3 ms·
There's still externalities to be considered, even if the energy is renewable. But even accounting for that, I don't see why something like this would be prefer
by TimSchumann 6y ago
There's still externalities to be considered, even if the energy is renewable. But even accounting for that, I don't see why something like this would be preferable to just desalinating ocean water and transporting it via some method.
Unless I'm missing something with the energy needed to pull the water out of the air, or they've made a huge leap in miniaturizing the tech... this whole idea is a non-starter IMO.
- ISL 6y agoIt is a question that can be addressed quantitatively with two thermodynamics questions. Size matters not. How many joules of energy are required to extract a liter of water from the air (average dewpoint, temperature) at the site in question compared with the number of joules of energy required to remove the salt from a liter of the available seawater?
- adrianN 6y agoDesalination has the additional problem that you need to dispose of all that salt somehow. You can't easily dump it back into the ocean without risking the local ecosystem. It needs to be diluted over a fairly large area. That adds some cost. But it seems like this is more of a novelty and targets rich people, like bottled glacier water.