2 ms·
>Airplanes worked out, but 'dehumidifiers in the desert' is close to flying car territory. why do you see that remaining the case in the coming couple decades?
by elevenoh 7y ago
>Airplanes worked out, but 'dehumidifiers in the desert' is close to flying car territory.
why do you see that remaining the case in the coming couple decades?
- liability 7y agoBayesian reasoning? How many times do you touch the stove before you get cynical and expect hot stoves to hurt? Desiccant/absorption dehumidifiers are nothing new. I've been around the block enough times to recognize the hype cycle. The motivation of the inventor seems pure, and the first order analysis seems to make sense. Dehumidifiers do indeed pull water out of the air, so it seems plausible that this tech could one day be used to quench the thirst of people living in deserts. The moller skycar scam has gone on for decades in no small part due to how reasonable it sounds. We know machines can fly, so why not a road-worthy aircraft? On the surface it makes sense, so the scam finds plenty of marks. But the devil is in the details.
- Laforet 7y agoAside from the fact that there isn't much water in dry air, 2257kJ of enthalpy is released for every kilogram of water pulled from air and that's a lot of heat to get rid of somewhere. Most mature cooling technologies (peltier, compressor,etc) have a COP value smaller than 1 so in other words it will take even more energy to harvest water efficiently. Trucking water might actually be cheaper.