A new device developed by VICI-Labs, in collaboration with UC Berkeley and the National Peace Corps Association, aims to provide a sustainable source of clean safe water for the millions without a reliable water supply. In the developed world, where most homes and businesses have ready access to clean water at the turn of a tap, we don't really have to worry about most waterborne diseases, or dehydration, or the ability to wash our selves, our clothes, or our eating utensils, but those worries are still very real for the millions around the world without a reliable clean water source. The WaterSeer could help to alleviate some of those water poverty issues.
The WaterSeer is relatively simple device, designed to be operated without an external power input, and without the need for costly chemicals or maintenance, that can 'pull' moisture from thin air and condense it into water using the temperature difference between the above-ground turbine and the collection chamber installed six feet underground. The potable water can then be delivered to the surface for use via a simple pump and hose, and the device is said to be able to produce up to 11 gallons per day, even in arid regions.
First reported by us here.
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Water scarcity is a problem for nearly 1 billion people just in Africa alone. The Warka Water tower is a new tool to harvest water from the air, kind of like a low-tech Tatooine water vaporator. Unlike many other systems that have come before, it is a very simple technology with no moving parts and thus very low maintenance. On a good day, one Warka Water tower can condense 25 gallons of water. It is effective even in desert areas because night-day temperatures differences are the major factor, and the extreme temperature swings in the desert enable it to extract water even when the air has very little humidity.
Information about the project can be found here.
(Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:08AM
Yes, it all sounds very good, but nobody will be able to use the damn thing until somebody invents a shiny gold effeminate automaton that can speaks the binary language of moisture vaporators.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:19AM
Can I dry hump the droid while the dehumidifier harvests all the moisture out of the air?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:49AM
Only if you pay up front.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:11AM
VICI-Labs has no links to actual things, just submit you super idea
show me specifications and plans if this is meant to help poor people and not scam investors
(Score: 4, Informative) by t-3 on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:45AM
It's not a complex or very new idea. It's just an air well [wikipedia.org] with attached to a vertical axis wind turbine. For the price it might be worthwhile, but there are quite a few designs without moving parts or the need for pumps that could break many miles from any place with facilities to repair or replace parts. Here's a similar contraption without moving parts, and a much larger storage basin, albeit at a much higher cost and more labor intensive to install. I would really like to see some side-by-side comparisons of different designs and get a good idea of comparative yield though, it's really hard to say whether or not this is an improvement on the concept or not. [warkawater.org]
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:49AM
Fuck I should have used preview. An edit button would be nice, maybe with a short activation window, say up to 10 minutes after posting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @01:52PM
(Score: 3, Touché) by tibman on Wednesday October 12 2016, @01:54PM
Hey, are you the guy who keeps creating these support tickets for an "unsend email" button?
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @03:17PM
It's time that the weapon producers finally implement the "undo shot" feature!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday October 12 2016, @02:10PM
Hey, if we want to be coddled we can always go back to The Green Site where we *have to* preview before we can submit. And occasionally endure 5 minutes of buffer time if they think we're posting too fast :P
"Great power great responsibility" blah blah
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday October 12 2016, @02:55PM
The problem I see is that in an arid desert there is so little moisture in the air that there is nothing to distill. The UC Berkeley Gill Tract Farm is located about 1 Km from the San Francisco Bay, where the average humidity is high.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:07PM
A valid point which may limit the usefulness of the device, but which wouldn't eliminate it. And it might work quite well in arid conditions, but just produce less water. They should test it in the Mojave, or if it has enough wind Death Valley.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 13 2016, @01:32PM
I didn't understand that either. They claimed the Bay area as "arid". That has never been my experience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:09PM
Most certainly a scam hell the summary 'and without the need for costly chemicals or maintenance'
Bull. Dehumidifiers on this scale require maintenance (even passive structures). You are dealing with water, water reacts with a lot of things especially junk caught in the air with the water. There is all sorts of fun things floating around in the air. From actual carbon pollution, to dirt, to water, to pollen, to bird shit. You do NOT want to drink the water from one of these without going through filtration system. Preferably carbon and chlorine. That right there will cost you in maintenance. So will any moving parts such as the giant fan they have.
Potable water? I doubt it. Water which could be used for watering things or toilets? Now you are in the ball park.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_water_generator [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_(condenser) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:56PM
Haven't we had half a dozen stories about such thing here in SN already? Some with working prototypes and installations in Africa?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday October 12 2016, @11:37PM
We've had 1 previous story - which I acknowledged in TFS and provided a link to it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:37AM
A lot of these dry places are rather dusty. I'd like to know how it deals with dust and other airborne crap.
Specifically how it gets 11 gallons a day of moisture from air into that underground collection chamber without significant amounts of dust etc getting stuck in there as well.
Would cleaning/replacing that underground collection chamber be that cheap and easy?
See this: http://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/prototype-wind-turbine-condenses-1000-liters-of-water-a-day-from-desert-air-1483891/ [geek.com]
In that link there's mention of a purification step, and that it was successfully tested in Abu Dhabi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @10:01AM
I just used Google to convert the 11 gallons from the summary into liters (it would have been nice if the summary provided this, BTW), and got a bit less than 42 liters. Which is much less than the 1000 liters claimed in your link.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @02:53PM
Yeah, that confused me too. I also thought for sure that there were 100 liters per gallon too before you ran the conversion.
Boy, I guess with the metric system you lose all sense of proportion with your love of powers of 10.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @04:56PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @11:54AM
I think you could easily filter that out when pumping the water up. The problem I saw was dust in the bearings in the rotating part.
Also, they claim that the soil is always cooler than the air. But if you flow in hot air (and it cools, so the heat goes somewhere) the surroundings will warm up as well, in the end reducing the efficiency. At night time the inside might be hotter than the inflowing air.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:45AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday October 12 2016, @12:00PM
The advantage of all-in-one devices is the UN or WTF can air drop it into areas that have been liberated and made safe for democracy and all that snarky stuff
The disadvantage of all-in-one devices is they usually are two substandard parts without an extension cord and not terribly flexible much like TV VCR combos. Also when one half breaks theres no way for the natives to fix it.
They'd be better off with a shipping crate of solar panels, a shipping crate with a large COTS dehumidifier (well, maybe a couple) and a shipping crate of big ass water bottles, filters, and extension cords.
As a bonus now they have 12 hrs/day (or so) of 120V AC to do all kinds of stuff. Shitpost on SN, watch pr0n, refrigerate medicines, who knows. Also they have a dehumidifier if they ever get regular electricity. Or if everything is fixed they got water filters.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @12:27PM
When all you've got is a TV-VCR combo, every problem starts to look like a movie marathon.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 12 2016, @05:16PM
> watch pr0n
Hopefully single-handedly. The last thing waterless areas need is an incentive to increase the population.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 13 2016, @01:28PM
> they have 12 hrs/day (or so) to... Shitpost on SN
So what do you do with your other 12 hours?