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Device that can extract 1,000 liters of clean water a day from desert air revealed by 2025 Nobel Prize winner (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The system can function in air with 20% humidity or less. But these 1,000 liter a day machines are not small, at around shipping container size.

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[–] 46 points 8 months ago* (16 children)

Yet again, nobody seems to be giving a thought what this means to organisms that are living in the desert. This water is necessary for life and we’re taking it.

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  • [–] 60 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    As someone who has thought about it, could you provide the data that you used to come to the conclusion that the amount of water being extracted from the air has any appreciable effect on local life?

    From my thinking...

    Death Valley covers 7800km^2.. Atmospheric moisture is typically contained in the first 10km of air. So there is somewhere around 2.5 quadrillion cubic feet of air containing 114 billion gallons of water.

    The average Atmospheric Water Vapour Residence Time is around 8 days The median is 5 days and Death Valley's topography is a valley which would trap more moisture, but we'll use the average instead.

    This represents a moisture turnover rate of about 625,000 Liters/second (or 1.45x10^10 gallons/day).

    So, one of these devices would consume .000185% of the moisture that enters Death Valley every day.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    https://scitechdaily.com/america-is-sinking-28-major-cities-are-slowly-going-under/

    Given enough people and time, we have a track record of messing stuff up.

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    ground water is a completely different beast. This device harvests moisture from the air.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    You are assuming that there will only be one device used by a careful and considerate individual.

    I can think of many companies that would 100000% set up a moisture farming complex if it was financially feasible. Who gives a fuck about the environment? It’s basically free water from nothing, right?

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Nobody is deploying these at scale to harvest water to sell, it's way too expensive. Probably even more so than desalination.

    These kinds of devices would be useful in areas where they didn't have access to preexisting infrastructure. There the comparison would be between operating one of these devices or air lifting water in by helicopter. The fact that it's expensive isn't as much a concern when the alternative is to pay for airlift delivery.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    If you plan on drinking the water, or cooking with the water, it's going right back into the air after you pee or sweat and the water evaporates. Literally no damage done.

    You cannot make the water actually disappear unless you use it in some kind of chemical reaction, and even then it may end up returning to water eventually.

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  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I would think that ripping 1000L of water out of an environment in a day is going to have more immediate impacts than you eventually pissing on a cactus is going to fix…

    Sure, the water isn’t “destroyed”, but it is being removed from an ecosystem that has evolved to use every last bit of water it can find to survive. It may not be immediately obvious, but it sounds just as damaging as removing 1000L of water a day from a lake and thinking the ecosystem will be fine because you’re going to sweat next to the dry lakebed.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago

    I would think that ripping 1000L of water out of an environment in a day is going to have more immediate impacts than you eventually pissing on a cactus is going to fix…

    Well... It all depends on what you do with the water. Are you sequestering it in some way or are you releasing it? I mean, if the community drank 1000 liters of water, then their next piss is 100% going to fix it. Even watering crops is just releasing the water.

    just as damaging as removing 1000L of water a day from a lake and thinking the ecosystem will be fine because you’re going to sweat next to the dry lakebed.

    Again, if you're going to sweat 1000 liters, then go for it, I fully endorse this plan. Use as much water as you want, it's fine unless you're shipping it out.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    You can't really consume water especially if you take it out of the air. Worst case you temporarily barrow it till it evaporates again it's not like the water is suddenly gonna be pumped out to the ocean or something.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Do you think they are condensing 1000L of water to then just splash it on the ground where it was farmed? That water is going to people (or more likely companies) that are going to leave the ecosystem.

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