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This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#4

Post by ColdHawaiian »

tonylemesmer wrote: post #2

Has anyone tested the long term viability? Contamination, dust, mildew, flies etc.? Seems like a good idea but I venture the water would need further processing. Still, looks like a better starting point than where many communities are now.

Yeah, I was thinking about whether or not bacteria and other harmful microorganisms could grow in the water that collected too. I suppose, if nothing else, it could be boiled before consumption.

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#5

Post by ghshephard »

Something doesn't seen internally consistent in this article. We read about a device, that can be locally assembled, that, can draw up to 25 gallons of water a day (I would have been impressed with 1 gallon a day) - and, "In all, it costs about $500 to set up a tower...His team hopes to install two Warka Towers in Ethiopia by next year and is currently searching for investors who may be interested in scaling the water harvesting technology across the region. "

Why would "two Warka towers" be a target for a year, when, on the surface, reading this - it would make sense to go install a thousand of them and see how they played out over a year. If this device really could pull, even 10 gallons of water a day for $500 cost, it would have zero problem attracting funding on that kind of tiny pilot scale.

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#6

Post by meric »

ghshephard wrote: post #5

Something doesn't seen internally consistent in this article. We read about a device, that can be locally assembled, that, can draw up to 25 gallons of water a day (I would have been impressed with 1 gallon a day) - and, "In all, it costs about $500 to set up a tower...His team hopes to install two Warka Towers in Ethiopia by next year and is currently searching for investors who may be interested in scaling the wate…

I think it takes more than just money to setup the towers. The article mentions maintenance is a big problem for imported solutions, so they'll need to teach locals on how to maintain/build the tower. There aren't too many people who knows enough to build such a tower, so they cannot simply spend $500 * 1000 to get towers for 100 villages, since they need to first teach people to build it and second teach people in each village to maintain it. Perhaps, the first year the target is more than just 2 towers, but learning how to make the tower easier to maintain as well as learning how best to 'sell' the tower to locals.

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#7

Post by davidw »

So does this one:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:LukeMoistureVaporator-MO...

The ones in the article look like they're cheaper, possible to construct with local materials, and importantly: more user friendly - you don't even need a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#8

Post by ghshephard »

meric wrote: post #6
ghshephard wrote: post #5

Something doesn't seen internally consistent in this article. We read about a device, that can be locally assembled, that, can draw up to 25 gallons of water a day (I would have been impressed with 1 gallon a day) - and, "In all, it costs about $500 to set up a tower...His team hopes to install two Warka Towers in Ethiopia by next year and is currently searching for investors who may be interested in scaling the wate…

I think it takes more than just money to setup the towers. The article mentions maintenance is a big problem for imported solutions, so they'll need to teach locals on how to maintain/build the tower. There aren't too many people who knows enough to build such a tower, so they cannot simply spend $500 * 1000 to get towers for 100 villages, since they need to first teach people to build it and second teach people in e…

Everything in the article suggests that this is something that can be done locally:

"If the many failed development projects of the past 60 years have taught us anything,...it's that complicated, imported solutions do not work."

"inexpensive, easily-assembled structure that extracts gallons of fresh water from the air. "

"The structures, made from biodegradable materials, are easy to clean and can be erected without mechanical tools in less than a week.

And 1,000 towers would be on the scale of "learning how to make the tower easier to maintain as well as learning how best to 'sell' the tower to locals."

If this device was capable of pulling in more than 10/gallons of water a day for $500 capex (and cheaper at volume), I would expect to see millions of them installed across the african continent in just a few years.

Heck - I'd expect to see them installed across the North American continent as well. Some of the crazy stuff we used to do to try and get 5 gallons/water a day when I was growing up - I spent two solid months hand digging a well that barely managed to deliver that much water a day. A $500 "Water Tower" would have been awesome.

Re: This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

#9

Post by ghshephard »

tonylemesmer wrote: post #2

Has anyone tested the long term viability? Contamination, dust, mildew, flies etc.? Seems like a good idea but I venture the water would need further processing. Still, looks like a better starting point than where many communities are now.

As long as the water is reasonably clear, just leaving it in a plastic bottle in the sun for a day or so will get the water safe enough to drink.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection

http://www.irinnews.org/report/79172/benin-sunshine-plastic-...

And this water is not ground water - so all of the many, many normal types of ground pollution are being avoided.

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