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SmartFarm device to harvest air moisture for self-sustaining urban farming
- thepangolino 6y agoHow does this compare to a dehumidifier?
- NortySpock 6y agoPresumably the absorption bed system requires less power than a refrigeration based system, at the cost of lower throughput.
- aphextron 6y agoIt is one.
- spiritplumber 6y agoThey usually are (As Thunderf00t shows over and over)
- rmah 6y agoA nice science project and possibly of use in desert climates or in tiny, extremely densely populated, nations like Singapore. But I don't see how it would be viable or why it would be needed for the vast majority of the world's agriculture. Rain is free. "two of the world’s biggest problems – water scarcity and food shortage"... neither of these are big problems, or even problems, for the "world". Water scarcity is a problem in a few areas. The world produces multiple times more food than humans could possibly eat (most is fed to animals). Any famine is a local/social/logistical/political problem.
- michaelbrave 6y agoI dunno, if you talk to any farmer's out in the western US water is a big deal, it's what determines where cities/settlements were built, it causes political strain (Colorado vs Kansas on water rights - Colorado has opted to pay fines rather than send water to Kansas) and is in many ways unsustainable (California imports a lot and grows crops that are not drought friendly like Pistachios, forcing droughts to be a different beast than 50 years ago). In a lot of ways water scarcity is one of the most underlying political forces for the western US, though few would know it unless they looked deeper. I also think it would hold some promise as we de-desertification parts of the world (they are making some progress in the Sahara and also the Badain Jaran in Mongolia/China). Which is important as deserts can creep up and take over places, it's especially concerning as we lose tons of topsoil as we did in the midwest during the dustbowl, and without proper soil management could turn prime farmland into deserts. Having more water options for dry areas can only be a good thing.
- thinkcontext 6y agoWithout any cost information we can't really tell anything about the viability of this technology. For example, water in CA ranges from $90 per acre foot from the State Water Project to $3000 for reverse osmosis of seawater.
- realce 6y agoThe amount of electricity it would take would be insane and then you're pulling rain out of the atmosphere, impacting your neighbors and region overall. More water is great, but these things + "urban farming" is just a sales pitch.
- calvinmorrison 6y agoaren't these things just dehumidifiers?
- realce 6y agosuper fancy ones with lots of filters basically -- look up "atmospheric water generator" on amazon to see the types that are on the market for home use
- spullara 6y agoOr you can use solar power integrated with the device: https://www.source.co/ https://www.source.co/
- foxyv 6y agoThe only reason I've seen for vertical farming that makes any sense right now is that you can control the environment without damaging the ecosystem around you. Filtered air so no cross pollination with wild strains, no insects, recycled water so no runoff or wasted fertilization, perfectly regulated soil/hydroponics, no PH issues from rain, no herbicides, etc... Good for high value, difficult to raise crops. Usually stuff that costs an arm and a leg like pink lettuce, white asparagus, hop shoots and wasabi root. Otherwise the entire thing is too expensive. Usually water is more expensive in urban areas and power costs are prohibitive. Then you have the cost of capital to build a giant building that can support extremely heavy equipment for grow beds. You can't just use an old office building to support a couple thousand tons of equipment unfortunately. But the thing is, right now there is so much arable land we can have luxuries like cattle and farmed wild game. In 80 years we may not be able to maintain those luxuries for 10.5 billion people without vertical farming. Especially since a lot of those people are starting to become more affluent on average. I wouldn't be surprised to see beef prices go above $20-30 a pound before the end of my life. Even accounting for inflation. Maybe VF will become economical by then?
- throwaway1777 6y agoCattle are not a luxury, they are literally part of subsistence farming in many regions and an important part of the ecosystem. One of the reasons we have to use so much fertilizer is because we stopped letting cattle graze over the fields. Monocrop corn and soy fields are a far bigger problem for sustainability than people think, maybe as bad as industrial animal farming.
- splistud 6y agoHistory shows that 3 things are important for food security: live animals for milk or slaughter, grain that can be stored, and any local food that can be easily dried. Before we react that food security isn't really a thing anymore, history has something to say about that as well. And yet the foolish are advocating for 2 of these safety nets to be disposed of.
- foxyv 6y ago
- hinkley 6y agoRain is mostly free if ocean is all that is downwind of you. Most of the West Coast of the United States is lush because the terrain catches most of the water that would otherwise flow much farther inland.
- curiousfab 6y agoThere have been quite a few startups based on the same idea (Waterseer etc.) and I think the common consensus is that these devices (which are basically dehumidifiers) are not viable. Thunderf00t has some youtube videos about the Waterseer in which he breaks down the physics behind it.
- gsich 6y ago>Atmospheric humidity is a huge source of freshwater but it has remained relatively unexplored. Yes, mainly because it's not a "huge" source.
- bradfitz 6y agoThe text says: > This material is extremely absorbent, and takes in moisture up to three times its weight. The image says: > [...] and takes in moisture up to 300 times its weight.
- gus_massa 6y agoI guess a typo transformed a 300% into a x300.
- ada1981 6y agoOr is it the other way around? If its really light, it could be 300x it's weight.
- gus_massa 6y agoI looked at the research paper https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202002936 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202002936 > Herein, a novel copper(II)–ethanolamine complex (Cu‐complex), which has a maximum water uptake of up to 300% and a water production rate of 2.24 g g−1 h−1 under natural sunlight, is reported.
- dale_glass 6y agoAlmost certainly nonsense. Similar things have been tried before, and as far as I know none worked. Reasons: * If you have high humidity, you almost always have plentiful rain and water around. * If you're in a desert, then there's extremely little for any device to work with. * It takes absolutely enormous amounts of air to extract meaningful amounts of water even in favorable conditions. * It takes a huge amount of energy, too. * Any such scheme isn't reliable in any case, and especially unreliable when things are dry and you really need the water. It works best precisely when you don't need it. * You don't want to drink water from any kind of dehumidifier. It may have started clean, but won't stay that way.
- jbunc 6y agoAgreed
- ripply 6y ago> It takes a huge amount of energy, too This will often be more expensive than having a truck bring the water to you when running a dehumidifier especially when you are looking to get out enough for farming.
- DarmokJalad1701 6y agoPlentiful of rain need not equal plentiful of water around. There are states in India for example that get 2000+ mm of rain every year and still have severe water shortages.
- bakatubas 6y agoIs that because folks are pooping in the rivers? You’d think folks could just catch rainwater. Sounds like an infrastructure issue...
- data_acquired 6y agoNo, no large-scale pooping in rivers. Far more complicated than a single technological fix can handle. Areas which get 2000+ mm of rainfall a year aren't always the ones with the most intensive agriculture. Water shortages are partly because of (a) the huge variation in the amount of rainfall from year-to-year in any area in India, and this variation has grown with climate change/warming (b) rivers down in the south of the country are not perennial but largely rain-fed during the monsoon. So "build more dams/infrastructure" doesn't make sense if there's not much rain to feed the rivers, (c) certain crops grown (sugarcane,paddy) just require tons of water, and are more likely to face issues due to variable rainfall compared to something like millet cultivation (d) rain is required not just for flow into rivers but for recharging groundwater, which is then used for agriculture. So, no rain = no groundwater and not just no rain = less flow in rivers.
- hef19898 6y agoWell, Space Pirate might be an unrealistic career option. So I have to settle for Moisture Farmer. Maybe some hermit from the hills will come and train in some form of elegant combat from a less barbaric period.
- finnh 6y agoA desert hobo, you say? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RySHDUU2juM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RySHDUU2juM
- spiritplumber 6y agoIf water shortage is an issue, Space Pirate may be the way to go, though. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087451/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087451/
- hinkley 6y agoYears ago someone pointed out that the whole alien invasion thing doesn't make that much sense because you're deep in a gravity well at that point, and there are plenty of resources in the Oort cloud and the outer asteroids. More likely for a sentient species to watch helplessly as an advanced civilization strip mines their outer system of resources long before they can get to them, and not only not be able to even throw rocks high enough to hit them, but perhaps find themselves stranded there not even able to take proper revenge.
- swagtricker 6y ago“But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!”
- hef19898 6y ago"You can do that when the new droids are ready. And before you ask, I need you for an other season before you can go to the academy."
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoIt's good to know things can be kept running even if there won't come soft rains.
- spullara 6y agoReminds me of Lanai which uses pine trees to capture water from the air as it gets little rain. https://everything-everywhere.com/the-pine-trees-of-lanai/ https://everything-everywhere.com/the-pine-trees-of-lanai/
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoDefinitely a niche product. Hope the niche is big enough to make a go of it!