0. Green Infrastructure (GI) Duska Disselhoff

1. Green (nature-based) versus Gray (man-made)
Definition
Green (nature-based) versus Gray (man-made)

2. RAI-GI member companies: RAI-GI collaborating partners:
Hypothesis
GI phase 1 - hypothesis
Green Infrastructure can provide more categories of benefits - economic, environmental, socio-political - , than traditional gray infrastructure
Therefore the hypothesis is that:
“Working together with natural systems can enable organizations to better manage disruptive events, such as mechanical failure, power interruption, raw material price increases, and floods, that often impair gray solutions. In other words, GI solutions can increase business resilience”.
RAI-GI member companies:
Royal Dutch Shell
The Dow Chemical Company
Swiss Re
Unilever
RAI-GI collaborating partners:
The Nature Conservancy
The global economy is a tightly wound system, extremely interconnected and efficient, with increasing risks to organizations due to the rapid propagation of disruptive events. Ecosystem services, the goods and services humans receive from nature, underpin the global economy and provide tremendous value to people and organizations. Receiving services from nature is often more cost effective and sustainable than generating them with man-made materials like steel and concrete. The hypothesis is that working together with natural systems, and hence Green Infrastructure, offers benefits by being resistant to disruptive events, such as power interruption, raw material price increases, mechanical failure and financial crisis, which can impair traditional gray solutions.
Resilience Action Initiative (RAI)

3. Green Infrastructure went public on 11th June 2013!
GI phase 1 case studies
Green Infrastructure went public on 11th June 2013!

4. Can GI solutions increase business resilience?
Green versus Gray infrastructure
Trade-offs !!!
Evaluation criteria
Green infrastructure
Gray infrastructure
Stakeholder involvement
Extended stakeholders are often required to support the project and may have an active and ongoing role in the project design and operation
Stakeholders are often engaged with the aim to create local support for the project, but without active involvement in the project design and operation
Engineering approach
GI solutions require a custom-made, location-specific design and do not lend themselves to standardization and replication
Traditional engineering solutions enable a standardize-and-replicate approach which can significantly reduce project costs and delivery times
Physical footprint
A large physical footprint is often required due to low energy density
Usually, only a small physical footprint is required due to the high energy density
Environmental footprint
Often reduced environmental footprint due to GI solutions being nature-based and self-regenerating
Often increased environmental footprint due to material and energy intensive processes (manufacturing, distribution, operation)
Speed of delivering the functionality
GI solutions may take time (years) to grow to provide a certain service and capacity
Traditional engineering solutions provide functionality from day 1 of operation
Susceptibility to external factors
GI solutions are susceptible to extreme weather conditions, seasonal changes in temperature or rainfall and disease.
Gray infrastructure is susceptible to power loss, mechanical failure of industrial equipment and price volatility.
Operational and maintenance costs
Operating and maintenance costs are often significantly lower (only monitoring and feedback is required)
Operating costs are often significantly higher due to power consumption, operational and maintenance requirements
Risk of price volatility
GI solutions are relatively insensitive to fluctuations in the cost of raw materials, oil, gas and power
Traditional engineering solutions are sensitive to fluctuations in the cost of raw materials, oil, gas and power
Approach to system monitoring and control
GI solutions are living and complex systems that can be monitored and effectively managed by a deep understanding of the key control variables
Traditional engineering solutions are man-made systems that are typically designed with established monitoring techniques to effectively manage and control system performance
Required operating personnel
No need for 24/7 operational supervision because of the slower response times of GI solutions compared to gray solutions
Complex control and safeguarding systems typically require 24/7 operational supervision
Expenses for increasing capacity of system
Relatively inexpensive to extend the capacity of the GI solution, provided there is physical footprint available
Extension of capacity could be relatively inexpensive as long as significant modification or redesign is not required
The key differences between green and gray infrastructure are summarized in Table 1 and serve to enhance the understanding of the trade-offs involved when evaluating green versus gray solutions. These trade-offs assist in identifying the specific areas of opportunity for optimum resilient solutions which, in practice, are often combinations of new GI solutions integrated into existing facilities, creating so-called hybrid solutions.
GI solutions often leverage existing natural resources. Their regenerative processes consume less energy and are thus less sensitive to fluctuations in the cost of raw materials, cost of power, energy loss and mechanical failure compared to gray infrastructure
Both green and gray infrastructure resist shocks, but in different ways. Hybrid approaches, utilizing a combination of green and gray infrastructure, may provide an optimum solution to shocks and improve the overall resilience of an organization

5. Hybrid approaches as optimum solutions
Hybrid engineering
Hybrid approaches, utilizing a combination of green and gray infrastructure, may provide an optimum solution to shocks and improve the overall resilience of an organization. Synergies occur from combining both engineering schemes, each building upon their respective strengths
Nature-based
Man-made
Synergies
The table above communicates that both green solutions and gray solutions have benefits and challenges. Both green and gray infrastructure resist shocks, but in different ways. For example, gray components may support the “growth” of a green solution
GI solutions offer a fit-for-purpose approach to reduce the system redundancy of the hybrid solution due to its ability to be implemented in a modular way, slowly increasing the capacity of the GI solution based on operational feedback from the field. Hybrid solutions allow effective risk management against different types of shocks and stressors in the goal to transition to more resilient facilities.

6. Reed beds for water treatment
Example in Shell
Reed beds for water treatment
Nimr water treatment plant (NWTP), Oman
Value Drivers
Reduce high energy costs
Reduce GHG emissions (power gen)
Key enablers
Environmental climate
Political climate
Critical success factors
Collaboration with external party
Step-wise increasing the capacity of the wetlands (hybrid solutions)
Internal champion to drive the project
Key risks / barriers
Large land area required
Time required to find solution
Co-benefits
Increased biodiversity
Wetland functions as CO2 sink
Options for saline agriculture
PDO (Petroleum Development Oman); Gov. of Oman, Royal Dutch Shell: Produced Water Treatment Plant, Oman Project description: 235 ha Reed-bed water treatment plant treating produced water from Shell oilfields in Oman
The world’s largest Reed-bed water treatment plant treats 15 vol% (45,000 m3/d) of the total produced water from the Shell oilfields in Oman. The huge volumes of water produced from the reservoir required an extensive water treatment infrastructure to process and re-inject the water into subsurface reservoirs, leading to high operational costs of equipment. The team was seeking an alternative, low cost solution to treat the water to the required discharge specification. The gravity-based wetland design offered the following advantages and disadvantages:
Capital expense savings: in the order of 50% equipment cost savings compared to the water re-injection alternative
Operating expense savings: energy consumption reduced by 80% due to elimination of (electric powered) water treatment and injection equipment and the operation thereof
Eliminated the carbon footprint: associated with the operation of water treatment and injection equipment
Other benefits: potential for by-product optimization with the local environment
Large required land footprint: 235 ha to treat 45,000 m3/d of produced water
Long pilot period (>5 years): required to de-risk the GI technology and find the optimum Reed-bed design
Operational risk of the wetland: risk of not delivering the desired functionality and not meeting the performance requirements due to external factors (climate change, floods, biotic stresses, etc)
Liability issues: related to toxic metals in wastewater leading to the limited use of Reed-beds (i.e. facility is fenced in)
Disposal Option
Power required
CO2 emissions
Deep well disposal
Up to 5.5 kWh/m3
1,960,000 t
Reed bed
0.1 kWh/m3
35,700 t

7. GI phase 2 (2013-2014) GI knowledge projects
Develop a comprehensive techno-economic & environmental model to better evaluate green versus gray solutions
Develop and calibrate the model using the PDO reed bed project
Shell, Dow (share approach)
GI knowledge projects
2. Design and develop a GI catalogue to help implement GI into our businesses
Waste categories: GHG, water, solids, noise, chemicals etc
Climate categories: tropical, polar / arctic, temperate, desert etc
Shell, Dow (share approach)
GI application projects
3. Share knowledge on small scale, easy to replicate, hybrid GI projects
Option 3.1-A: GI for coastal pipeline infrastructure erosion control
Option 3.1-B: GI for onshore pipeline infrastructure erosion control
Option 3.2: GI for China retail station water mgt and effluent treatment
Shell, TNC (TBC), Bauer (TBC)
4. Explore GI opportunities for Dow & Shell co-located assets
Option 4.1-A: Shell downstream assets: Deer Park refinery
Option 4.1-B: Shell upstream assets: unconventionals
Option 4.2: Development by Design of Colorado land reclamation
Shell, Dow (TBC), TNC (TBC)
GI exploratory projects
5. Explore mutually beneficial GI related water technology solutions
Option 5.1: develop nature-based progressive salt water treatment options
Option 5.2: Saline agriculture related developments
Shell, Dow (joint programs)
6. RAI design competition to link smart cities to GI via industrial ecology solutions
Leverage GI phase 1 work for the Houston smart city pilot
Link with the Gamechanger social innovation initiative
Shell, Dow (TBC), RAI (TBC)