's hard to get them out of the bathroom, basically. You know, they appreciate having the, you know, accommodations like a normal home, which is what this system is really designed for. So there is no... Okay. Well, I'll just talk over. So I remember I went to visit it with you one day and when it was first installed, and one of the ladies at the camp said, wow, this is so awesome. This is just like in a fancy hotel. She was so blown away by it. And so, like you said, so appreciative that, you know, that we upgraded their facilities like that. So it was actually, you know, kind of heart rendering to see, you know, how appreciative they were of that. Of course, what we're trying to do with our homeless community is to help them transition from the streets to, you know, employment and living a normal life. So this has really, really been helpful. That was my first observation. Yeah, I should have mentioned that this whole unit is actually, it's surrounded by housing modules, right? So there's bedrooms in shipping containers, converted shipping containers, and they're situated, you know, in close proximity to these bathrooms and the sewage treatment unit. And it has never been a source of irritation or odors or, you know, it's quiet. And there is no, you know, sludge removal and, you know, sludge drying and anything noxious. There's no flies. There's no waste. All of the effluence are treated and they go out underground. And, you know, we're putting thousands of gallons a day into irrigation. And we're growing papayas, you know, by the bushel. They're coming out of the ground really fast. We're coming close to the end of our time. So how about painting a picture of the way forward and developments that are coming up in the future? I think you have one slide that you want to talk to. And where are we going with this? All right. So, you know, the big lesson that we learned is that we can put sewage treatment in close proximity to housing. And it's not, it doesn't create a lot of friction. So, and the water that we produce is useful for irrigation. So if you go to that next slide, the final slide, what we are looking at in Honolulu is if you see on the left hand side, there's Sand Island. Sand Island is where the main sewage treatment plant for Honolulu is located. And essentially, all of those valleys that you're looking at in this map are connected to Sand Island. But at the same time, all of those valleys are at higher elevations than Sand Island. And a lot of the cases fairly significantly, you know, at least 100, 200 feet in elevation. So our idea is to situate small package sewage treatment units in all of these valleys and connect them to the existing sewer infrastructure. And instead of the water going down to the Sand Island sewage treatment plant, it would it would be diverted into these modular treatment units. And then that water would be going towards irrigating parklands, golf courses, you know, roadway landscaping, buffer zones, you know, schoolyards, any areas where you can use drip irrigation would be highly suitable for reusing treated water. So what we'd like to see is right, we would be essentially cutting cutting the sewage that's going down to Sand Island and directly reducing those operational costs there. And if our system is actually using half the energy and reducing the sludge by 85%, then, you know, we could be reducing our energy bills and this and sludge disposal bills by at least half by investing in distributed sewage treatment. That's a huge savings. It's massive. Yeah. It's massive. I like that. Because I think that the sewage treatment plant itself is one of the largest single energy users in the state. I think that it was like 13 or 15% the sewage treatment plants out of all of the energy. So it's got it can have a significant impact. So I'd like to make one final plug for the University of Hawaii. Because everybody tends to not, you know, not understand how the university helps the community and solves problems. Well, here's a direct application of what our scientists at the University of Hawaii develop and now that real green power is applying to make lives better. We've seen how it's making the homeless lives are better, better quality of life. And also we can have the potential to save, you know, a lot of money in this distributed sewage treatment system that Dennis is so eloquently described. So I just want to get that plug in because everybody likes to criticize the university when some major event happens and we don't get enough credit for the good things we do. And so we're actually trying to solve today's problems in our labs with our very talented scientists. And that's a good thing. So Dennis, thank you so much for coming on the show today and telling us about real green power and your modular sanitation systems sewage systems. And good luck going forward and thanks again and come back again and tell us how it's going. Give us an update as you go along. Thanks, Mitch. So Aloha and we'll be back next Wednesday. I actually have another guest lined up at the last minute, Charlie, that I normally am. And he's going to be talking further about some of the wonderful technology that's coming out of University of Hawaii, in particular, plug, Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, HNEI. So I look forward to being able to share that with you next week. Aloha.