Seneca Taylor
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| 05/15/2009 12:56 PM |
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I recently talked to a guy that distributes these machines that turn "air into water".I was a little skeptical at first but he showed me a kentwood sized machine that did it too.Drank the water from it.I was floored!He said they start at around 2300 bucks and they can make some that will provide water for a whole house.Anyone heard of these machines?
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Dana1
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| 05/15/2009 2:12 PM |
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Didja calculate the operating cost of this beast? That could be some really expensive water there! (And the carbon-footprint would be ATROCIOUS compared to conventional water sources! In volume you could probably truck in carboys of designer spring-water 50-100 gallons at a time for less money and lower enviro impact.)
Dehumidifiers "turn air into water", but you might understand the notion that you can't get something for nothing, and wringing moisture out of air in any volume has a substantial energy cost (and the volumes will be paltry in very low humidity desert air compared to the swamps of Louisiana or Florida.) And iven in the best-case scenario it takes a really BIG dehumidifier to crank out even 100gallons/day, or anything approaching whole-house usage (and I'm not talking lawn watering or car washing volumes.) Something small enough that wouldn't wear out the gears on your electric meter might be able to supply 5-15 gallons of DRINKING water/day, but not much beyond that.
What's the interest? Don't want to drill a well, or install a water-treatment system for your well? If it's just for better tasting drinking water, buy a filtration system- seriously! Any attribution of "greenness" to such a system can only be in comparison to some truly atrocious practice like disposable liter bottles designer water trucked from a spring 1500 miles away or distilled-treated water in plastic bottles. Even a standard water-cooler using filtered tap water will use a FRACTION of the electricity it takes to suck the humidity out of the air.
And un-chilled filtered water will be several orders of magnitude lower enviro footprint.
Continue to be skeptical- the whole concept is brain-dead. |
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whoduhwhoduh
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| 05/16/2009 10:39 AM |
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What if the unit can supply all of the hot water , all of the cold water, all of the heating and cooling needed for a 1600 sq. ft. house. All for less than it takes to run the TV while watching Days of our lives.
In areas where you cannot drill a well or the cost of running utilities is prohibitive such a unit would be of interest.
What if the energy required is low enough it can be run off a PV panel or a small wind generator.
I would agree with your assesment if I did not know of the new technology that makes this possible. |
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arkie6
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| 05/16/2009 12:40 PM |
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Posted By whoduhwhoduh on 05/16/2009 10:39 AM What if the unit can supply all of the hot water , all of the cold water, all of the heating and cooling needed for a 1600 sq. ft. house. All for less than it takes to run the TV while watching Days of our lives.
In areas where you cannot drill a well or the cost of running utilities is prohibitive such a unit would be of interest.
What if the energy required is low enough it can be run off a PV panel or a small wind generator.
I would agree with your assesment if I did not know of the new technology that makes this possible.
I guess with the slump in car sales recently that these salesmen have had to branch out into different areas.
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whoduhwhoduh
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| 05/16/2009 12:55 PM |
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Mildly amusing response.
Trouble is, I am not selling anything. Just trying to teach a few pigs to sing.
Don't worry about having to deal with it in the near future, you will be safe from innovation there in Arkiesaw for a while yet.
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arkie6
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| 05/16/2009 2:48 PM |
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If you are wanting to teach us something, then describe how this new technology works.
I'm all for innovation, but I'm also an engineer and understand that you don't get something for nothing. |
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whoduhwhoduh
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| 05/16/2009 9:19 PM |
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"What if the energy required is low enough it can be run off a PV panel or a small wind generator."
This is what was said. Nothing there says you are getting anything for free.
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arkie6
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| 05/16/2009 10:51 PM |
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You also said this: "What if the unit can supply all of the hot water , all of the cold water, all of the heating and cooling needed for a 1600 sq. ft. house. All for less than it takes to run the TV while watching Days of our lives."
Do you honestly believe that a measly three or four hundred watts of energy can do all that you stated? |
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arkie6
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| 05/16/2009 10:58 PM |
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| Let's quit beating around the bush and describe this new technology. |
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LarryT
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| 05/18/2009 9:54 PM |
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Let's run some quick engineering calcs at this. First, forget about the size of the house. That doesn't matter at all. Water usage is based on the number of people in a houshold.
The average household uses 150 gallons of water/person/day, yes believe it or not. For a household of 4 people in the modern world this is 600 gallons of water/day or 5000#/day. As the only way to make water from air is to condense it, you have to condense that much water from the natural humidity which is really superheated steam at ambient conditions. Steam has a latent heat (that is the amount of energy to create steam from water or condense it back) of ~1000BTUs/#. For 5000# that's now 5,000,000 btu's (per day). Divide by 24 to get BTUs/hr= 208333 btu's/hr. Divide this by 12,00 to get tons of refrigeration and you have over 17 tons required. I don't think many solar setups are going to run this baby!
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whoduhwhoduh
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| 05/18/2009 10:02 PM |
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I have no issue with your calculations. The assumptions are skewed because of a few misconceptions. When I refer to the size of the house it is because I said this unit can also provide the heating and cooling needed. Therefore, a reference to the size of the structure becomes more pertinent.
You are also correct in your last staement that "many solar setups are not capable of running this kind of load". I only know of this one.
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Rio
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| 05/19/2009 8:12 AM |
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We've been looking at possibly adding a small "atmospheric water generator" to the list of offered components for a shelter in place house system. They're basically a souped up dehumidifier and the ones we've been trying to get information on are supposed to generate 4-7 gallons of water a day depending on the relative humidity and the temperature. We're still waiting on the cut sheets to see what sort of power that will require; we're guessing that it will be in the 1,000 to 1,200 watt range. Our base of operations is in dry and dusty southern California so the goal is only to be able to provide a source of drinking water in case of a disruption with the normal power being from the grid and during a disruption drawing from the house batteries that will be recharged from the PV system. So far the companies we've contacted have not seemed too stable so if anyone knows of any reliable companies that offer this type of water maker please post it.
Thanks,
Rio
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Dana1
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| 05/19/2009 10:32 AM |
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The numbers advertised on this type of unit is ~1-2kwh/gallon (and that may be optimistic- VERY optimistic for dry climates or high altitudes.) If you're really really conservative in your water use and get it down to 50gallons/day per person (1/3 the US nat'l avg.), that's 100-200kwh/day for a family of 4, or 36500-73000kwh/year (3-6x the US national average for electrical use-all uses including air conditioning etc.)
The PV array to support such a system would literally cost over $1M-USD.
For very modest amounts of drinking water using one of those running PV you'd still be looking at $10-20KUSD+ for the powerplant.
Rio: For off-grid potable water production, solar-stills operate at significantly higher solar efficiency with much higher water production capacity for a small fraction of the physical footprint & cost of PV->AC system + compressor-based-dehumidifier. (eg: http://www.zonnewater.net/pagina25.html ) Shop around- they're out there. If you can't find one that meets your needs, it doesn't take rocket-science engineering to build a small greenhouse type passive ground-vapor distillation system (a ruggedized/sanitized version of the clear plastic over a pit with a cup in the center & a rock on the plastic survivalist water-still.) Read up on solar stills- it's more like the "right" solution compared to an oversized off-grid PV array to run an inefficient compressor based air-wringer in an area where the amount of air-moisture to be wrung is quite low. A small bit of rainwater capture/sequestration combined with the self-standing solar still can probably do quite a bit (distill the rainwater as the method of purifying it for potable use.) It's a lot more efficient if you can start out with water already in liquid form, but ground-vapor is still a far richer source of water than air-vapor, particularly in arid & semi-arid zones.
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want to build
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| 05/19/2009 11:02 AM |
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Did I miss it, or is there no link to a site describing this product?
Reminds me of cold fusion. |
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Dana1
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| 05/19/2009 12:14 PM |
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Posted By want to build on 05/19/2009 11:02 AM
Did I miss it, or is there no link to a site describing this product?
Reminds me of cold fusion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_water_generator
(Much more prosaic than cold fusion, eh? Just another way to sell an oversized dehumidifier.)
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Brock
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| 05/19/2009 12:16 PM |
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| Maybe luke warm fusion :) |
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Green Bay, WI. - 4 ton horizontal, 16k gallon indoor pool, 1.8kw solar PV setup, 3400 sq ft |
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Seneca Taylor
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| 05/19/2009 1:14 PM |
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I wanted to start the discussion of the generators.I wanted to know what anyone else knew about it if I was going to invest time and energy into maybe becoming a part of it.I just wanted to see what the experts thought.Thats all.I don't know if you guys are experts but it seemed to sure spark interesting conversation.
There is a website that has information.www.futureofwater.net.Check it out for yourselves and continue the discussion.Good thread! |
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want to build
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| 05/19/2009 2:24 PM |
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| The units on the site you mention seem to be substitutes for water coolers, needing no bottles to be delivered or stored. As such, they may be economical and may even be green compared to trucking H2O all over the place. But I don't know about replacing a well with one. And if you have a well and the water is drinkable, I don't see the point. |
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Seneca Taylor
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| 05/19/2009 3:49 PM |
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If you click on the triton button there is information on the commercial sized units.Too much technical info for me.Its in PDF
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Rio
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| 05/19/2009 9:37 PM |
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Thanks, Dana1 & Senecca for the interesting information. Depending on the cost of the system and the cost to run it the system would be used to provide drinking water. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread it would almost certainly be cost prohibitive to provide enough water to supply a household in this manner. We do most of our work in urbanized areas at the moment and a solar still depending on the earth for moisture might be a bit problematic but it is definitely a possibility. Being on the western slope of the mountains the relative humidity is usually fairly high with the onshore air flow coming off of the pacific. I'm sure that using filters would be substantially less expensive but my thinking on it was it would be really nice to have a system that could continue to produce water in the event of a major catastrophe with an interruption in the availability of water. I'll check out the website(s) and see what information I can glean from it or them. A major consideration is how much power is a small system going to require.
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