Interview with Jonathan Clement, CEO, PWN Technologies at BlueTech Forum 2016

Hi, I'm Angela Godwin with Waterworld and Industrial Waterworld magazines coming to you from the BlueTech forum here in San Francisco, California. Joining me today is my guest, Jonathan Clement. He is CEO of PWN Technologies. Thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here.

Well, I know you're giving a presentation on a very pioneering water utility. Tell us a little bit about that.

Well, it's a story that began probably 70, 80 years ago in the northwest of the Netherlands with a water utility that grew up in a delta area of one of the most polluted rivers in the world, the Rhine River. In order to do so, this utility had to have very progressive innovation to take water from the Rhine, which was very, very, very polluted, and turn that into drinking water. So they evolved out of sort of their own sense of urgency, their own sense of need to be able to take compromised water and turn it into drinking water.

Wow. So how were they able to do that?

I think they had a great deal of good leadership in the organization and in PWN to bring together very qualified people, which is not traditionally done in the water industry. I mean, a lot of the expertise lies within universities, lies within consulting companies, lies within technology companies. But they brought that into their own organization because they felt that no one is going to look after them. It's up to them to take care of themselves.

Interesting. So now what are you seeing in terms of larger trends that are emerging in the industry?

Well, one thing for sure is that people have gone through a learning lesson in the last 12 to 15 years where there have been implementation of these new technologies which are also come along with many promises to deliver quite economical and profound solutions. But the reality is that they don't always live up to what they're supposed to do. And what we're seeing is sort of a. A trend which really comes from one single point which I just mentioned, and that is that people are wanting to really prove that the solution works. They want to do extended testing. I recall in many cases when I was working as a global consultant, you know, we did pilot testing that went maybe three months, maybe not at all, maybe six months. Now we're seeing programs of one year to 18 months to prove that the technology is really working before it's implemented. And that has led to more robust technologies, stronger technologies such as ceramic membranes.

Well, that's actually a great segue because I wanted to talk a little bit more about ceramic membranes, which are getting a lot of buzz over the last couple of years wondering why. What sets them apart from the more traditional membranes?

Well, this morning I just mentioned we had a discussion with a roundtable on just this issue about ceramic membranes. And the advantages are very clear over what we call traditional polymeric membranes. We don't have fibers that break. We can offer a lifetime of 20 or 25 years as opposed to something that we don't know the lifetime of. It might between three and seven years. So we're talking the difference between three and seven years of a lifetime versus an almost indefinite replacement. These are very quantum leaps and that we can clean the membranes, we can take care of them, we can't damage them. So there are very significant and dramatic advantages over polymeric membranes. Yes, there is a price to pay in the short term, but in the long term, these advantages really outweigh the cost and you end up with a much lower whole life cycle cost and the benefit that you wake up in the morning knowing that the system will really work.

Interesting. Well, we wish you a lot of luck with that going forward. And thank you very much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. For Waterworld magazine, I'm Angela Godwin.