
First Vid of Dean Kamen's Miracle Water Distiller...on Colbert - paulsb
http://gizmodo.com/370698/first-vid-of-dean-kamens-miracle-water-distilleron-colbert
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noonespecial
Looks expensive and complicated. I still think a clear plastic gizmo that just
uses the sun to distill that merely cleans _most_ toxins, especially
biological is better than some giant refrigerator sized, patent encumbered,
machine that needs to be plugged in that cleans _all_ toxins.

The little plastic thing could be made so small, so light, and so cheap that
they could just be dumped out of the back of airplanes where they are needed.

How do we teach the villagers how to use them? Call them on their cell phones.
[http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/03/africa/AF-FEA-
GEN-...](http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/03/africa/AF-FEA-GEN-Mali-
Village-Cell-Phone.php)

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mhb
Relevant patent: [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%22DEKA+Products%22.ASNM.&s2=water.TI.&OS=AN/%22DEKA+Products%22+AND+TTL/water&RS=AN/%22DEKA+Products%22+AND+TTL/water)

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forgotmyid
Kamen talked at TED about why he invented the Segway. Towards the end of the
talk, he talks about his water distiller as well. The distiller was apparently
an afterthought on the road to providing the Segway with a portable power
generator.

Here's the talk <http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/9>

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fish
What's even cooler is his house. It's on an island off New Hampshire, which he
claims is it's own nation, separated from the United States (he made a peace
treaty with Bush Sr!) It is a huge mansion in the shape of a hexagon, with
loads of secret passages and stuff. The first thing you see when you enter is
a huge stirling engine (working). It has its own army (the local police force
uses his baseball fields), and currency, which is measured in increments of
pi. His company (DEKA) builds him intricate presents each year, two years ago
they made him a chess player (mechanical)... (added this stuff the the wiki
[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen#Personal_life>] a while ago).

He also founded FIRST, a robotics competition for high schoolers. I recommend
anyone with mechanical experience (includes C programming) to find a local
team and join in. They are always looking for adult mentors; www.firstwiki.net

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Alex3917
The only difference between this water distiller and just boiling water is the
amount of electricity required.

Right now all three presidential candidates are favor of a cap-and-trade
system. There is something like a 90% chance of having that enacted within the
next 18-24 months. According to John Doerr, once we get a cap-and-trade system
solar will become cost competitive with coal within two years.

So while this specific device is certainly cool, the upcoming trillion dollar
energy revolution is going to have a far greater impact on the ability for
developing nations to have clean water than any single device.

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astine
Are you sure? Do you know how this machine works? There is significantly more
to distillation than just boiling. Conventional boiling only deals with
microbes, chemicals, such as salt, require full distillation, so if this
really is a genuine distillation machine, it is significantly more useful than
boiling water (which requires a lot of energy to do on a mass scale.)

~~~
as
The video mentions that it removes salt, arsenic, and heavy metals. I don't
see boiling helping there either.

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Alex3917
If you boil salt water the steam won't have salt in it, will it?

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astine
That, by definition, is distillation. It is remarkably difficult to do
properly.

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paulsb
A few more details: [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/28/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/28/BU156573.DTL)

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thaumaturgy
That article was dated from 2003. There is also a Time article about the
device from around the same period.

Near as I can tell, he's still working on it.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
> 10 gallons of water an hour on 500 watts of electricity.

Maybe this has changed, but it's perhaps silly to talk about bringing clean
water to a lot of dirt poor communities with this kind of energy requirement.
People barely have enough fuel to cook with. They can't feed a generator and
they can't order parts for it either.

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thaumaturgy
I think the generator uses a Stirling engine. It's been designed to require
little maintenance, so the need for parts is vastly reduced. Additionally,
Kamen stated that you could power it using a variety of fuels. If indeed it is
a Stirling engine, then a variation could even be adapted that merely used a
large parabolic reflector to generate the necessary heat to power the
generator, without any other fuel requirement.

I also think it's easy for us in developed countries to underestimate the
amount of effort required to bring potable water to individuals in undeveloped
areas. I've been working to help send an acquaintance back to Uganda to do
work on water systems there -- analyzing the water, as well as clearing the
simple spring wells and teaching the locals that it's better to get water from
the pipe than from the pool on the ground. In his presentation, he noted that
it's not unusual for many villagers to make a four-hour hike to a water
source, and then carry that water back again.

I would think that a trip like that would consume rather more than 500 watts
of power.

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ericb
This device deserves the hype the Segway received.

~~~
aston
If it works.

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auferstehung
Is it just me or did I see a filter in the lower left corner of the box?

