Wave-Powered Desalination

dptalia writes, "Scientists think they've found a way to harness the energy of waves to desalinate salt water. Currently desalination is an energy-intensive process, but this new design harnesses the renewable energy of waves to produce fresh water. Many countries depend on desalinated water to support their populations, and this invention could lower the cost of water generation." Production versions of the "desalination ducks" would be about 10 meters in diameter and 20 meters long. Each would supply water for more than 20,000 people.

Comments

Wow.

[NerveGas]

2,000 cubic meters per day of desalinated water from each unit. That's over 350 gallons per minute. Impressive!

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do they always have to find some nay-sayer -- this Nidal dude, for instance -- who has an obvious axe to grind and is therefore completely blind to the possibilities?

I couldn't agree with you more. They keep telling me that my perpetual motion machine will never work, but I know that I have the calculations correct! And after I patent my time travel machine and my warp engine designs I'll definitely win a Nobel prize!

I hate those people with such small minds thinking only about facts and the truth. I know how things really work, I feel it in my gut.

Re:Wow.

[grozzie2]

It would be more impressive if it didn't require the water to be pre-heated to 100C. I think it's safe to say, pour boiling seawater into just about anything with some condenser tubes setup, and you'll get fresh water out of the condenser. It appears to be insulated with Impossiblium, you know, the stuff that'll allow it to maintain internal temperature for a month while it works, with no heat input. I'm willing to bet, read the fine print in the marketing manuals, and you will find the Mark II version will have double the production if you power it with snake oil too....

Re:Wow.

[pla]

hell all they need is a $2 magnifying glass lens

A 20x10 meter lens for $2? Please sell me a dozen! ;-)


Actually, though, they wouldn't need to focus the light... That serves to concentrate light into a very small area to raise the spot temperature, but doesn't actually raise the temperature if you add in the area shadowed by the lens.

Just paint the tops of the ducks matte-black, and you'll get the desired solar heating effect.

Re:Wow.

[finity]

The water that must be pre-heated is the "ballast" water. That water is already fresh water. The salt water doesn't have to be heated to 100 C, it's pulled to a low pressure with the ballast water, so it doesn't have to be heated as much.

Oh the Irony

[MarsBar]

The inventor's name is Stephen Salter. Heh.

Engineer

[Rostin]

Stephen Salter is an engineer, not a "scientist." The distinction can be blurry, but I think this is pretty clearly an example of engineering rather than science.

The only reason I point that out is that I'm an engineer, and I'd like credit to go where it's due. :)

Re: Vitally Important

[ajs318]

The problem is that you can't build anything anywhere in the UK without someone protesting. Ten years ago when they were trying to build the Newbury Bypass, the protestors (very, very few of whom actually came from Newbury, BTW) were chanting "Homes not roads". Today, the protestors are active whenever someone tries to build houses. When they tried to build factories in the past, at least the locals would generally support the effort on the basis that a new factory would bring jobs to the area. Now if you tried to build a factory, you'd get rent-a-mob outsiders protesting against it and the locals would also most probably be protesting that the factory would bring immigrants to the area.

Building a reservoir essentially involves digging a very large hole and filling it with water, incidentally drowning any cute fluffy bunnies et anal. that can't be bothered to learn to swim. (Actually, you have to do more than that; for a start, you have to undercut the hole to avoid evaporation, but we'll simplify things a little here.) So you'll get various groups of protestors turning up with their own agendas. Maybe they will be too preoccupied with in-fighting amongst the various factions ("you aren't a True Believer, you're only concerned about the value of your house and you eat m**t!" "Well you aren't even local, you've nothing to be worried about, you can just sod off back to where you came from and live off my taxes" "Yeah? Well how many diggers have you sabotaged?") to do any serious protesting.

But it's not just the protestors you have to worry about, it's the workers and working conditions. You can't dig big holes in the winter, because it rains and they just fill up with water. And you can't dig holes in the summer, because it's dusty, thirsty work; the workers need showers and drinks, but there's a water shortage on .....