Water Solution available

[Electrode]

The smallest machine made up to 32 litres in 24 hours, while the largest one made up to 1 500 litres a day. They retail for R25 000 and R785 000 respectively.

In coming years South Africa will need to be able to feed more people as our population grows due to flooding of immigrants and our local population. Importing our food is also an expensive venture and not necessarily a healthy one. If for whatever reason we are no longer able to import food, South Africa will face a serious situation. A situation that historically crippled other African countries.

If we can manufacture these devices locally or even under license we can bring the cost down to affordable levels. Other innovations can also contribute towards its sustainability.

But to simply ignore the technology would be folly.

[bones]

well no argue in that we need
this our water resources are
taking a hammering this year

yes i second this

municipalities must look into
this

[Electrode]

I wonder if anyone ever attempted to redesign or to build something like this?

[Electrode]

Considering how bad it is going with the continued droughts, it is hard to believe that this type of technology is not implemented. Yes it would be expensive but must our infrastructure fail first before people wake up?

I am truly at a loss for words, it feels so foolish that people will continue to ignore this type of technology.

[Electrode]

Intense heat contributing to drought - Umgeni Water

Durban – The persistent heatwave conditions during the festive season have contributed to the drought, an Umgeni Water official said on Monday.

While the bulk water supplier did not have any major demand issues during the holidays, the heat had caused higher than normal levels of evaporation, spokesperson Shami Harichunder said.

"It is certainly a contributing factor to the current drought we are experiencing. During the December period, around 124mm of rain was recorded. This is less than average.”

The KwaZulu-Natal coast and most parts of the country had been experiencing 30°C weather for almost a week now.

Date: 2016-01-04 Time: 17:02

I don't know what is worse, people not seeing the potential or news publishers not giving this technology enough exposure? Clearly we can turn things around and make it a long term solution and yet after personally emailing many news groups NONE of them took interest.

It is as if solutions are not news worthy?

[Dave A]

I've mulled over a few challenges that don't seem to be mentioned so far. In particular, for a plant of the proposed scale - Can you imagine the complexity of the Environmental Impact Assessment Study.

I have two particular concerns. One of them is heat.

The transition from gaseous to liquid state is going to require the removal of a lot of energy in the form of heat - which has to go somewhere.
Where is this energy going to go?

The energy involved isn't trivial. Take a look at this table on the properties of saturated steam.
At atmospheric pressure (0 bar g, absolute 1 bar ) water boils at 100 ^oC and 417.51 kJ of energy is required to heat 1 kg of water from 0 ^oC to evaporating temperature 100 ^oC.
Another 2257.92 kJ of energy is required to evaporate 1 kg of water at 100 ^oC into 1 kg of steam at 100 ^oC.
Reversing this process means extracting all this energy.

Those little units I pointed to not only required a substantial injection of energy, it seems the heat energy being generated is just being dumped into the atmosphere. Not an option on a plant of the proposed scale methinks.

My second concern is that had the plant not extracted the water vapour, where would that water vapour have ended up eventually? I assume precipitation somewhere... that is no longer going to occur.

A drop in the ocean on small scale plants. A totally different story if you're looking to generate enough water to significantly impact a nation's gross agricultural output!

[Justloadit]

I think that the heated water solar parabolic system to filtrate sea water may be a better option, this will mimic the natural evaporation process the planet has been doing for millions of years.
The salt by product could be used for industrial applications to make chlorine, and these plants could be placed in remote areas in which there would be small impacts to the local environment.

[Dave A]

I think that the heated water solar parabolic system to filtrate sea water may be a better option, this will mimic the natural evaporation process the planet has been doing for millions of years.

You can also use the heat pump principle to take a significant portion of the heat extracted at the condensation stage and inject it into the evaporation phase of the process.

[Electrode]

I also agree if the impact is going to do more harm then good then it must be considered.

There is another option available that I found interesting.

Uploaded on Aug 13, 2008
Girja Sharan, a Hydrolic engeneer finds a way of solving the drinking water crisi with condensation

There is not much detail but I think it is possible to replicate.

[Justloadit]

Reminds me of this project done by an Italian designer Arturo Vittori called WarkaWater Tower

The village people are taught how to build this unit.

There are a lot of skeptics out there who do not believe this can work.
Any one who has lived in a rural area with corrugated iron roofs will attest to the amount of water collected on the roof before dawn every morning. A couple of litres at least.