I have an assignment that asks us to discuss a topicidea wit

I have an assignment that asks us to discuss a topic/idea within our discipline. I am a civil engineering but my speciality is environmental (there\'s three specialities in our college: structural, transportation and environmental) and I found an interesting study about using offshore algae farming to produce biofuels. The US department of energy stated that biofuels from offshore algae farming can eventually meet the transportation demand in the United States. The process is obtained using the OMEGA (Offshore Membrane Enclosures for Growing Algae) system which includes photobioreactors that turn micro-algae into biofuel. The system also uses treated wastewater as fertilizer. It actually uses forward osmosis to clean it and produce clean water that actually improves the quality of the ocean water. I really want to use this topic for this assignment but I\'m not exactly sure how I would relate it with civil engineering. I just know that we dealt with a lot of wastewater treatment, photobioreactors and hydrologic engineering in my classes. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Solution

civil engineering is not just about construction, it is the responsibility of civil engineer to utilise the resources in best suited manner and put forward ideas which can help in different fields.

you can relate omega with civil engineer in following ways:

1: while doing a construction project near sea or a place where water is salty, using omega will help to produce clear water and as it uses the treated wastewater as fertilizer, the waste water willget utilised and will fulfill the demand of biofuels.

2: the system can be installed in synchronus with an industry, where the treated water will be used in omega and in turn will produce biofuels. as a environmental enginner in industry, this will solve the problem of wastewater and the biofuel in turn can be used there.

3:if the capacity of water treatment in omega is economical, then you could make a plan applying omega projects in all the cities near sea.

4: you can work on ways of increasing the efficiency of water treatment in omega as well as to put forward an idea to increase production of biofuel.

(if you have any query regarding the answer then plese coment on the comment box.)