Wednesday, November 26, 2008

THE WATER MILL

Introducing the best home appliance since the microwave:
The system draws in moist, outside air through an air filter. The moist air passes over a cooling element, condensing the moist air into water droplets. This water is then collected, passed through a specialized carbon filter and is then exposed to an ultraviolet sterilizer, eliminating bacteria.
It makes you wonder why it took so long to invent such an obvious device. Every day, we see pure H2O dripping from air conditioning units installed in cars. Why not grab some air, drop its temp to the dew point and drink that sweet nectar that results?
The WaterMill can be connected directly to your sink, an existing bottled water system, your refrigerator, or a custom dispenser.
Water is a precious resource and the earth is not making any more of it. Although it is being constantly recycled, there is a percentage of persons on earth, mostly in Africa, who do not have adequate access to potable water. Those of us without such concerns expect the water to always be there but in reality, there are so many people on earth that we are consuming fresh water at a rate higher than it can be recycled. Most of the water in fact goes towards agricultural needs, irrigating the fields that grow the world's food. A lot of what is left is utilized in industry and what is left comes out of our taps. People worry about peak oil but peak water is also on the horizon.
Our air contains 4,000 cubic miles of water. If it were a lake it would be roughly the size of the Great Lakes combined - which is the world's largest body of fresh water - and would be constantly refilled.

Water vapor is constantly replenished by Earth's natural cycle, so extracting water from the air can continue indefinitely without impacting local ecosystems.
It sounds like somebody found a new source of water. Why wait for nature to fill the aquifer if we can snatch it from the atmosphere whenever we get thirsty? Of course, the thingy won't work if the atmospheric humidity is below 40%, so it's no panacea for subsaharan Africa, but once it becomes affordable (currently $1500), I can imagine these devices becoming common suburban must-haves.

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