Alchemy in the Desert, Diesel Exhaust into H2O

Carl Bialik writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 'Using technologies developed for the space program, the U.S. Army is conducting an experiment that could convert the exhaust pipes of military vehicles into water fountains.' The idea is meant to help alleviate the logistical challenges presented by two essential army liquids: water and diesel fuel. A soldier in the desert needs about 20 gallons of water a day, for all purposes; 'Water gets to the front in vulnerable, slow-moving truck convoys that require armed escorts, or it is pumped from local rivers, lakes or ponds and purified by heavy-duty filters.' And maybe, in the future, it will also be extracted from diesel exhaust. The president of a company that developed the test technology tells the WSJ: 'This is one of those things where, when you first hear about it, you think the scientists have gone out of their minds. But once you taste the water, you realize the potential.'"

Comments

Subject to interpretation

[jd]

But once you taste the water, you realize the potential

This could mean any of the following:

• Their process uses electrical currents, so what you get when in contact with the water really IS the potential
  
• They've discovered a way to turn the pollutants into hallucinogenic substances, allowing them to earn a fortune
  
• Same as the above, only they can pipe it into their opponent's water supply
  
• Same as the above, only the troops are now berserkers and think they're indestructible
  
• They've discovered a way to turn the fumes into something that will make photographs invisible to journalists
  
• The water is, in fact, the elixier of life, so forever guaranteeing no US casualties
  
• They have discovered a way to fractionally condense diesel fumes which they will patent and use to collect the revenue gained by suing every school in the western hemisphere for having physics or chemistry textbooks
  

This has come out before

[Wierd Willy]

Scientific American had an article about 15 years ago on this.

Wired has a good article on this:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,65035,00.ht ml

Re:What about the nasties in the exhaust?

[DasBub]

I hear that reading the article is generally a good thing to do before posting.

Thanks for playing.