3 ms·

Why can’t farmers extract water from the air like they do in Star Wars? Or maybe from all the fog in San franscisco?

• throwawaysea 5y ago
  This is actually possible today but the newest technology hasn’t quite matured and scaled up. See this article: https://news.mit.edu/2020/solar-extracts-drinkable-water-1014 https://news.mit.edu/2020/solar-extracts-drinkable-water-101... > Existing AWH approaches include fog harvesting and dew harvesting, but both have significant limitations. Fog harvesting only works with 100 percent relative humidity, and is currently used only in a few coastal deserts, while dew harvesting requires energy-intensive refrigeration to provide cold surfaces for moisture to condense on — and still requires humidity of at least 50 percent, depending on the ambient temperature. > By contrast, the new system can work at humidity levels as low as 20 percent and requires no energy input other than sunlight or any other available source of low-grade heat.
  • trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    Water we take out of the air can't go into clouds and rivers upstream anymore. Maybe, and this might sound crazy but hear me out, we should stop consuming that much water in regions where it's scarce. It's not sustainable and lowering the ground water table is only going to work for so long.
• waffle_maniac 5y ago
  It's being trialed in Galapagos. https://www.darwinfoundation.org/en/blog-articles/743-update-report-year-one-harvesting-water-isabela-galapagos https://www.darwinfoundation.org/en/blog-articles/743-update...