|
 |
Home > ÖSTERREICH > Geschftsveranstaltungen
CLEAN ENERGY: CHANGE FOR THE FUTURE STARTS IN DUBAI
Rome (Ign) -Environment and energy: a vital combination that the world must focus on in order to build a better future. And the interest in this theme is also shown by Wetex 2007 (www.wetex.ae), scheduled to take place in the United Arab Emirates from 13 to 15 March at the World Trade Exhibition Center in Dubai. This annual trade fair is dedicated to the sectors of water treatment, equipment and systems for clean energy, waste recycling, and environmental protection. The location is no coincidence: atmospheric pollution is in fact one of the main problems of the Gulf country. The Emirates produce 100% of their electricity through fossil fuels, and their carbon dioxide emissions are at one of the highest levels in the world. Moreover, almost all the water for domestic use comes from desalination plants. The government has signed international agreements on crucial environmental issues, such as desertification, the disposal of toxic waste, abolition disposal at sea, and the protection of the ozone layer. In the last edition of the event there were 8500 visitors and 206 operators from 27 countries, and also this year Italy will be present, with a collective delegation of 18 companies organised by the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade (ICE).
In Italy, the sectors on show at the fair are representative of an industrial system with a high level of innovation. The sector of waste recovery and recycling of avant-garde companies flourishing. Between 2000 and 2004 the number of companies rose, according to research carried out by Cerved, from 3000 to around 3400, while the turnover leapt from €1.7bn in 2000 to €3.2bn in 2004, 45% of which is concentrated in the hands of the 10 leading companies. Today, recycling companies operate in the businesses of waste and scrap metal, plastic materials and solid urban waste, industrial waste and biomass, and are large in size seeing that more than a third of them have a turnover of over €5m. In terms of clean energy, moreover, the results achieved by wind installations and plants are extremely significant: in 2006 the production of this technology covered the electrical requirements of over 4 million Italians, allowing savings of 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 and 15,000 tonnes of SO2, and avoiding the use of around 10 million barrels of oil.
Water treatment is also a particularly successful sector that in Italy can boast technology of the highest level.
This was developed in Italy thanks to a strong environmental drive acknowledged in the first Italian law passed in the mid-1970s to protect the precious natural asset that is water: Law 319/76, known as the "Merli Law" after its first signatory and creator. The law, which established new control parameters for the protection of water, imposed the design of new tools to be made available to the institutes which had the task of monitoring water, and which were considered revolutionary at the time. Thanks to this initial legislation in the field, which remains a milestone in Italian environmental policy, there began an irreversible process aimed at heightening awareness of the importance of protecting water, which encouraged the development of innovative technologies, and which today makes Italy an international benchmark in the sector.
Examples include the treatment of water using an ion exchanger (deconcentrator, water-softener), a method which makes it possible to eliminate limestone through the exchange of ions between the water and a particular purification device; or the system based on the use of an electromagnetic field, which makes it possible to obtain the desired result without using chemical products. A pearl of technology is the treatment of water using inverse osmosis plants, based on a series of filters and membranes which in turn trap the impurities to make the water drinkable, and can be used both for decalcification and desalinisation.
|
|
|
