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A Device That Can Pull Drinking Water From the Air Just Won the Latest XPrize (fastcompany.com)
Two years ago, XPrize, which creates challenges that pit the brightest minds against one another, announced that it would give any startup or company $1 million that can turn thin air into water. This month, it announced that the challenge has been concluded. From a report: A new device that sits inside a shipping container can use clean energy to almost instantly bring clean drinking water anywhere -- the rooftop of an apartment building in Nairobi, a disaster zone after a hurricane in Manila, a rural village in Zimbabwe -- by pulling water from the air. The design, from the Skysource/Skywater Alliance, just won $1.5 million in the Water Abundance XPrize. The competition, which launched in 2016, asked designers to build a device that could extract at least 2,000 liters of water a day from the atmosphere (enough for the daily needs of around 100 people), use clean energy, and cost no more than 2 cents a liter.
"We do a lot of first principles thinking at XPrize when we start designing these challenges," says Zenia Tata, who helped launch the prize and serves as chief impact officer of XPrize. Nearly 800 million people face water scarcity; other solutions, like desalination, are expensive. Freshwater is limited and exists in a closed system. But the atmosphere, the team realized, could be tapped as a resource. "At any given time, it holds 12 quadrillion gallons -- the number 12 with 19 zeros after it -- a very, very, big number," she says. The household needs for all 7 billion people on earth add up to only around 350 or 400 billion gallons. A handful of air-to-water devices already existed, but were fairly expensive to use. The new system, called WEDEW ("wood-to-energy deployed water") was created by combining two existing systems. One is a device called Skywater, a large box that mimics the way clouds are formed: It takes in warm air, which hits cold air and forms droplets of condensation that can be used as pure drinking water. The water is stored in a tank inside the shipping container, which can then be connected to a bottle refill station or a tap.
"We do a lot of first principles thinking at XPrize when we start designing these challenges," says Zenia Tata, who helped launch the prize and serves as chief impact officer of XPrize. Nearly 800 million people face water scarcity; other solutions, like desalination, are expensive. Freshwater is limited and exists in a closed system. But the atmosphere, the team realized, could be tapped as a resource. "At any given time, it holds 12 quadrillion gallons -- the number 12 with 19 zeros after it -- a very, very, big number," she says. The household needs for all 7 billion people on earth add up to only around 350 or 400 billion gallons. A handful of air-to-water devices already existed, but were fairly expensive to use. The new system, called WEDEW ("wood-to-energy deployed water") was created by combining two existing systems. One is a device called Skywater, a large box that mimics the way clouds are formed: It takes in warm air, which hits cold air and forms droplets of condensation that can be used as pure drinking water. The water is stored in a tank inside the shipping container, which can then be connected to a bottle refill station or a tap.
It's called a dehumidifier.
100 % humidity means 30 grams (0.03l) of water per cubic meter. Today in the UK we are at 70%, so lets say theres 20g on a bright autumn morning.
A standard 40ft shipping container is 67.6 cubic m. So it will contain 1.352l of water vapour at any time.
So a complete extraction of air must occur 1500 times a day. That remembers that its in the cold and damp British atmosphere (Its currently 48% humidity in Nairobi). The shipping container will also need to have the pumping equipment in it, so the volume of the extraction tank will be reduced further.
Burning wood is not carbon negative. Also, isn't this just a dehumidifier?
Read the story of Nignog and the wild, wild wogs
Dave from EEVBlog loves to rip these kinds of scams apart, he's already done a good number of rant-videos on similar "water out of thin air" - systems. I'm waiting excitedly for one on this shit, too!
make a fortune.
They'll keep a dehumidifier out of circulation?
Over a tin can, with a SCIENTIFICALLY placed rock !
Next: A Device That Can Heat Edible Food From Lit Pieces of Wood
They'll keep anything out of circulation that threatens the scarcity driven economy. Abundance is an anathema to our rich and powerful friends.
To condense water out of the air you need to dissipate _at_ _least_ the latent energy of evaporation. That's 2.2MJ/kg or 0.7 kWh*hr in other words, A LOT. If you want to use a solar panel, that would be around 4 square meters to produce that much energy in 1 hour, even taking into account that freezers have >100% efficiency.
So a fairly large 4x4 meter solar panel (that would cost around $5000 to install) will produce around 50 liters of water per day (that's an optimistic estimate), or around 18 tons of water per year. If usable life of the device is 10 years then we're looking at about 200 tons for about $5000, or 4 cents per kg.
When the hot charcoal burst into flame on contact with air due to a minute malfunction, you'll have plenty (well, some) vile, stagnant water to put the fire out.
And also, using the painstakingly collected biomass for pyrolysis rather than combustion, in a disaster relief situation, has to be one of the more sadistic things I've heard of.
To be fair, it's not well-reported but the other half of the technology is these biomass gasifiers: http://allpowerlabs.com/ This is not ambient atmosphere water extraction but extraction from biomass. Also not a scam. Get educated before you throw around your armchair physicist hot takes, guys.
So, in the future there wonâ(TM)t be any robots to free up slave labor, or free food to quit jobs? Stupid Homosapien will die in a comet explosion and cockroaches will inherit whatâ(TM)s left. Canâ(TM)t wait.
Nothing new here folks.
Commercial Atmospheric water generators have been around for a long time
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The military routinely use them in desert areas.
They do take a fair amount of energy to run, but not as bad as you might think if transverse flow heat ex changers are used to recover lost heat (and cold).
it's a new type of scam aimed at investors.
Let's call it "Dehumidifier as water supply investor scam"
or shorter : "Dehumidifier scam"
aaaaaaa
I believe the water cannot be drunk without adding some minerals.
Hi Bibi, I didn't know you were an anon on /.
Is that the sound of your wife being carried off to prison ? Don't worry, you'll be next.
Too many special interests will keep this out of circulation. How will Israel starve the Palestinians if they can produce their own water and power? How will all those ranchers in Northern California make money from their water rights? What will become of Evian?!
The same as they deal now with attempts to dig wells - destroy them.
The problem is, water by dehumidifier is expensive, power-wise and doesn't really produce drinkable water.
Open up a dehumidifier sometime. Look at all the crap built up in there.
That's all particulate matter falling out of the air during the dehumidification process.
You REALLY don't wanna drink that stuff.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
>> mineral powder to dissolve in water.
Table salt.
Dehumidifier scam all over again.
But what I really need is a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.
So add a filter or whatever. A dehumidifier isn't built to extract potable water, it's designed to produce dry air, so if any crap extracted by the process ends up in the water instead of the air or the machine, that's a bonus.
Small devices for extracting drinking water from the air already exist, but they are fairly expensive to run. This devices presumably changes that, if the resulting water really only costs $0.02/l
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I have a dehumidifier. Over time, there is stuff building up, but compared to the amount of water, it is not much. If the choice was between no water and the dehumidifier water, the choice is really simple.
In addition, filtering the water is a very simple thing to do.
Not actually true (not even close) but they do apparently have a 27% obesity rate, which is more than I would have thought. Definitely the idea that they're "starving" is blatant nonsense.
Hard to believe that there are enough idiots on Slashdot for this to get nodded to +1.
Umm, a quadrillion has 15 zeroes, not 19.
If Zenia Tata doesn't even know that all those *illion numbers are multiples of three zeroes, should she really be "chief impact officer" of the x-Prizes?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Now all you need for this to work well, is for all the poor people in dry climates to move somewhere with more water in the air.
Then it will work great.
Don't we already have enough scam artists peddling this? Elementary physics will tell you that it doesn't work. Pulling water out of air works. Yes. But you need to "harvest" a LOT of air and dehumidify it. There's even already machines that do that. They are called dehumidifiers, aptly named. And that takes a LOT of energy. If you plan to do this by solar power, be prepared to drop some pretty penny (and dedicate some real estate) to collecting that energy.
This is only feasible in areas where water is scarce and hard to come by. But guess what: Those are also usually the areas where water vapor in the air is scarce and hard to come by, and hence the whole deal doesn't work!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It burns the hydrogen out of timber, and then condenses some of the water released. I mean, interesting concept, but it doesn't really fill the brief.
That said, actually filling the brief is probably impossible. To fulfill the brief, you'd have to, some way, get rid of the 5GJ of latent heat energy per day - in addition to the energy you add to run your equipment. That's 58kW, constantly.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Now if we can just get it to extract drinkable water from urine, feces, and jizz we'd really have something!
Meh. according to thunderf00t and others, condensing water out of the air takes a certain and not small amount of energy. And there has to be water in the air to start with. So that rules out most desert areas. Maybe the high-humidity parts near the Red Sea might just begin to qualify, but you're still gonna need plenty of energy.
Is it the sort of matter that four layers of sari cloth can filter out?
>> It'll never fly
A flying dehumidifier
Now that's a good concept !!
aaaaaaa
"From a report: A new device that sits inside a shipping container can use clean energy to almost instantly bring clean drinking water anywhere"
In Maine, at least, some legislation was enacted to discourage using wood in a variety of systems to heat homes. IT seems that some of those were pretty dirty. Gasifiers were pretty large scale, and usually used a lot of otherwise unused biomass. And were, as mentioned elsewhere, mot often located where the biomass was. One I knew of was located at the chip and lumber mill it served to power.
Then I look at the Fast Company article (git yer own link) and recognize that it seems to be nowhere near any significant source of biomass. Maybe a great demonstration of the dehumidifier, but not an obviously sustainable example to me. But then I only know what I've seen and read about this. surely the smart people know how to deal with the gasifier, the necessary biomass, and the value of the exchange, since this is about turning wood into water by fire. How much will it cost per liter of clean water?
Of course the Fast Company article showed an example where solar power would be the obvious solution. If you think solar power is clean, well, you probably think vodka is dessert. It's really just a sugar, right? And health food, it's pretty much just potatoes, right?
Mind you, to solve clean water problems where there are no other solutions, well, darn, that's a stupid thing to say. Never mind about that.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Legionnaires' disease generator
So, instead of shipping bottled water that costs close to nothing if purchased wholesale from the right supplier, somebody will buy these high-tech "containers" and ship them off to some disaster-stricken area where people have lost everything but they supposedly are still be able to afford them. Electricity? Where from? Oh, wait, from biomass. I suppose the US could ship machines like this to, say, Puerto Rico. Who will do the same for Sahel? Ethiopia? Sudan? XPrize, please come back down to earth and change the specs: The water-making machine should not require electricity and be extremely cheap to make and distribute. Think desert beetles collecting the morning dew only at a larger scale.
Going from the image, they could also provide a water transportation system, that way the women wouldn't have to walk ten miles a day with a water bucket on their head. But I guess the men have better things to spend their money on, like $3,000 on a pair of shoes.
The choice is not between no water and the dehumidifier water, it is between dehumidifier water and some more cost effective way of delivering water.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
It's been done before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Maybe not starving but are they malnourished? We live in a world of cheap calories and expensive nutrients now. Processing takes out much of the food value, leaving engineered, good tasting but cheap and empty calories.
Manila doesn't get hurricanes.
You don't seem to understand. Ambient air is DIRTY.
The cost of regular filter replacement ALONE will drive the price point of the water up beyond the requisite level.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
You're only seeing the macro level stuff.
The other stuff in there makes that water VERY unhealthy to drink.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Ever noticed those things on the top of most big buildings in cities all over the world called Air Conditioning? It creates cold air, it also creates gallons and gallons of water that end up being dumped into the sewers. Why is the water dumped you might ask, because they don't bother to use food safe pipping to collect that water. Yes it adds more expense to the A/C unit but also, on the large buildings, creates thousands of gallons of water a day. You know what else can go on top of those big buildings? Solar Panels, beehives and many other useful things.
I wonder if a modified version of this could be done on mars? There is H20 in the air. Might actually allow for moving around on Mars, and still obtaining fresh water.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
At least in Israel we put corrupt politician in jail where they belong. Not so much in Europe.
ever seen the constant stream of water draining out of an A/C in the deep south, in the middle of summer?
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
The truth is SUPPOSED to be modded up! It's the trolls and shills that modded it down again. Those are the useful idiots of Slashdot. Are you one of them?
It's my air conditioner.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
There is water in the Martian atmosphere so can we send some of these to Mars now, and have them build a store of drinking water for us when we get there?
How do you think the water recycling mechanisms on the ISS work? Try reading about the Soviet/Russian Elektron system for example.
You have to make up for the loss in volume (of water).
Back in 1982, I was in science class and came up with something like this using Freon and glass containers with a collector.
Who know it was actually viable. Of course, the Freon would have destroyed any ozone that's left.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
I wish america spent all the money we waste on Israel our our own citizens instead.
The carbon-negative claim is based upon the supposition that in its deployment, the magic water box would occasionally be near a forest with abundant dead trees that are at risk of spontaneous atmospheric carbon liberation.
(Disclosure: I am part of the team that provided the biomass gasifier.)
This is an incorrect claim. The carbon negative claim comes from the fact that the process of gasification produces charcoal as a byproduct, and charcoal does not revert to carbon dioxide without combustion (somewhat simplified but sufficient summary), whereas the biomass nearly entirely reverts to carbon dioxide in the course of decomposition. The more thorough explanation is that the charcoal has a labile (biodegradable) fraction and a recalcitrant fraction. The labile fraction takes years if not decades to decompose, and the recalcitrant fraction essentially doesn't participate in the carbon cycle.
See this on the processes of gasification:
http://www.allpowerlabs.com/gasification-explained
The charcoal is sent through the compost and used as biochar. When used in this way, it enriches the soil for the long term and results in several effects which cause the soil to take up more carbon—firstly, by increasing the soil's capacity to hold on to plant root exudates while stimulating the production of these exudates, and secondly, because the plant exudates stimulate the growth of fungal mycelia.
Fungal mycelia contain a glycoprotein called glomalin, which has a long soil lifetime—roughly 50 years. In this way, the production of charcoal and its use as biochar actually takes carbon out of the carbon cycle and parks it in the soil. Soil fungal glomalin is one of the potential carbon draw-down solutions seriously being considered to draw down carbon dioxide levels from the atmosphere.
See this about glomalin as a carbon sink:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-12731-7
najajomo trolled:
Going from the image, they could also provide a water transportation system, that way the women wouldn't have to walk ten miles a day with a water bucket on their head. But I guess the men have better things to spend their money on, like $3,000 on a pair of shoes.
Nice little conflation you have there, pal. It'd be a shame if something happened to it.
Like someone pointing out that you're conflating rural women in Zimbabwe carrying water back to their villages with men in the Republic of the Congo (more specifically, in Brazzaville, its capitol, which is a distinctly urban environment with a functioning municipal water system) who identify with a fashion-centered lifestyle called "La Sape". The two images have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. In fact, they were taken on opposite sides of the continent.
As for your suggestion that the Skysource/Skywater Alliance "could also provide a water transportation system" so the women in the image from Zimbabwe could be spared a 10-mile daily walk? It's also blatant trolling.
Your "water transportation system" would be hideously expensive to construct, even if it had to serve just one village located five miles from the water collection site, because everything needed to build it would have to be choppered in. Rural Zimbabwe has essentially zero infrastructure. There's no paved roads, no housing for construction workers, no local sources of water-grade pipe, and no source of skilled labor. Hell, I doubt there's so much as a screwdriver within 5 miles of the installation, much less a pipe wrench.
To distribute water from it to every village within that radius would be way, WAY more expensive. Where, exactly, is that money supposed to come from? The X-Prize payout wouldn't even cover the expense of piping water to a single village, much less dozens of them. The Zimbabwean government is one of the most institutionally-corrupt bureaucracies on the planet, and it rules over one of the poorest countries in the world. As a result, the Zimbabwean dollar has been experiencing Weimar Republic-level hyperinflation for decades now (for which you can thank Robert Mugabe, who was recently deposed from his position as president-for-life), so that rules out the national government as a source. (True fact: somewhere around here I have a Zimbabwean $1 billion coin that was issued back in the 20th century. Its current value is well south of one penny in U.S. money. The Zimbabwean government stopped issuing them after the value of their dollar fell so far that those coins became more valuable as metal than their face value.)
Here's a thought: why don't you get the fuck out of your mother's basement, go to Zimbabwe, and build that "water transportation system" yourself ... ?
(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)
--
Check out my novel ...
> The problem is, water by dehumidifier is expensive,
> power-wise and doesn't really produce drinkable water
Clean Coal is the answer! It can power the dehumanifiers and be a filter for the undrinkable water.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
We now live in a world where the daily news is hard to believe. Why should Slashdot be different?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I hope you realize that Soylent Green is made from All Natural ingredients!
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I'm on the gasifier team from All Power Labs, the company that provided the gasifier genset to the Skysource/Skywater Alliance. Bear with me as I correct some misconceptions here.
Firstly, I would like to make clear that we're not cutting down fresh trees to do this. It is not cost-effective nor sustainable to cut down fresh trees to gasify, especially when there is so much woody biomass waste. There are plenty of companies paying folks to get rid of their biomass waste, including wood chips and nut shells.
Secondly, a bit of nuance required. The machine is not "burning wood"; it is gasifying wood. Wood consists of roughly 80% volatiles, 20% fixed carbon. The gasifier pyrolyzes the wood, which produces tar gases (wood smoke); the tar gases are partially burned while thermally cracking the rest, and the combustion products are percolated through the charcoal. A portion of the charcoal is consumed via reduction reactions that convert the H2O and CO2 from burnning the tar gases into H2 and CO gas, which are then sent to power the engine. Essentially, the gasifier is burning the tar, and un-burning it with the char, then re-burning it in the engine. The heat that would otherwise be dissipated is being used to drive the CHP system.
See our explanation of how gasification works:
http://www.allpowerlabs.com/gasification-explained
Thirdly, the carbon-negative claim comes from the following accounting: the biomass waste almost entirely reverts to carbon dioxide via decomposition, but when run through gasification, a significant fraction of the fixed carbon portion is not consumed, and is pushed out of the gasifier as charcoal. Since charcoal is stable and does not revert to carbon dioxide without combustion, it is effectively removed from the carbon cycle.
Furthermore, we specifically save the charcoal for use as biochar. We send the char through the compost so it can absorb nitrates and phosphates and other nutrients that tend to leach out of compost as leachate. This also fills the char with compost microbes, and conditions the surface to have a humus like quality, which enhances the cation exchange capacity and water holding capacity of soil that is amended with this material. The effect that biochar has on soil parks even more carbon in the soil for the long term. Humified biochar (co-composted biochar) dramatically stimulates the release of plant root exudates (roughly 10 units of exudates per unit of black carbon—humus or humified biochar) and holds on to these exudates for resident microbes to use. These root exudates then stimulate a dramatic increase in soil fungal mycelia (also roughly 10x). This is sometimes referred to as the carbon multiplier effect: 1 unit of black carbon supports 10 units of green carbon (plant exudates) on an ongoing basis, which stimulates the growth of 10 units of white carbon (fungal mycelia).
Fungal mycelia contain a lot of glomalin, a glycoprotein that is a significant carbon sink. Glomalin remains in soil for an estimated 50-60 years.
See this piece from the USDA on Glomalin as a carbon sink:
https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2008/glomalin-is-key-to-locking-up-soil-carbon/
See this piece on how biochar stimulates arbuscular mycorrhyzae (soil fungi symbiotic with plant roots, exchanging phosphorous for plant exudates):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0038071714002211
I wish america spent all the money we waste on Israel our our own citizens instead.
Bullshit, you just want to give the billionaires another tax break.
You understand this is a novel problem -- too much food, and people don't wanna eat their vegetables.
It is a major goalpost shift from "poor people starving."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
There is a lot of incorrect speculation about the water capture process in the comments here that I can't correct openly just yet because patents are involved, but I would like to address a particular misconception that erupts in the comments every time our claim of carbon negative operation is brought up.
Firstly, the gasifier machine (All Power Labs' PP30 Cogen CS) is intended for use of woody biomass *waste* such as wood chips and nut shells. It is not cost effective (nor sustainable) to cut down a fresh tree to power the machine, especially when there are so many sources of biomass waste that are paying folks to get rid of their wood chips and mountains of nut shells, or are giving it away for free.
When this biomass (I'm talking about wood chips and nut shells) decomposes, it nearly all reverts to carbon dioxide and even methane in the course of decomposition. (If composted properly, a fraction remains as humus, but the overwhelming majority still reverts to CO2, but the humus itself does not last forever, and also reverts to CO2 over time.) This is the base-line we're comparing to. We're not comparing our operation to standing trees.
When biomass is processed in our gasifier, a significant fraction of the fixed carbon is pushed out of the gasifier as a byproduct. A bit of background is needed to understand the process: Woody biomass consists of a volatile fraction, which constitutes roughly 80% of woody biomass, and a fixed carbon fraction, which constitutes roughly 20% of the material. (Somewhere between that 80/20 split is the ash content, which is usually 1-2% of wood.) The gasifier caries out the five processes shown in this graphic:
http://www.allpowerlabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Five-Processes-of-Gasification_shorter.png
(If you want to see the entire explanation, see this page: http://www.allpowerlabs.com/gasification-explained )
Charcoal is chemically stable and does not revert to carbon dioxide without combustion. It is resistant to biodegration; the labile carbon in charcoal that has gone through this high temperature process (the fraction that can biodegrade) takes decades to decompose, while the recalcitrant carbon (the fraction that does not normally biodegrade) does not participate in the carbon cycle. Each time the machine runs through a batch of biomass, a fraction of the carbon content of its feedstock is being taken out of the carbon cycle, hence the machine's operation is carbon negative. But when the agricultural use of the charcoal is considered, it is even more carbon-negative:
We send this charcoal through the compost and use it as biochar. (Biochar is charcoal used as a soil amendment.) The composting process doesn't consume the biochar; instead, the pores and high surface area of the charcoal get populated with compost microbes and absorbs nitrates that would normally be lost through denitrification, and makes these nutrients available to plants, while humifying the biochar and making it behave like a form of permanent compost due to its long residence time in the soil. While doing so, biochar dramatically suppresses the production of N2O (nitrous oxide) from compost. Nitrous oxide is roughly 300x more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases#nitrous-oxide )
Here's the scientific studies on the use of biochar to capture of nitrates from compost, and on biochar reducing N2O emissions:
Plant growth improvement mediated by nitrate capture in co-composted biochar
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep11080
Biochar and denitrification in soils: when, how much and why does biochar reduce N2O emissions?
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01732
When humified biochar is added to the soil, it results in several effects that continue to store carbon away in the soil. The biochar stimulates the release of plant root exudates because the resident microbes living in the pores of the char exchange nutrients and other biological services with the plant in exchange for sug
This isn't the same as simple burning and furthermore, by your own words, creates a small positive release of carbon into the atmosphere. Only after carefully controlling the byproducts could you hope to eventually after some time become carbon negative. Personally, during a disaster or time of great need, I don't have the faith that the byproducts will be properly cared for and disposed of.
You might want do do some research on how the Front Range cities (Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs etc.) transport water from the Western Slopes of Colorado to the lawns of those fair cities. Hint: it involves big ass pipes and tunnels (aka rock pipes).
LA uses a shitload of pipes also.
BTW, to add to the prior post, IPCC now recognizes biochar as a carbon sequestration technology.
https://www.biochar-journal.org/en/ct/94
And that ladies and gentlemen clearly demonstrates the power of lobbying.
Such a rating only serves to promote biochar. It is *not* an effective sequestration technology in ant practical sense.
"Are there many Fremen on Dune?"
"I suspect vast numbers, my lord, and extensive windtraps storing liquid water in caches beyond number."
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This also fills the char with compost microbes, and conditions the surface to have a humus like quality,
Mmmm, char hummus.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Waits for California to say it causes Cancer.
A gravity sand+ charcoal filter is super easy to make. Look it up.
Possible quadruple win?
Clean drinking water.
Safe sewage disposal instead of pollution.
Biochar produced to improve soil.
Sanitation benefits.
https://projects.ncsu.edu/mcki...
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Could your system or a variation thereof use sewage instead of wood as fuel?
California needs water, generates immense quantities of sewage, and has a public receptive to eco-friendly initiatives.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
They likely would be, honestly. But even if not and someone just throws the biochar by the side of the road, it will end up in the soil. Additionally, biochar can be used for water filtration which is quite probably in a disaster relief scenario.
Nothing like sewage is usable in these machines. They will get more fuel-flexible someday (maybe even somehow fuel agnostic) but these are the acceptable feedstocks: http://www.allpowerlabs.com/su...
This reminds me of terra preta, which involved Amazonian farmers using charcoal to improve Amazonian soil. Were you aware of/inspired by this precedent?
Those who say it can't be done shouldn't speak over those who are doing it.
This isn't a scam. The XPrize evaluation team, consisting of critically oriented scientists and engineers, went over all our data and the energy accounting on this before awarding Skysource/Skywater Alliance the prize. We ran the prototype for 72 hours straight and produced several thousand liters of water. Consider the possibility that the winning team achieved the feat by means you haven't thought of. (I'm not at liberty to explain how we achieved this until our patents are filed.)
South Australia Aid and Tata Group sponsored the prize, and would be some of the first clients. They are not ignorant of the risks and challenges facing atmospheric water capture. 98 teams from all over the world entered this competition in October of 2016. Two teams made the finals; one team met the challenge.
Please look at the team evaluating this competition and the metrics they require to qualify for the $1.5 million prize.
https://water.xprize.org/prizes/water-abundance
Ask yourself if the Xprize foundation and its engineers would fall for a scam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
That's very misleading. I remember watching that documentary and those guys saved up for years to buy those.
Thirdly, the carbon-negative claim comes from the following accounting: the biomass waste almost entirely reverts to carbon dioxide via decomposition,
This didnt sound right so i checked and google pointed me to "The Decomposition of Forest Products in Landfills" by J. A. Micales & K. E. Skog. Its introduction already says "These calculations suggest that maximally only 30%, of the carbon from paper and 0-3% of the carbon from wood are ever emitted as landfill gas. The remaining carbon, approximately 28 Tg in 1993, remains in the landfill indefinitely.". maximally 3% is quite far away from "almost entirely". Also if we look at page 7 of the paper, the table details the releases from wood, and from the table two thirds of the carbon releases of these 3% are methane, which could be collected and used/sold.
So one could claim here that wood in a landfill is carbon negative relative to your process.
Another point is the gasification itself, if you convert H2O + CO2 into H2 and CO you triple the amount of carbon eventually released into the atmosphere. Its basic math, just fill in the numbers to balance the equation H2O + CO2 + 2C -> H2 + 3CO. Two thirds of the carbon on the left side are solid, but all of it is a gas (carbon monoxide) on the right which eventually is burned in an engine or other to CO2
I hear that thing can pull a goofball trough a garden hose.
ahh you burn it then
smell a lot of green wash shit in your explanation...
This device seems like a great idea. But could it disrupt normal rain cycles?
I thought about a similar question when my mother was using an oxygen concentrator to help her breathe before she passed away several years ago. By drawing oxygen out of the surrounding air, would that necessarily mean that the rest of us in the same room were breathing less oxygen-enriched air, thereby harming us?
if you cant explain it clearly in laymans terms you don't properly understand it.
or you're avoiding something.
either way the wall of text isn't making your case.
But yet somehow I get clean treated ,filtered, chlorinated water delivered via pipe from 50 miles away directly to my kitchen sink for less than $0.001 per liter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'll wait Thunderf00t to debunk you like the others before you.
Enjoy your 1.5 mil while you can.
1: That isn't pulled out of the air with a humidifier.
2: Benefitting from a treatment plant that's doing more than just filtering the water.
3: economies of scale.
But hey. Go ahead. Believe in your little fantasy. MUST BELIEVE! Right?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
“Here's a thought: why don't you get the fuck out of your mother's basement, go to Zimbabwe, and build that "water transportation system" yourself ... ?”
.. here's a thought, why don't you fuck off and die .. assuming you are the real 'Thom Stark' .. nuclear apocalypse is so nineteen sixties .. man :]
And you were doing so well up to then
“That's very misleading. I remember watching that documentary and those guys saved up for years to buy those."
That's what they said, but the reality is that they live off the women. You see culturally in that part of the world it's a matriarchal society, the women run the villages while the men sit around discussing important matters of interest.
https://slashdot.org/~WindBourne
At 50x the cost of tap water i don't think its an issue.
This devices presumably changes that, if the resulting water really only costs $0.02/l
That is incredibly expensive for water.
The judges in this contest should be ashamed of themselves for falling for this scam.
The purported cost of no more than $.02 per quart is complete B.S. The set-up of this device is most likely the most expensive way to extract water from air ever invented. The laws of thermodynamics still apply no matter how much "green" paint you coat them with.
Think about it - let's use a lot of energy to extract water from heated wood chips and use a lot more energy to convert the humidity in the air back into water. This requires a lot of electricity. For example, the atmospheric water generator (“AWG”) Island Sky/Skywater (the co-partner in this alliance) Model ESU-20 produces as much as 900 gallons of drinking water daily (but only under perfect conditions) and requires a 30kW diesel powered electric generator. Its average production would generally be in the 600 gallon a day range – similar to the set up that won the prize (See: https://islandsky.com/products/ ) The average fuel consumption of a generator of this size running at ¾ load consumes 4.4 gallon of fuel per hour and 57.6 gallons per day. (See: https://www.dieselserviceandsupply.com/Diesel_Fuel_Consumption.aspx ). The average price of diesel fuel in the U.S. is ~$3.00 per gallon. It is more expensive internationally, unless subsidized. So just the cost of the fuel to condense the 2,000 liters of water out of the air per day is ~$173 (and that is only at the most optimal relative humidity and temperature combinations. Actual performance will be less in almost every case).
In summary, just the diesel fuel will cost at least $.09 per quart, if not more.
So, the starting point is 450% higher than claimed. Now let’s add in the cost of:
1. heating wood chips to get the water out of them,
2. the diesel electric generator,
3. the much more expensive diesel fuel in many locations
4. the atmospheric water generator,
5. the shipping container
6. the water tanks,
7. the fuel tanks,
8. the transfer switches and electric panels,
9. the shipping costs,
10. the tractor trailer,
11. the personnel,
12. maintenance and repairs, and
13. getting certifications from every locality that the water meets or exceeds FDA drinking water standards in CFR 21 and the often more rigorous local regulations.
The actual cost of this water is much closer to $1.00 per quart than the $.02 per quart that the folks claim.
It would be much cheaper to just fill up a tanker truck with water and drive it to the place where they need water. That’s what the $1.5 Million dollars should, have been spent on. Not on a prize to people that have created nothing of limited, if any, practical use.
Please see this whole scam busted by Thunderf00t on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3s-xI895zc
The judges in this contest should be ashamed of themselves for falling for this scam.
The purported cost of no more than $.02 per quart is complete B.S. The set-up of this device is most likely the most expensive way to extract water from air ever invented. The laws of thermodynamics still apply no matter how much "green" paint you coat them with.
Think about it - let's use a lot of energy to extract water from heated wood chips and use a lot more energy to convert the humidity in the air back into water. This requires a lot of electricity. For example, the atmospheric water generator (“AWG”) Island Sky/Skywater (the co-partner in this alliance) Model ESU-20 produces as much as 900 gallons of drinking water daily (but only under perfect conditions) and requires a 30kW diesel powered electric generator. Its average production would generally be in the 600 gallon a day range – similar to the set up that won the prize (See: https://islandsky.com/products/ ) The average fuel consumption of a generator of this size running at ¾ load consumes 4.4 gallon of fuel per hour and 57.6 gallons per day. (See: https://www.dieselserviceandsupply.com/Diesel_Fuel_Consumption.aspx ). The average price of diesel fuel in the U.S. is ~$3.00 per gallon. It is more expensive internationally, unless subsidized. So just the cost of the fuel to condense the 2,000 liters of water out of the air per day is ~$173 (and that is only at the most optimal relative humidity and temperature combinations. Actual performance will be less in almost every case).
In summary, just the diesel fuel will cost at least $.09 per quart, if not more.
So, the starting point is 450% higher than claimed. Now let’s add in the cost of:
1. heating wood chips to get the water out of them,
2. the diesel electric generator,
3. the much more expensive diesel fuel in many locations
4. the atmospheric water generator,
5. the shipping container
6. the water tanks,
7. the fuel tanks,
8. the transfer switches and electric panels,
9. the shipping costs,
10. the tractor trailer,
11. the personnel,
12. maintenance and repairs, and
13. getting certifications from every locality that the water meets or exceeds FDA drinking water standards in CFR 21 and the often more rigorous local regulations.
The actual cost of this water is much closer to $1.00 per quart than the $.02 per quart that the folks claim.
It would be much cheaper to just fill up a tanker truck with water and drive it to the place where they need water. That’s what the $1.5 Million dollars should, have been spent on. Not on a prize to people that have created nothing of limited, if any, practical use.
They should stop payment on the prize check.
Please see this whole scam busted by Thunderf00t on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3s-xI895zc