X has been really good about open sourcing all of the technical information from shut down projects. They did the same for the Makani power-generating kites. Love to see stuff like this
Citation needed. I worked there for two years and there are a LOT of projects that are sitting collecting dust that in my opinion could really help people if they were released as open source. The one I am thinking of (not my place to disclose what it is) was canned in 2017 and I always wished they would have just released it. X has open sourced some stuff and that is great, but whether they have been "really good" about this is debatable IMO.
Genuine question, when Google open sources these designs, are they actually open source/free, or are they like Tesla's "open source" patents, that if used, gives the company the ability to violate your patents and IP without the threat of litigation[1]?
Let's say that I'm not an engineer or a researcher or a coder, but would like to set some of these units up to collect water. How do I do so? Do I approach someone to build this for me (who?)? How much can I expect it to cost?
In other words, how can I actualize this vision:
> So the H2E team asked: “What if you could put the power to generate daily drinking water into the hands of individuals, no matter where they live, by creating an affordable, easy to use device that harvests water from the air and is powered by the sun?"
The prototype described is tricky. Basically because they want low unit cost, they had to assume mass manufacture techniques such as vacuum forming. This means that the cost of small builds will be quite high (since there's a lot of jigging and molds that have to be 3d printed/CNC'd). Unfortunately, they don't have a BOM cost listed anywhere I've been able to find.
But also because this is a prototype, and they wanted to be able to tinker and measure, there's lots of design features and parts that are quite expensive and not really needed. Assembly also appears to be tricky and time consuming with non-trivial risk of damaging parts that then need to be repaired.
So ultimately you have a design and plan that's neither directly suitable for mass-production or low volume production (which is fine! it's a prototype! it's super not done). The prototype as described would likely form an acceptable basis for further revision.
You could probably go to a mechanical engineering design/consulting/prototyping firm with this and ask them to make it real with minimal changes (removing extraneous measurement devices, maybe swap out some of the grommets). It'd probably cost you like 50k at least to get your first one. Second one probably will cost like 100 bucks range.
The TLDW version is these devices are fancy dehumidifiers. They need a ton of power, and lots of air humidity to be practical, which are exactly not the conditions these devices are advertised to operate in.
And even then, the water they produce is dirty, so it needs to be purified and treated to be actually drinkable.
Even if we solve all these challenges, it turns out that doing something dumb and low tech, like transporting drinking water on trucks is actually a lot more efficient.
This is another one in the long list of devices designed to help those hypothetical poor people, like OLPC and the Gravity Light.
It turns out these people have already solved these issues, and much better, usually with off-the-shelf alternatives and a bit of ingenuity.
I'm thinking wildly here and not getting into technicals, but it could also be seen not necessarily for humans but also for ecosystem restoration efforts in harsh remote environments.
For example, while I have some viability questions the company Terraformation has been trial'ing photovoltaic solar powered water desalinization (using brackish wells as a source) in deforested areas for water - https://www.terraformation.com/blog/solar-powered-desalinati...
Are there any sites that help build groups around current and upcoming open-source projects, and also encourage people to make stuff open-source - perhaps with pledges?
... a more business-focused GitHub.
... an OpenSea for inventors.
Imagine if money spent on NFTs would go to cool projects instead of avatars!
My guess is that if there were clear answers to those questions then the project might not have been shutdown. The hope is that someone or some other project might find a piece of this useful, or more optimistically that someone will find a way past any of the problems that made X take a pass on it.
Or if none of that happens, at the very least it serves as a free bit of knowledge telling others going down this path "it didn't work"
As far as I know every "water from air" is literally a dehumidifier and is going to produce dirty water at 1000x the cost of just driving water anywhere on earth.
A cursory glance of TFA suggests that it probably is another dehumidifier. Depending on the environment it might yield a small amount of water, but certainly not the kind you would want to be drinking without treatment. I look forward to thunderf00t's video on it.
> Our assessment—using Google Earth Engine13—introduces a hypothetical 1-metre-square device with a SY profle of 0.2 to 2.5 litres per kilowatthour (0.1 to 1.25 litres per kilowatt-hour for a 2-metre-square device) at 30% to 90% RH, respectively.
The upper bound is nice, the lower bound kinda hurts. I can't tell if they are tracking the night cycle and harvesting when the dewpoint drops. Is this all calculation or is there a blueprint I am missing.
This could be great for a prepper's toolbox. If it actually hits the $150 price point, it's easily affordable for someone in the developed world who just wants to be prepared if the developed world un-develops, and drinking water's a critical survival need that many properties won't have available without municipal utilities or transportation. And in most apocalypse scenarios that you'd prepare for, you can't count on transportation remaining available.
Israel has made a massive desalination plant, to turn salt water into potable water and it's no easy task. If they could have taken water from the atmosphere I'm sure they would have tried.
They are not equivalent. Yes, it's disappointing; however, open sourcing it makes it easier for someone else to continue the relay race, rather than needlessly experience Groundhog Day.
The absolute worst case for open sourcing ("abandoning") a project is showing everyone else what you did and what results you reached or didn't, meaning everyone can avoid doing the same thing again, which is still a positive. All other scenarios are even better.
I want to make an orchard on a hill in the maritime pacific northwest. Its a somewhat odd climate where the time that gets hottest is when it also tends to be dryest (east coast tends to be wetter when hotter).
I wonder if something like this (possibly with less focus on "clean" water - it's rural and breezy, so I don' think raw output would harm trees...) could be suitable for generating summer water for tree irrigation.
What is the intersection of people who a) can afford an expenditure of $150, b) have reliable access to electricity and can pay for it, and c) can't get their hands on five liters of clean water a day?
Many people don't have good access to clean water, over 2B according to the repo's readme.
Those people probably cannot afford $150, but the goal of the project wasn't $150, it was lower.
The unit is supposed to be solar powered, so access to electricity isn't strictly necessary, in the sense of being able to connect to the grid. They just need sunlight.
There is a sweet spot of cost, where those who need it can't afford it, but nonprofits, billionaire philanthropists, and local governments can afford to purchase and distribute such devices where necessary. In cases where the need for clean water greatly outweighs the supply, such entities see a good return on investment, simply by improving the health of those people there.
Furthermore, X is a moonshot program at Google. They attempt solutions for big problems with high likeihood of failure. Are you suggesting they shouldn't do this with their money printing ad machine? It seems like any good that comes out of that company should be celebrated, and in this case they are sharing a bunch of work on solving what will be an increasing large problem for the entire world.
Are there any consumer-grade atmospheric solar water generators on the market right now? I did a very quick search and didn't find anything. Is there anything like this that people can buy right now?
Edit: There's also this water bottle I remember seeing a while back on Kickstarter or Indigogo. It doesn't seem like they actually sell it on the website: https://fontus.at/
You could buy a few solar panels, an inverter, a dehumidifier, and a water filter and be fine. The problem is sizing the power generation and dehumidifier to match and generate an amount of water meaningful to you.
Regardless you need quite a bit of solar to get a decent amount of water.
At first pass, I would guess that something like this would primarily be useful in places with naturally high humidity, which aren't likely to have a shortage of water in the first place, no?
Maybe the argument is that the natural sources of water are dirty, and extracting from the air is automatically clean and safe to drink, but it still seems like it may be more resource efficient to invest in water treatment, not a fleet of dehumidifiers.
"Atmospheric water generators" (or: dehumidifiers) aren't new, the problem is that other means of obtaining water are almost always the better option (this includes access to funds, knowledge or materials). The places where this device would be helpful would only be helped if a bunch of them materialised out of thin air and would work with no maintenance or repairs, forever.
Can the desiccant work in perpetuity? Or is it more of a "wear part" that needs replacement? I don't understand enough of the desiccant types mentioned in the Nature paper to know.
If they’re giving it away for free, that must mean there is a fatal flaw they could never design around and are confident nobody else will either. What’s the point then?
Allow me to snip a few quotes: "After three years of work, the team felt confident they could build a device that would produce water for $.10 per liter; however, it would have taken significant development work and iteration to prove feasibility at $.01 per liter. Additionally, the next phase of work for the project looked to be heavily focused on hardware integration and mass production expertise — not X’s sweet spot."
And:
"Given these factors, it became clear that X wasn’t best suited to take the work forward, and one of the best ways X could have an impact now on the problem of access to safe drinking water was to share what we’ve learned."
I have no idea what the prior state of the art of modelling viable areas for harvesting was (I presume this is probably where X made the largest contribution). As the blogpost identifies... X is not really the best group to tinker with large scale, low cost manufacturing prototyping and scale up.
They likely had trouble making it cheap and durable enough for the target market. Looking at the design files, the unit is quite fragile, thanks to the cheap vacuum formed plastic.
What needs to be done is using some of the GIS tools they released to find good locations for air->water setups, is figure out what materials and manufacturing techniques are available in those locations. This way you are more likely to design something that makes a difference. Anything built with materials or techniques that are not local will break, and they will be unable to repair because they do not have access to either the materials or the tools needed to do repairs.
I read their "Patent Non-Assertion Pledge", it's hard to interpret - they seem to retain lots of rights, as far as I can tell, it's not really 'giving it away for free'. Anyone wanting to develop this as a commercial product would probably have to call a lawyer first.
It just looks like a proof of concept. They tested it in very controlled conditions. Did not see how it withstands being knocked over, dropped, covered in dust from storms. Their market is Africa. How many of the towns have road access? Will the product be damaged in transport on very rough roads? Can they be stacked in transport, and how many high (or will they be crushed)? Will adhesives fail after n temperature cycles in the blazing sun + nighttime cold? Can it be repaired by people living there?
Almost every part looks to be made from scratch. The only thing off the shelf is the pink insulation foam. Can any of this be sourced in the target markets?
There may be multiple reasons for this, some of which may be those you stated, but couldn't altruism be at least an important part of the reason they shared this?
Possibly they've already derived all the PR value from it they can, and further development of it wouldn't be a good ROI for them. Cynical take, to be sure, but also the most realistic one.
[+] [-] gundmc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TaylorAlexander|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heavyset_go|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5...
[+] [-] Ansil849|4 years ago|reply
Let's say that I'm not an engineer or a researcher or a coder, but would like to set some of these units up to collect water. How do I do so? Do I approach someone to build this for me (who?)? How much can I expect it to cost?
In other words, how can I actualize this vision:
> So the H2E team asked: “What if you could put the power to generate daily drinking water into the hands of individuals, no matter where they live, by creating an affordable, easy to use device that harvests water from the air and is powered by the sun?"
[+] [-] icegreentea2|4 years ago|reply
But also because this is a prototype, and they wanted to be able to tinker and measure, there's lots of design features and parts that are quite expensive and not really needed. Assembly also appears to be tricky and time consuming with non-trivial risk of damaging parts that then need to be repaired.
So ultimately you have a design and plan that's neither directly suitable for mass-production or low volume production (which is fine! it's a prototype! it's super not done). The prototype as described would likely form an acceptable basis for further revision.
You could probably go to a mechanical engineering design/consulting/prototyping firm with this and ask them to make it real with minimal changes (removing extraneous measurement devices, maybe swap out some of the grommets). It'd probably cost you like 50k at least to get your first one. Second one probably will cost like 100 bucks range.
[+] [-] torginus|4 years ago|reply
Thunderf00t has made a ton of videos about devices like this, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGTRX6pZSns
The TLDW version is these devices are fancy dehumidifiers. They need a ton of power, and lots of air humidity to be practical, which are exactly not the conditions these devices are advertised to operate in.
And even then, the water they produce is dirty, so it needs to be purified and treated to be actually drinkable.
Even if we solve all these challenges, it turns out that doing something dumb and low tech, like transporting drinking water on trucks is actually a lot more efficient.
This is another one in the long list of devices designed to help those hypothetical poor people, like OLPC and the Gravity Light.
It turns out these people have already solved these issues, and much better, usually with off-the-shelf alternatives and a bit of ingenuity.
[+] [-] seltzered_|4 years ago|reply
For example, while I have some viability questions the company Terraformation has been trial'ing photovoltaic solar powered water desalinization (using brackish wells as a source) in deforested areas for water - https://www.terraformation.com/blog/solar-powered-desalinati...
If I understand correctly (still learning and might be wrong), another way to frame this is in perceiving water vapor itself - you can be in desertifying areas and yet supposedly have plenty of water vapor to a lack of evapotranspiration. This is what some have framed 'the second leg of anthropogenic climate change' - ( https://museecology.com/2020/10/30/15-professor-millan-the-s... , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf4jwkhCk_A - "Desert or rainforest" , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdcsQw3ma_Y - "Restoring the Water Cycle 1" )
[+] [-] adrianwaj|4 years ago|reply
... a more business-focused GitHub.
... an OpenSea for inventors.
Imagine if money spent on NFTs would go to cool projects instead of avatars!
[+] [-] ineedasername|4 years ago|reply
Or if none of that happens, at the very least it serves as a free bit of knowledge telling others going down this path "it didn't work"
[+] [-] signalblur|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] opless|4 years ago|reply
Haven’t there been umpteen attempts at this? I thought there’s not that much water in the air. The volume of air to move must be crazy.
Maybe I should read TFA
[+] [-] hobs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjpnz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sitkack|4 years ago|reply
The upper bound is nice, the lower bound kinda hurts. I can't tell if they are tracking the night cycle and harvesting when the dewpoint drops. Is this all calculation or is there a blueprint I am missing.
[+] [-] nostrademons|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] INTPenis|4 years ago|reply
Israel has made a massive desalination plant, to turn salt water into potable water and it's no easy task. If they could have taken water from the atmosphere I'm sure they would have tried.
It's a pipe dream so far.
[+] [-] canadaduane|4 years ago|reply
They are not equivalent. Yes, it's disappointing; however, open sourcing it makes it easier for someone else to continue the relay race, rather than needlessly experience Groundhog Day.
[+] [-] skybrian|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macleginn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] croon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eloeffler|4 years ago|reply
https://news.mit.edu/2020/solar-extracts-drinkable-water-101...
There was a HN post 7 months ago, too:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28265067
The commenters didn't seem to see much use in it ^^
[+] [-] lsb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cwkoss|4 years ago|reply
I wonder if something like this (possibly with less focus on "clean" water - it's rural and breezy, so I don' think raw output would harm trees...) could be suitable for generating summer water for tree irrigation.
I wish the overview PDF had more labels...
[+] [-] blacksqr|4 years ago|reply
Requires an electric motor to circulate air.
What is the intersection of people who a) can afford an expenditure of $150, b) have reliable access to electricity and can pay for it, and c) can't get their hands on five liters of clean water a day?
[+] [-] bun_at_work|4 years ago|reply
Those people probably cannot afford $150, but the goal of the project wasn't $150, it was lower.
The unit is supposed to be solar powered, so access to electricity isn't strictly necessary, in the sense of being able to connect to the grid. They just need sunlight.
There is a sweet spot of cost, where those who need it can't afford it, but nonprofits, billionaire philanthropists, and local governments can afford to purchase and distribute such devices where necessary. In cases where the need for clean water greatly outweighs the supply, such entities see a good return on investment, simply by improving the health of those people there.
Furthermore, X is a moonshot program at Google. They attempt solutions for big problems with high likeihood of failure. Are you suggesting they shouldn't do this with their money printing ad machine? It seems like any good that comes out of that company should be celebrated, and in this case they are sharing a bunch of work on solving what will be an increasing large problem for the entire world.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] amelius|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] databasher|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwighttk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jupp0r|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ansil849|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tppiotrowski|4 years ago|reply
Edit: There's also this water bottle I remember seeing a while back on Kickstarter or Indigogo. It doesn't seem like they actually sell it on the website: https://fontus.at/
[+] [-] igorhvr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colechristensen|4 years ago|reply
Regardless you need quite a bit of solar to get a decent amount of water.
[+] [-] anonporridge|4 years ago|reply
At first pass, I would guess that something like this would primarily be useful in places with naturally high humidity, which aren't likely to have a shortage of water in the first place, no?
Maybe the argument is that the natural sources of water are dirty, and extracting from the air is automatically clean and safe to drink, but it still seems like it may be more resource efficient to invest in water treatment, not a fleet of dehumidifiers.
[+] [-] oneplane|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] babelfish|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cypherpunks01|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dogleash|4 years ago|reply
At least tell us why it’s a dead end.
[+] [-] icegreentea2|4 years ago|reply
https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-project-h2e-with-the-wo...
Allow me to snip a few quotes: "After three years of work, the team felt confident they could build a device that would produce water for $.10 per liter; however, it would have taken significant development work and iteration to prove feasibility at $.01 per liter. Additionally, the next phase of work for the project looked to be heavily focused on hardware integration and mass production expertise — not X’s sweet spot."
And:
"Given these factors, it became clear that X wasn’t best suited to take the work forward, and one of the best ways X could have an impact now on the problem of access to safe drinking water was to share what we’ve learned."
I have no idea what the prior state of the art of modelling viable areas for harvesting was (I presume this is probably where X made the largest contribution). As the blogpost identifies... X is not really the best group to tinker with large scale, low cost manufacturing prototyping and scale up.
[+] [-] extrapickles|4 years ago|reply
What needs to be done is using some of the GIS tools they released to find good locations for air->water setups, is figure out what materials and manufacturing techniques are available in those locations. This way you are more likely to design something that makes a difference. Anything built with materials or techniques that are not local will break, and they will be unable to repair because they do not have access to either the materials or the tools needed to do repairs.
[+] [-] photochemsyn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ben_w|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carabiner|4 years ago|reply
Almost every part looks to be made from scratch. The only thing off the shelf is the pink insulation foam. Can any of this be sourced in the target markets?
[+] [-] pdevr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toothpicked|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] usrusr|4 years ago|reply