Slashdot Mirror
Machine Condenses Drinking Water Out of Thin Air
longacre writes "A new $1,200 machine that uses the same amount of power as three light bulbs promises to condense drinkable water out of the air. On display at Wired Magazine's annual tech showcase, the WaterMill 'looks like a giant golf ball that has been chopped in half: it is about 3ft in diameter, made of white plastic, and is attached to the wall. It works by drawing air through filters to remove dust and particles, then cooling it to just below the temperature at which dew forms. The condensed water is passed through a self-sterilising chamber that uses microbe-busting UV light to eradicate any possibility of Legionnaires' disease or other infections. Finally, it is filtered and passed through a pipe to the owner's fridge or kitchen tap.'"
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Dune or its wind traps yet.
Or that no one has mentioned another story on slashdot about extracting water from wind, even if the other one used a windmill to do so.
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
If these go wide-scale, wouldn't our air be drier? Which in turn would allow more water to be sucked up in the air from the nearby water bodies, which basically means you're getting your water through the air, or wireless (sic) if you will.
Real men read Slashdot articles at -1, bottom up.
"public water authority"?
Ah... you must live in a large built-up area where water comes out of a big pipe provided by a municipality of some sort.
I'm on a dug well with extremely hard water and a tendency to go dry during droughts. Between the filters, UV treatment, water softener, RO filter system, pumps, cisterns, etc... there's probably $5000 for all the bits and parts of my water system. I've spent $1200 on far dumber things than drinking water. For someone with, say, a sulphur problem... $1200 would be darn cheap.
c.
Log in or piss off.
You're correct, that's exactly how the water cycle works. But this gadget skips a couple of steps.
The water that's in the bottle on my desk started out as atmospheric moisture over Northern California. Then it precipitated out as snow or rain, ending up as ground water or in a reservoir. From there it was pumped into the local water system, and where I siphoned it into my bottle. Eventually I'll drink it, piss it into a toilet, whence it will find its way through the sewage system and out to sea. Then it will evaporate into the air and the whole cycle will start over again.
Right now, only a small part of the the rain and snow that falls on Northern California ends up in the various water systems we humans depend on. The rest is used by what's left of the natural ecology. One reason this ecology keeps shrinking is that humans keep sequestering more and more water for their own use. With gadgets like this one, we could potentially sequester every single drop before it has a chance to fall out of the sky.
That notion might seem far-fetched. And indeed, we'll probably never go that far in a relatively moist region like the one I live in. But consider an arid region like Arizona. There's relatively little atmospheric moisture there, but what there is sustains a thriving desert ecology. It also is home to human communities that are always struggling to find water. It's not hard to imagine Arizonans building enough of this gadgets to grab virtually all the precipitation before it has a chance to fall. When that happens, the desert ecologies are, so to speak, toast.
Which is not to say that this technology is totally evil. I can think of many situations where it would be the most ecologically sound way to obtain water. You just have to remember that this is not an ecological free lunch.
Or perhaps your machine wasn't puting out the UV light like it should have, Hell, someone probably looked at the 20 dollar bulbs and said this $1.57 one looks like the same thing.
We did similar experiements in 8th grade, we subjected a lot of things to uv light and it always killed them. I even know of sewage treatment systems that use UV light in the last stage and have never found anything growing in the samples. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with your UV source.
Because digging a well is obviously much more convenient.
And in many places, digging a well in prohibited. At least Colorado and other parts of the US West. Water rights are a major problem here; Colorado state law doesn't even allow you to collect water which runs off your roof: http://www.hcn.org/issues/40.18/a-good-idea-2013-if-you-can-get-away-with-it