This is the first time I've ever heard of these things. Does anybody know about these? Why are they not more ubiquitous, especially amongst countries like South Africa which contain several thousand km of semi-arid land?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheri ... _generator
atmospheric water generators
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Re: atmospheric water generators
Well, the obvious problem would be that they seem to need humid air to work - the air is not particularly humid in a lot of those regions. Presumably cost is also a factor.
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Re: atmospheric water generators
Cost probably is a major factor, but there are versions which use dessicants and then purify the resultant solution.loomer wrote:Well, the obvious problem would be that they seem to need humid air to work - the air is not particularly humid in a lot of those regions. Presumably cost is also a factor.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=6326050
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Sea Skimmer
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Re: atmospheric water generators
Its one thing to pull enough water to drink for survival out of the air in a disaster zone, or to support a small military base, but supplying the water needs of a modern society is orders of magnitude more demanding. Less then 10% of the freshwater usage in the world is for household tasks or drinking. If a nation like South Africa needed more water and was willing to pay, then reverse osmosis purification of sewage or seawater is a lot more practical for mass scale water production. Nuclear or solar powered desalination of seawater or salty ground water is another option, though it’s pretty hard to desalinate water sufficiently to be fit for drinking long term.
A quick look around says the current models of water generators extract about 5 gallons of water for 1 gallon of fuel, which is not very sustainable in poor desert countries even for drinking. It'd be emergencies only at best.
A quick look around says the current models of water generators extract about 5 gallons of water for 1 gallon of fuel, which is not very sustainable in poor desert countries even for drinking. It'd be emergencies only at best.
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Temujin
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Re: atmospheric water generators
I remember seeing some mega-scale engineering projects using this tech proposed for irrigating desert areas, but it was Popular Science crap so it was probably more 
then fact.
then fact.
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LionElJonson
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Re: atmospheric water generators
It might work to make some other megascale engineering project like a massive canal network fed by nuclear-powered desalination plants more efficient by reducing water lost to evaporation, but that'd also reduce rainfall, I suppose.