Fog Collection As Sustainable Water Source

paulproteus writes: "Space.com has a new article up called 'Fog Collector.' It describes a $450 polypropylene net that is used to gather fog, and convert it into drinkable water. 'Fans of science fiction will recognize this idea from Dune.' The nets 'have replaced and surpassed the thready life vein of truckloads of water that once sustained a village near the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.' The article also describes the second International Conference on Fog and Fog Collection."

Comments

Interesting calculations

[jellisky]

It's actually truly amazing that you could get something sizable out of fog, but it actually makes some sense.
Here's some back of the envelope calculations that might be a bit convincing:
(Note: I'll be using standard scientific E notation. So, 6.4E+3 = 6400.)

The liquid water content of a dry fog is 5E-8 m^3(H2O)/m^3(air). This translates into 5E-4 L(H2O)/m^3(air).
Assume that we can collect a fog bank that's 10km x 10km x 10m (height). That would be 1E+9 m^3 of fog, or 5E+5 (or 500000) L of water in that region.
Even if we only could collect 1% of that, it's still 5000 L. Seriously, that's not too bad for that kind of area of land.
Problem is that evaproation would take back quite a bit of that if one isn't careful.
It's amazing how much water could be tapped from clouds of all sorts. Problem is, that those well-versed in the hydrological cycle will tell you that the water in the atmosphere is VERY small compared to that elsewhere in the world. (We're talking hundreths of percentages here.) Perhaps trying to figure out better ways of de-salinating ocean water should be a little more important.
Just my thoughts.