WingNews logo WingNews GitHub [2]
top | item 7577161

This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air

147 points| ColdHawaiian | 12 years ago |smithsonianmag.com

83 comments

order
[+] ghshephard|12 years ago|reply
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.

[+] msandford|12 years ago|reply
I think the main reason is because it's just two industrial designers with no connections to any of the NGOs necessary to get the $500k worth of build-money and probably another $500k to $1.5mm worth of "let's make this happen" money.

Look at the front page of the website it's posted on: http://www.architectureandvision.com/ Half of the stuff there is made-up concepts, not real actual things.

If we were seeing this on the water.org website then yes I would absolutely agree with you that the two units as a "goal" is ridiculous. But since it seems like they have no serious funding yet and plane tickets to Africa aren't exactly cheap I think two units is reasonable.

[+] zhte415|12 years ago|reply
Making a physical product that may have to be tailored to varying specific requirements could be difficult, meric above mentioned technology / skill transfer where an assumed solution may not have an optimal effect, or be even be disastrous - I'm sure they're honing an experience set and training and maintenance manual.

Sewage works may be a tangential example. Many sewage treatment plants basically work by sifting heavy material, then using aerobic bacteria to break down dirty water, and anaerobic bacteria to break down the aerobic bacteria (resulting in manure slosh) [a heavily simplified version]. But each plant has varying PH and mineral levels, meaning optimal bacteria are often designed for specific plant locations, and the specialist knowledge required can be very deep.

I see nothing wrong with going it slow, and documenting carefully in a very hands-on way, any hiccup and both 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns' that may be overlooked in a mass roll-out.

[Edit: typo]

[+] meric|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] shadowmint|12 years ago|reply
Here's a link that describes the technology behind it: http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/how-to-get-fresh-water-out-of...

...and one showing the structure in detail: http://www.architectureandvision.com/projects/chronological/...

TLDR: Great for pulling moisture out of the air if the air already has a really high moisture content. Pretty much useless in other circumstances.

[+] bryanlarsen|12 years ago|reply
According to the article, it's temperature differential that's important. So it works in the desert, which has 50 degree swings between day and night. Many places with high moisture content have much smaller swings in temperature, so it might not work as well in the jungle.
[+] linhat|12 years ago|reply
Isn't the generated/collected water like condensed water free of any kind of salts etc. that would naturally occur in ground/drinking water, so shouldn't it be unsafe to drink large amounts of it (much like it is unsafe to drink large amounts of salt/sea water due to the saline imbalance)?

I wonder how/if they address this?

[+] jimrandomh|12 years ago|reply
Everyone needs to eat salt, and does. If there isn't any salt in your water, then you need slightly more salt in your food. But only very slightly more; drinking water is not very salty.
[+] dfc|12 years ago|reply 

  It is unsafe to drink sea water due to high salt content.
  Therefore, drinking water with no salt content is also unsafe.
I do not understand that reasoning.
[+] caycep|12 years ago|reply
have faith in your GI system...it usually figures out what to absorb.
[+] zmguy|12 years ago|reply
I don't agree with not having local repairmen as being a real showstopper. Any new system requires training: fire building, hut building, brick making. They need to factor training into the roll out of the technology, and don't focus on training men, take the women and grandmothers, train them first. RE: The barefoot movement in India: http://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy Tell a mother she doesn't have to walk 6 hours for dirty water, she will learn to fix whatever is necessary given the right training and availability of tools/material.
[+] midas007|12 years ago|reply
Agreed, it's probably the opposite. Folks that are struggling out of necessary tend to have respectable DIY artisans that are very resourceful and creative in the truest sense of hacker. (When you don't have much, your ability to think of creative solutions based on what you have becomes very acute.)
[+] tonylemesmer|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] ColdHawaiian|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] sandy23|12 years ago|reply
Not just Africa, there are many places in India mainly the tribal villages where the women walk for more than 3 kms to carry 10 litres of fresh water.
[+] icefox|12 years ago|reply
Heck, places in the U.S. need water, why start in Ethiopia where the trial costs will be higher?
[+] fit2rule|12 years ago|reply
Seems like something that just needs to be 100% open source, with designs freely available to the public. If it works so well, it really ought to be utterly free to construct, since it will have such a significant impact on peoples lives to be able to have such access to fresh water.

So whats the problem here? Isn't this science free, already?

[+] aaron695|12 years ago|reply
I think there's probably some big issues with this article.

For $500 for 24+ Gallons a day even from a commercial perspective it'd have value in first world city settings during droughts for pretty gardens etc.

[+] spiritplumber|12 years ago|reply
“Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people. ”
[+] jusben1369|12 years ago|reply
Sort of odd that it wants to go negative on other efforts. Doesn't really add to the story but seems to be all about a few cheap shots.
[+] patchhill|12 years ago|reply
Are these not powered? How do these things overcome the laws of thermodynamics?