2024
Capitalists still haven't found a way to provide water to all of the 8 billion inhabitants of Planet Earth.
If there are aliens watching, they are laughing.
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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I think it's all about energy efficiency. Places with no access to clean water often also have no access to reliable energy sources.
After checking this dude's website, it needs 475 Kwh/m3 in a desert condition which is a lot of energy.
With this in mind, using the data within this website, to achieve a daily 100 kWh electricity output, the people interested in this device will require 50 to 52 solar panels, each rated at 400 Watts. Now, if we multiply this times 5, they might 250 solar panels to deliver that kind of power.
In a hypothetic scenario, what could be done to make this practical?
Unfortunately, nothing really. The thermodynamics are just severely unfavourable. Water is an amazing coolant, by far one of the best. It takes up an insane amount of energy to vapourise. That Unfortunately also means it takes up a lot of energy to turn it back.
It would make more sense to focus on developing conventional technologies and reforestation in the Sahara. That path is a lot more viable
This tech is just a reskinned dehumidifier. The scientist Youtuber Thunderf00t has made a number of videos debunking these types of claims. Their issues can be summed up as the following:
- they extract very little water while using a shitton of energy. The amount of energy required to condense water from gas into liquid equals the amount of energy required to boil said water, which is a lot. This is dictated by the laws of physics.
- they work best in humid conditions. These conditions only exist in places where you would ALREADY be able to find water, or when it is right about to rain ( as the natural humidity condenses to form rain clouds), in which case you can just catch and drink that.
- the water they produce is not clean. Do you want to drink the moldy water out of your dehumidifier? Model and bacteria grow on the cold, wet metal fins where the water condenses.
Next, let me sum up how to pull off this scam. First, buy a couple of commercial dehumidifiers. Next, put the equipment inside them into new, cool-looking equipment boxes. Third, call news stations saying you've solved water forever.
Interesting and thanks for sharing this! I will check Thunderf00t's videos then.
The water crisis is a problem of export/import. Water does not disappear, it just goes somewhere else, the problem is that water abundant places have been relentlessly exporting water, in crops and other commodities, for decades and we are slowly starting to see the consequences.
Capturing water from air humidity does not solve this particular problem, what it could do is provide some househould sovereignty. Now maybe i am just plain wrong but i dont think this machine is more efficient than simply capturing and processing rain water, which is already abundant in high humidity places.
The upcoming water crisis has to be addressed through collective action and consciousness not individuals using energy-expensive tech.
I apologize if I accidentally implied that collective action and consciousness is not needed.
No need for apologies! I'm just trying to communicate that the situation in which this tech is helpful in one where we have basically given up. The alternatives before us are vastly more efficient, they just require us to have actual control over them. Protectig aquifers, not giving companies free water, not giving companies control over water, building water infrastructure (Jakarta would not be sinking if services and infrastructure had been centrally guaranteed), addressing climate change, not living in inhospitable places (when just), etc.
It's real. It's how dehumidifiers work. It's not energy efficient, and more suitable for short term emergencies where you can't set-up an RO to pull water from a local lake.
Passive systems like this fog collecting tower save on energy but are large for the amount of water they collect : https://youtu.be/THJVuinPbc0?si=EHnQ_XQvQFvca3VG
Those towers use plastic mesh to collect the fog.
Researchers are working on new materials to collect more water : https://youtu.be/UlTbZ658eWM?si=6Ld8xemTOnAN7L43
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
I was reading a scientific article a few days ago about mealworms (of course), and the process by which they extract water from the air. Turns out it more than doubles their metabolic rate just to do that.
So even the biomimetics isn't going to get us very far on this one.
The kind of solution you're looking for involves moist soils with high levels of organic matter. That, and using less water for economic activity.
like an AC? unless this is some radically new things, we already have these machines
A/C's already do this but that is not the intended effect. This guy optimized it to not just cool air but optimise it to catch as much water as possible.
Exactly this! Also, according to this dude, it can work in places with low levels of humidity like the Sahel in Africa.
i think AC tech was originally invented to dehumidfy warehouses or something.
so this still sounds like the same tech, but tuned towards dehumidifying instead of cooling
More like a dehumidifier with power capable of extracting 5k liters aprox of water per day and that is safe to drink.
It is dumb.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: