

Dean Kamen (Segway Inventor) Solves the World's Water Problems - prakash
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/colbert-and-kam.html

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iamelgringo
Somehow, I think the title of the article is a little overblown. I grew up in
Central America, and having had Amoebic Dysentery twice as a child, I know
something about bad water. :)

Part of the problem is getting the water clean, but another big part of the
problem is getting it to the people that are using it. Growing up, I lived in
a city of 1.5 million people that had a water treatment program. The problem
was water delivery. We lived in a heavy seismic zone, and the water pipes were
plastic and the sewage pipes were clay. So, there were a number of cracks in
both, and seepage went from the sewage systems to the delivery systems. So,
water treatment was needed at the kitchen faucet not at the village center.

Another issue is that people need to realize that the water makes them sick.
In many rural villages, you don't really think about water making people sick.
They just think that getting really bad cases of diarrhea is part of life, and
they think that people just die young. They don't correlate bad water with
dying. They really need education systems for that.

Also, systems are needed that are a lot cheaper than $1000-2000. In many
countries people make about $1 a day. It's going to take a lot of people that
realize that the water is making them sick before they buy something that
expensive.

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marcus
You're right that it will take a lot of education, but the point is that at
$1000-$2000 range it is financially viable to add these to each village. If
the average wage is $1 a day and a village has 100 people living in it, you
just need to prevent 10 sick days per person (and I'm not even counting the
people dying there) for the investment to pay-off. Apply some microlending to
it and that's it.

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clzcyclone
Whether the Slingshot is a holy grail in providing clean water to the poor in
the world's developing countries, its possible future impact is larger than
its own achievements. The press it gathers will attract more attention from
engineers, funding providers, and the general population. The more smart
people we have working on this problem, the more likely we are to achieve a
feasible solution and solve one of the greatest problems facing the world's
poor. I applaud Dean Kamen for his work to-date and for putting the clean
water problem in the spotlight.

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nickb
Sure... but where does the waste go? How do you clean this 'magical' machine?
How do you dispose of the potentially highly toxic substances that were in the
water?

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LogicHoleFlaw
The question of waste byproducts is a good one, and I haven't seen it
addressed anywhere.

Calling the machine 'magical' (with scare-quotes) is disingenuous though. Any
revolutionary technology could be described that way. As the saying goes, "Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The proof is in the pudding.

(Ok, enough pithy quotations for today.)

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lyime
Dean Kamen has done a lot of good for man kind. Both in terms of inventions
and education. We need more entrepreneurs like him.

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LogicHoleFlaw
Solving the water problem will enrich the lives of more people than we can
fathom. If Kamen's device does what he says it will do, he deserves to go down
in history with Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, and John Browning.

~~~
delano
Do you have a thing for guns?

Anyway, don't forget Norman Borlaug and Ingvar Kamprad.

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
It's more that I come from a family of mechanical engineers, rather than an
ag-tech background.

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rms
The Segway may not have changed the world, but the technology was also used
for one killer wheelchair.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBOT>

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shawndrost
Anyone know how this compares ($/life saved, or some other reasonable metric)
to commonly-used water purification methods?

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ola
Just like he solved the worlds walking problems!

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rglullis
If you can get this at a production cost in the $1000-$2000 range as the site
says, then the impact of this thing will be much, much larger than the Segway.

Still, I think the guy should be applauded. There are still _really important_
issues that need to be addressed, and he is working on them.

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rms
I wish that we the people could take 1% of the wealth away from investment
banks and give everyone food and water.

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rms
Interesting, this went from 3 points to -1 points. Why do you think this is a
bad idea?

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chollida1
I don't have the ability to downmod but my guess would be that it doesn't
address anything in the article or add anything useful to the discussion.

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Raphael
Still doesn't work in a drought.

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rglullis
It is a joke, right? If you can purify urine with something like that, all
you'd need is to get users "contributing" to the system.

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Raphael
Not a joke in the slightest. It is a distiller, so clean water boils off and
is collected, separated from any contaminants.

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rglullis
Yeah, I know. But most of the problems that poorer nations face are not
related with _complete_ lack of water, but with the lack of drinkable water.
The droughts you mentioned are oftentimes the same.

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lyime
I really don't think there is a lack of water. Just lack of drinkable water.
Unless you are in the middle of Sahara, you should be able to find all kinds
of water sources.

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rms
There's also lack of energy... do all the distillers come with free solar
panels? Otherwise you need to have fuel.

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andygeers
That's why the article refers to the Stirling engines as a potentially partner
- you chuck your cow dung or whatever into the Stirling to generate the heat
needed to distill the water

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LogicHoleFlaw
Not only that, you get electricity out of the engine as well. The waste heat
from the electric generator is used to power the water purifier.

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migpwr
Someone forward this to Atlanta, GA...

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LPTS
The Segway kinda sucked, but still, you gotta be a real genius to think up and
design something that sucks in just that kind of way. I'm glad he's working on
something so fundamental. We need more like this. Even if Segway is a little
lame.

In fact this is particularly well suited too Dean, because even if the design
is lamer then segway polo if the science and engineering are right, it's a
worldchanger.

