Creating Water from Thin Air 348
Iphtashu Fitz writes "In order to provide the U.S. Military with water in places like Iraq, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency gave millions of dollars in research funding to companies like LexCarb and Sciperio to try to extract water from the air. Amazingly, a company that DARPA didn't fund, Aqua Sciences, beat them all to the punch by developing a machine that can extract up to 600 gallons of water a day from thin air even in locations like arid deserts. The 20 foot machine does this without using or producing toxic materials or byproducts. The CEO of Aqua Sciences declined to elaborate on how the machine works, but said it is based on the natural process by which salt absorbs water."
Why the surprise? (Score:3, Insightful)
The world needs fresh water. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's good that our soldiers are out in the middle east doing their jobs, and they deserve fresh water too. But seeing the general anger towards the US that's prevelant in so much of the world right now, actually helping people with something like this would generate tremendous good will. It'd probably be a lot cheaper than our wars are as well.
Reusable Jokes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why the surprise? (Score:3, Insightful)
Historically the government has been a great catalyst of techology inovation and improvements.
Considering that this company that has allegedly done this claims no byproducts and won't let anyone know how they did it.
color me Sceptical.
Re:And remember kids... (Score:2, Insightful)
Pretty much, since you pretty much put it right back in. That's why you need so much of it in the desert. And why there's so little eco system there to damage.
How much water gets used up when you flush a toilet? That's right. None. There's no water shortage, it's a question of purity and distribution, not quantity.
KFG
Re:The world needs fresh water. (Score:4, Insightful)
Serious questions ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet further down
Anybody with half a brain knows that there has to be some humidity in the air in order to extract water. Wait, that explains it.
While it is an accomplishment to reduce the humidity requirement, it doe not eliminate it. Indeed given their claim of up to 600 gal/day I'd say that at the minimum required humidity of 14%, it is possible that they may require far more of them than is talked about. A key factor is how rapidly that output drops when the humidity levels drop. if it porduces 600 gal/day at optimum humidity levels, it may only put out say 10 gal/day. If that were the case you could not rely on this for troop support in such areas. A supplemental, sure.
Depending on the size and maintenance requirements, as well as the phsyical inputs other than air, it may not be cost effective to use these in more arid regions. Now, places like the southern US they would be quite useful.
What I'd like to know is the size and power requirements. Something like this could be quite useful in high-rise buildings. Pumping water to the upper levels requires a significant amount of power. If instead we could put a few of these on tops of buildings and use them to bring water down, we might see a net win in terms of supply and energy usage. Imagine places like Phoenix or Las Vegas.
Pheonix has an average daily humidity of about 55% IIRC. Thus it would stand to reason that these units could pump out their maximum output. Depending on their size and power requirements, several of these atop an office building in Phoenix could produce several thousand gallons per building. As office buildings their water requirements might be low enough to satisfy with these units. They would have the further advantage of dehumidifying the hot air of Phoenix, thus possibly resulting in a slight cooling load reduction.
Even small residential units could be tremendously benefited. The average person requires 125 gal/day. Thus one of these could supply the water needs (not counting grass lawns) of a family of four in Phoenix. If the house is designed with greywater and systems for landscaping purposes it is possible that one of these could fully supply the average water requirement of a family of four in Phoenix. Which leads to the question
Anyone from Phoneix care to share how much you pay for water? If you've got a spouse and a pair of kids, and this unit eliminated your water usage bill (there would still be sewage), how much would it save you per year?
40,000 of these units in Phoenix would drop the summer daily demand for water by 24Mgal/day, or 5-12% depending on the season (Summer to Winter).
Essentially, if this proved cost effective then the more arid parts of the country might be able to make large savings on their infrastructure and supply costs. Which would be yet another miltary requested technology applied to positive civilian use.
The next question is: does it scale up and down? Can it be scaled down to be an effective one-person supply? Do larger units demonstrate a better-than-linear increase in water production?
Combine this with greywater systems, solar thermal heating (water and home), and appropriate landscaping and we would be a long ways toward a more sustainable system - without major changes and reductions to our standard of living.
Gov't contributions (Score:1, Insightful)
True. They make great contributions, using other people's money, aquired by force or the threat of force, and spent very wastefully. But when you can tax who cares about efficiency?
Today's Irony Moment (Score:5, Insightful)
See also the Internet you're using to post your comment. Oh wait, DARPA created that, nevermind.
Re:The world needs fresh water. (Score:3, Insightful)
If an ideological opponent gave ME free stuff in hope that I could be bribed, I'd thank the nice man and then use it against him.
If someone to whom I was indifferent gave me free stuff, I would thank the nice man and then question their motive.
Re:Shelf life? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Windtraps and KFC (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Serious questions ... (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.aquasciences.com/ [aquasciences.com]
Apparently they have container models that can produce 1200 gal/day. 20'x8'x8'. So a couple of these on office buildings would do niceley.
They seem a bit on the large side for single-family home use. Bummer. Perhaps that would improve. These seem to have a built-in generator. If attached to grid I wonder how much smaller these would be. Perhaps multi-family structures could work out well with these, depending on electrical needs. At a target price of 25 cents per gallon, I suspect many places would, for now, be cheaper to use "city water". The question however then becomes: for how long?
Even Phoenix has cheaper water than this. Much cheaper.
However, for "off the grid" types, this is the last piece of the puzzle.
Re:The world needs fresh water. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I have one of these in my car... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lucas - king of the rip-offs (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to say that science fiction (and other) writers don't rip off too, but they're usually much better at filing off the serial numbers, and taking from totally different genres (as well as being long since in the public domain). Asimov's inspiration for the Foundation Trilogy (back when it was a trilogy) was, loosely speaking, "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire". Forbidden Planet was loosely based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest" (and of course Star Trek ripped off a lot from Forbidden Planet). And so on.
(In fact Hollywood is often closer to the original when they rip something off than they are when they buy the property and make a movie from it. Joke. Joke.)
Not so impressive (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The world needs fresh water. (Score:2, Insightful)
The equipment would not need any extra protection. They would most likely be kept along with the other supplies (chow, parts, and medical suppllies). The normal guard details should be able to handle protecting this equiment just by adding a few feet to their patrol routes (if the camp has to expand to encompass them).
Re:Serious questions ... (Score:3, Insightful)
What?? Here in the Netherlands, which does not exactly have a water shortage, the water consumption for residential use is about 125 liters per day per person.[1] [minvrom.nl] That is about 4 times less! What do you do with all that water?
Re:Frank Herbert was prescient (Score:3, Insightful)