
Turning Arabian Desert air into bottled water - hhs
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-13/a-u-s-tech-firm-s-turning-arabian-desert-air-into-bottled-water
======
simonebrunozzi
Speaking of water and desert, I have an interesting anecdote to recount.

My wife's grandfather, Ugo, an Italian army officer and engineer, served in
Ethiopia and then during WWII as part of the "genio" (logistics) unit.

At some point during the war he was stationed in the desert (I think Libya),
where the Italian army was supposed to either attack or mount resistance
against the British troops. Well, the Germans had to somehow take over
control, because the Italians were poorly organized and managed.

One day Erwin Rommel [0], "the desert fox", shows up at the camp. Consider
that this was a camp in the middle of the desert, defended by the Italian
garrison and probably some german troops too, with no refrigerators for food,
etc.

He examines the place and the troops, and then the Italian commander offers
him water to drink. To Rommel's surprise, the water was icy cold. He couldn't
believe it. The commander introduces him to Ugo, who then proceeds to show to
Rommel how he ingeniously created a system to cool water by using water
evaporation in metal bins, and the power of the hot desert sun.

Ugo was impressed by the encounter, shared it with his son, who then shared it
with my wife and then with me.

I thought this story was worth sharing.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel)

~~~
082349872349872
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler#Application...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler#Applications)

The persian qanat/windcatcher architecture would be easy to spot well after
the fact, but although we do know the spaniards in Alta California would hang
woven bags in their courtyards to promote evaporative water cooling, because
textiles decompose so quickly we wouldn't have known if all we had were their
ruins.

[https://www.moonrandolphhomestead.org/homestead-
journals/201...](https://www.moonrandolphhomestead.org/homestead-
journals/2018/7/16/the-desert-water-bag) is an example of something which my
great grandmother had told me about, but I've never seen in practice.

(one of these days I hope I may put into practice the knowledge about how to
safely crank-start an automobile.)

~~~
h0l0cube
And then there's this from Australia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolgardie_safe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolgardie_safe)

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phaus
If they really want to give people the experience of drinking water in the
Desert they should do what the Army did and sit pallets of water bottles in
the sun so all the Soldiers could get a nice, plastic-flavored, scalding hot
drink of bottled carcinogens.

~~~
latchkey
I imagine that the risk of death from enemy fire was a bit higher up on their
'what will kill me' priority list.

~~~
phaus
It was Kuwait so there was no enemy fire. Actually, for most of the conflicts
in US history there were more casualties due to illnesses and other health
issues than enemy fire. IIRC the Gulf War might have been the first time that
wasn't the case. I just think heated plastics causing cancer was just
something they hadn't caught up with.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Napoleon was generally thought of as the first time were violent casualties
exceeded non-violent ones. At least until his march to Russia.

In the US the Civil War in the 1860s was when violent casualties tended to
exceed medical ones. Even then, disease was a big deal, even up to WW2 where
malaria was a huge problem in the Pacific Theater.

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xondono
There’s no way this is cheaper than just shipping water from other parts of
the world.

I don’t even believe that “comparable to Fiji price”

~~~
brownbat
They even admit in the article it's less efficient than desalinization, which
is itself hard to make efficient.

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hhs
If interested, this is the company’s website:
[https://www.zeromasswater.com/rexi/source/](https://www.zeromasswater.com/rexi/source/)

And this provides funding info:
[https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2020/06/23/zero-
mas...](https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2020/06/23/zero-mass-water-
company-gets-50m-in-funding.html)

------
helsinkiandrew
This reminds me of the Fontus bike water bottle (that didn't end well)
[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fontus-the-self-
filling-w...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fontus-the-self-filling-
water-bottles#/)

Whilst it doesn't seem very cost effective - I imagine it's quite a good
marketing gimmick for 'eco' bottled water?

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dwd
There are similar products that generate water as a byproduct of
airconditioning (which is a must in a desert climate). I know some guys that
are selling these in the Middle East and mining operations in the Aus outback.

[https://seas-sa.com/awa-modula-systems/](https://seas-sa.com/awa-modula-
systems/)

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donatj
Every time anyone tries to sell you something that pulls water from air,
dismiss it offhand. It’s a scam. Often by a startup with zero math skills.
It’s scientifically impossible to do without massive amounts of energy, and
never worth it.

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arrosenberg
Atmospheric condensers? Kataan would be proud.

~~~
dehrmann
Probably one of the best TNG episodes.

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Arn_Thor
Hugely inefficient and expensive, but if the energy used is renewable I guess
there's no downside. Certainly seems to be more environmentally friendly than
desalination which disrupts sea life in coastal waters.

~~~
TimSchumann
There's still externalities to be considered, even if the energy is renewable.
But even accounting for that, I don't see why something like this would be
preferable to just desalinating ocean water and transporting it via some
method.

Unless I'm missing something with the energy needed to pull the water out of
the air, or they've made a huge leap in miniaturizing the tech... this whole
idea is a non-starter IMO.

~~~
adrianN
Desalination has the additional problem that you need to dispose of all that
salt somehow. You can't easily dump it back into the ocean without risking the
local ecosystem. It needs to be diluted over a fairly large area. That adds
some cost.

But it seems like this is more of a novelty and targets rich people, like
bottled glacier water.

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jrgd
Totally feels like the Dune’s Fremens!

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floppiplopp
Oh no. _facepalm_ Another: What are the laws of thermodynamics... Every couple
of years people will fall for this particular scam. Listen, you can never ever
do this in any way that is even close to efficient, especially in arid
regions, because physics.

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__m
This will make a nice thunderf00t video, unless he got tired of debunking
these projects

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cafard
It seems to me that Boy Scout Manual told one how to make a "solar still" to
condense water from the air. But it has been a while since I had a copy.

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gsich
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc7WqVMCABg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc7WqVMCABg)

Unrealistic scam.

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gsich
Another unrealistic project.

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sdia
LOL, these guys do not know about thunderf00t!

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aaron695
This is not possible.

But what would be interesting is if scientists actually watched what happens.

They have done this with cults around the 'end of the world' type scenarios.

How the cult leaders and followers react when the impossible doesn't happen
can be psychologically useful to know.

I haven't read this book so don't recommend it, but I think it's cool it
exists - [https://www.amazon.com/When-Prophecy-Fails-Leon-
Festinger/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/When-Prophecy-Fails-Leon-
Festinger/dp/1614272905)

