Wind Turbine Extracts Water From Air

An anonymous reader writes "Getting access to enough water to drink in a desert environment is a pretty tough proposition, but Eole Water may have solved the problem. It has created a wind turbine that can extract up to 1,000 liters of water per day from the air. All it requires is a 15mph wind to generate the 30kW's of power required for the process to happen. The end result is a tank full of purified water ready to drink at the base of each turbine."

Re:"up to 1,000 liters of water per day"?

[Talderas]

At 800 liters a day I'm wondering how many of these can operate without severely upsetting the desert ecosystem. If they're sucking out moister in the day, how much moisture will remain in the air to condense during the night for wildlife?

Re:see also

[mcrbids]

One thing that piques my interest is cost. 800 liters/day is a significant amount of water, but what's the cost per gallon when amortized over 20 years? This isn't a small windmill, the main chamber is the size of a small house!

Re:why not just put up regular electric wind farms

[steveha]

Put up wind farms that generate electricity.
Run electricity to dwellings. Have the dwellings run air conditioning systems that also collect condensed water.

For one thing, a purpose-built device will be much more efficient at its one intended purpose. Just how much water do you get as a side-effect of running an air conditioner? The prototype of this turbine consistently extracts 800 litres of water a day.

For another thing, in "developing" areas, it will be easier to put in a few self-contained devices than to build out a complete infrastructure. Clean water is essential to life, but air conditioning isn't, and devices like this will provide useful water as soon as they are installed. How soon does your plan start providing nontrivial amounts of drinking water?

And in "developing" areas, it is more likely possible that one of these can be installed in the middle of town, than that every home will be able to afford to have air conditioning installed. I'm not even sure if a whole town could afford to buy one of these things, but maybe an international aid organization will pay for it. But who will pay for an air conditioning unit for each home in a town?

steveha

Re:Windtrap

[TooMuchToDo]

Condensing water directly out of the air avoids a major hurdle of desalination, the evaporation process using heat. By doing it this way, you're machinery will last longer, and nature will naturally evaporate more moisture into the local atmosphere from available sources.

Re:see also

[RonTheHurler]

That's assuming municipal water is even available. You need to compare to desalinated water. I used to know those numbers but don't quote me. I think this is comparable, and far, far cheaper than bottled water.

However desalinated water produces copious amounts of brine and uses lots of energy -- two big problems. This wind thing seems far superior.

Re:Windtrap

[jimbirch]

The RH in the Sahara could be typically around 25%. This feels dry at 30 degrees C but the air contains 8 g/m3 water. It feels dry, potential evaporation is high, but there's still a lot of water there. If the process can get the air temp down to a near freezing most of the water would condense. The amount of water air can hold increases "exponentially" with temperature. (Which is why tropical raindrops are big.)