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Today in "Why am I Just Now Hearing About This?" News, Texas Man Creates Drinking Water from Thin Air.

Sunster

Sunster

The Fallen
Oct 5, 2018
10,003
Moses West, a retired army ranger has created an atmospheric water generator that takes in air and produces clean, drinkable water. Units have been deployed in Flint, MI, The Bahamas, and in Texas. This seems like it could be a huge deal to the world if it were mass produced as water wars seem inevitable.
https://freedomsolarpower.com/texas-energy-lab-radio/moses-west

His reaction when his machine vandalized in Flint,
"Nothing frustrates me. It's only an opportunity to do better. No problems, only opportunities."
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West does not accept money, he encourages people to donate to The Water Rescue Foundation
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Moses-West-wide.jpg
 
Masoyama

Masoyama

Attempted to circumvent a ban with an alt account
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,648
1024px-Atrapanieblas_en_Alto_Patache.jpg


People have been using air to generate water for centuries.
 
joecanada

joecanada

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,651
Canada
They also know how make desalination plants aka water from the ocean . The issue is cost and energy consumed aka no-one gives a shit if some poor people die if shits expensive like every other problem.
 
OP
OP
Sunster

Sunster

The Fallen
Oct 5, 2018
10,003
NateDrake said:
Is it like a big filtered dehumidifier?
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Still in his neighbor's home, he remembered learning about the hydrologic cycle in elementary school, recalling that water is a closed-loop cycle. It moves between the oceans and atmosphere and land while changing between liquid, solid, and gas form. "We still have the same amount of water on the earth that we've always had. You borrow it and you give it back," says Moses. His Atmospheric Water Generator simply borrows the H2O molecules from the air temporarily. "Water is here and it's abundant and it's a source that technology can remove and let us use it without any stress on our infrastructure."
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joecanada said:
They also know how make desalination plants aka water from the ocean . The issue is cost and energy consumed aka no-one gives a shit if some poor people die if shits expensive like every other problem.
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West's machine is said to have very low energy consumption
Masoyama said:
1024px-Atrapanieblas_en_Alto_Patache.jpg


People have been using air to generate water for centuries.
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cool, i didn't know that
 
Kurdel

Kurdel

Member
Nov 7, 2017
12,157
The problem has never been the tech, that is what frustrates me with these kinds of articles, optimism porn. He is doing good work, don,t get me wrong, but the problems are systemic.

Cost and energy constraints mean this shit isn't a miracle solution, as long as we live in a capitalist system.
 
OP
OP
Sunster

Sunster

The Fallen
Oct 5, 2018
10,003
Kurdel said:
The problem has never been the tech, that is what frustrates me with these kinds of articles, optimism porn. He is doing good work, don,t get me wrong, but the problems are systemic.

Cost and energy constraints mean this shit isn't a miracle solution, as long as we live in a capitalist system.
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The machine that Moses developed was innovative from the start. One of the challenges of scaling up atmospheric water generation technologies is the amount of energy they require to function. Many units on the market today are very energy intensive.

Not this machine, though. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality requires power consumption no higher than 0.13 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per liter for approval. The unit developed by Moses used only 0.08 kWh in testing, and in Puerto Rico achieved 0.05 kWh.

Moses spends a lot of time watching the machine operate while thinking about "parasitic electrical load. If I can put my hand someplace and I can feel some heat come off or if I can feel some cool air come off … temperature change is energy." He has continued to make tweaks to the design to minimize energy usage. "I've gotten the equipment down to the place where it's very, very low on energy consumption," he says. "And that's what you had to do to get it out to the market."
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affeinvasion

affeinvasion

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,946
Wasn't there a thread on here not too long ago about a similar technology attached to billboards in South America?
 
lake

lake

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,289
Kurdel said:
The problem has never been the tech, that is what frustrates me with these kinds of articles, optimism porn. He is doing good work, don,t get me wrong, but the problems are systemic.

Cost and energy constraints mean this shit isn't a miracle solution, as long as we live in a capitalist system.
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This. Thank you.
 
Hollywood Duo

Hollywood Duo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
41,663
I remember either Man vs Wild or Survivorman the guy used a very crude version of this to collect moisture in to a used water bottle for clean drinking water
 
Renna Hazel

Renna Hazel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,552
Kurdel said:
The problem has never been the tech, that is what frustrates me with these kinds of articles, optimism porn. He is doing good work, don,t get me wrong, but the problems are systemic.

Cost and energy constraints mean this shit isn't a miracle solution, as long as we live in a capitalist system.
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Could you please elaborate. What does this have to do with capitalism?
 

Deleted member 2625

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,596
Captain Tuttle said:
So it's a dehumidifier, I have one of these in my basement
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Essentially, yeah. I mean you can always pull moisture out of the air, you just need something that makes the condensation happen. There are solar stills on sailboats that will just collect drinking water right out of the air. No power. It's kind of old tech. But the new tech is all about efficiencies.
 
Lozjam

Lozjam

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Nov 1, 2017
1,961
Kurdel said:
The problem has never been the tech, that is what frustrates me with these kinds of articles, optimism porn. He is doing good work, don,t get me wrong, but the problems are systemic.

Cost and energy constraints mean this shit isn't a miracle solution, as long as we live in a capitalist system.
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This thing can easily run on Solar Power though, and has a paltry energy consumption. .05 KWH for a liter of water. For a single person per day, that sort of energy is very similar to playing the PS4 for a couple of hours. Which is completely doable. Plus, it can run on solar energy.
 
Kurdel

Kurdel

Member
Nov 7, 2017
12,157
Renna Hazel said:
Could you please elaborate. What does this have to do with capitalism?
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"Relying on this one man and donations to his foundation to solve the flint water crisis was our only hope" is some dystopian shit.

The role of charity within the capitalist system to compensate for the shortcoming of the "free market" comes from the protestant heritage and way of doing things. A government that truly has the interest of the people at it's heart instead of cost analysis projection regarding safe drinking water would have solved this shit much faster.
 
Masoyama

Masoyama

Attempted to circumvent a ban with an alt account
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,648
Lozjam said:
This thing can easily run on Solar Power though, and has a paltry energy consumption. .05 KWH for a liter of water. For a single person per day, that sort of energy is very similar to playing the PS4 for a couple of hours. Which is completely doable. Plus, it can run on solar energy.
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He can get those levels of energy by scaling up to massive sizes. The friction and winding losses of pumps and filters get proportionally smaller for bigger machines. However, this machine might need a huge amount of power to start and then to run at those efficiencies. Running any sort of motor on solar is a pain in the ass.
 
Dali

Dali

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,184
Masoyama said:
1024px-Atrapanieblas_en_Alto_Patache.jpg


People have been using air to generate water for centuries.
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He got the idea from a neighbor in Hawaii who had a device that could produce glasses of water. His invention is special because his devices generate orders of magnitude more water and are extremely energy efficient.
 
Don Fluffles

Don Fluffles

Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,051
Then
Kurdel said:
The problem has never been the tech, that is what frustrates me with these kinds of articles, optimism porn. He is doing good work, don,t get me wrong, but the problems are systemic.

Cost and energy constraints mean this shit isn't a miracle solution, as long as we live in a capitalist system.
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Then that's why we need to keep fighting however we can. Let's at least help support projects like this alongside building better systems.
 
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