Summary

   Our team has selected the National Critical Technology Category of Environmental Quality in the technological area of "pollution control," the sub-area of  "wastewater management."   By creatively finding an alternate solution to the ever-growing problems surrounding wastewater disposal, we are saving land area in urban communities and providing for a cleaner environment simultaneously.  Our team selected this technology standard because of our concerns regarding the water and air quality in large cities, namely Tampa, Florida.  Our proposed vertical municipal waste treatment plant allows for reductions in both land requirements and air/water pollutants.  Land availability is diminishing, at an equal rate to the exponential population growth.  The improvement of water quality through reduction of sludge piped away and methane emissions will result in the reduction of landfill additions and lessening of atmospheric hazards, respectively.   These simple improvements to air and water quality and reduction of ground-space requirements help to make the urban environment a cleaner and more efficient place.

   It was our intent to evaluate current sewage treatment centers and determine how to implement a more efficient system, designed for crowded urban areas. This study has primarily focused on the environmental factors of sewage processing facilities, and, through our research, we have hoped to offer a viable alternative.

   Our team has learned about such topics as current waste treatment techniques, combustion byproducts of fossil and biomass fuels, environmental impacts of current energy production, and the process by which biomass can be converted into either gaseous or liquid energy sources.

   In the future, biomass fuel will prove to be a key area in science education.   Knowledge of chemistry, biology, and physics are all requirements for maintaining a waste treatment facility.  Engineering such facilities will also provide a field of scientific study, since each system must be scaled to the specific location for maximum efficiency.  Each of these spheres of knowledge offers career opportunities. Within 5-10 years, scientific development of biomass fuel, coupled with the rapidly diminishing fossil fuel supply, will put renewable energy sources on an economically equal, if not better, plane as other energy sources.  In response to a growing use of biomass fuel, power plants and miners of fossil fuels will likely shift resources to embrace the movement in an effort to retain their share of the global marketplace.

On January 27, 2000, the President of the United States of America stated in his State of the Union Address:

"The greatest environmental challenge of the new century is global warming. The scientists tell us the 1990s were the hottest decade of the entire millennium. If we fail to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, deadly heat waves and droughts will become more frequent, coastal areas will flood, and economies will be disrupted. That is going to happen, unless we act.

"Many people in the United States -- some people in this chamber -- and lots of folks around the world still believe you cannot cut greenhouse gas emissions without slowing economic growth. In the Industrial Age that may well have been true. But in this digital economy, it is not true anymore. New technologies make it possible to cut harmful emissions and provide even more growth.

"For example,  just last week, automakers unveiled cars that get 70 to 80 miles a gallon -- the fruits of a unique research partnership between government and industry. And before you know it, efficient production of bio-fuels will give us the equivalent of hundreds of miles from a gallon of gasoline."