5 ms·

Something doesn't seen internally consistent in this article. We read about a device, that can be locally assembled, that, can draw up to 25 gallons of water a

Something doesn't seen internally consistent in this article. We read about a device, that can be locally assembled, that, can draw up to 25 gallons of water a day (I would have been impressed with 1 gallon a day) - and, "In all, it costs about $500 to set up a tower...His team hopes to install two Warka Towers in Ethiopia by next year and is currently searching for investors who may be interested in scaling the water harvesting technology across the region. " Why would "two Warka towers" be a target for a year, when, on the surface, reading this - it would make sense to go install a thousand of them and see how they played out over a year. If this device really could pull, even 10 gallons of water a day for $500 cost, it would have zero problem attracting funding on that kind of tiny pilot scale.

meric 13y ago
I think it takes more than just money to setup the towers. The article mentions maintenance is a big problem for imported solutions, so they'll need to teach locals on how to maintain/build the tower. There aren't too many people who knows enough to build such a tower, so they cannot simply spend $500 * 1000 to get towers for 100 villages, since they need to first teach people to build it and second teach people in each village to maintain it. Perhaps, the first year the target is more than just 2 towers, but learning how to make the tower easier to maintain as well as learning how best to 'sell' the tower to locals.
- ghshephard 13y ago
  Everything in the article suggests that this is something that can be done locally: "If the many failed development projects of the past 60 years have taught us anything,...it's that complicated, imported solutions do not work." "inexpensive, easily-assembled structure that extracts gallons of fresh water from the air. " "The structures, made from biodegradable materials, are easy to clean and can be erected without mechanical tools in less than a week. And 1,000 towers would be on the scale of "learning how to make the tower easier to maintain as well as learning how best to 'sell' the tower to locals." If this device was capable of pulling in more than 10/gallons of water a day for $500 capex (and cheaper at volume), I would expect to see millions of them installed across the african continent in just a few years. Heck - I'd expect to see them installed across the North American continent as well. Some of the crazy stuff we used to do to try and get 5 gallons/water a day when I was growing up - I spent two solid months hand digging a well that barely managed to deliver that much water a day. A $500 "Water Tower" would have been awesome.
  - notahacker 13y ago
    Add in the insight that the project was launched in 2012, and the erection itself apparently takes four people a week[1] and you have to wonder why they're so unambitious. I'd speculate that might be down to it requiring very specific local condensation conditions to function with the claimed efficiency, but there's a long and mostly disappointing history of trying to create drinking water from air[2] [1]http://inhabitat.com/nature-inspired-warkawater-towers-use-condensation-to-collect-drinking-water-in-ethiopia/ http://inhabitat.com/nature-inspired-warkawater-towers-use-c... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_%28condenser%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_%28condenser%29
zhte415 13y ago
Making a physical product that may have to be tailored to varying specific requirements could be difficult, meric above mentioned technology / skill transfer where an assumed solution may not have an optimal effect, or be even be disastrous - I'm sure they're honing an experience set and training and maintenance manual. Sewage works may be a tangential example. Many sewage treatment plants basically work by sifting heavy material, then using aerobic bacteria to break down dirty water, and anaerobic bacteria to break down the aerobic bacteria (resulting in manure slosh) [a heavily simplified version]. But each plant has varying PH and mineral levels, meaning optimal bacteria are often designed for specific plant locations, and the specialist knowledge required can be very deep. I see nothing wrong with going it slow, and documenting carefully in a very hands-on way, any hiccup and both 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns' that may be overlooked in a mass roll-out. [Edit: typo]
- dfc 13y ago
  honing an experience set You are the first person to put those words together: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22honing+an+experience+set%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-aurora&channel=sb https://www.google.com/search?q=%22honing+an+experience+set%...
  - vxNsr 13y ago
    Out of curiousity, why did you google that phrase?
    - tonyarkles 13y ago
      I'm going to guess it was "that's a cool phrase and I've never heard it before"
      - delluminatus 13y ago
        I would have guessed, "because it's an egregiously mixed metaphor"
  - 13y ago
msandford 13y ago
I think the main reason is because it's just two industrial designers with no connections to any of the NGOs necessary to get the $500k worth of build-money and probably another $500k to $1.5mm worth of "let's make this happen" money. Look at the front page of the website it's posted on: http://www.architectureandvision.com/ http://www.architectureandvision.com/ Half of the stuff there is made-up concepts, not real actual things. If we were seeing this on the water.org website then yes I would absolutely agree with you that the two units as a "goal" is ridiculous. But since it seems like they have no serious funding yet and plane tickets to Africa aren't exactly cheap I think two units is reasonable.
- danmaz74 13y ago
  This looks like a perfect idea for a kickstarter campaign, though...
  - jonhohle 13y ago
    From https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics: > Kickstarter does not allow charity, cause, > or "fund my life" projects. Check out our > project guidelines for details.
    - philtar 13y ago
      "Hi. We're warka tower. Pay $1000 and we'll make two warka towers, one for you and one for africa. You must pick up yours* *If you fail to pick it up in X days we'll take it to Africa"
      - briantakita 13y ago
        This would be a great Burning Man exhibit.
        samstave 13y ago
        Totally -- burning man would make a great test environment. Put up 10 of these as showers...

meric 13y ago

I think it takes more than just money to setup the towers. The article mentions maintenance is a big problem for imported solutions, so they'll need to teach locals on how to maintain/build the tower. There aren't too many people who knows enough to build such a tower, so they cannot simply spend $500 * 1000 to get towers for 100 villages, since they need to first teach people to build it and second teach people in each village to maintain it. Perhaps, the first year the target is more than just 2 towers, but learning how to make the tower easier to maintain as well as learning how best to 'sell' the tower to locals.

ghshephard 13y ago
Everything in the article suggests that this is something that can be done locally: "If the many failed development projects of the past 60 years have taught us anything,...it's that complicated, imported solutions do not work." "inexpensive, easily-assembled structure that extracts gallons of fresh water from the air. " "The structures, made from biodegradable materials, are easy to clean and can be erected without mechanical tools in less than a week. And 1,000 towers would be on the scale of "learning how to make the tower easier to maintain as well as learning how best to 'sell' the tower to locals." If this device was capable of pulling in more than 10/gallons of water a day for $500 capex (and cheaper at volume), I would expect to see millions of them installed across the african continent in just a few years. Heck - I'd expect to see them installed across the North American continent as well. Some of the crazy stuff we used to do to try and get 5 gallons/water a day when I was growing up - I spent two solid months hand digging a well that barely managed to deliver that much water a day. A $500 "Water Tower" would have been awesome.
- notahacker 13y ago
  Add in the insight that the project was launched in 2012, and the erection itself apparently takes four people a week[1] and you have to wonder why they're so unambitious. I'd speculate that might be down to it requiring very specific local condensation conditions to function with the claimed efficiency, but there's a long and mostly disappointing history of trying to create drinking water from air[2] [1]http://inhabitat.com/nature-inspired-warkawater-towers-use-condensation-to-collect-drinking-water-in-ethiopia/ http://inhabitat.com/nature-inspired-warkawater-towers-use-c... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_%28condenser%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_%28condenser%29

zhte415 13y ago

Making a physical product that may have to be tailored to varying specific requirements could be difficult, meric above mentioned technology / skill transfer where an assumed solution may not have an optimal effect, or be even be disastrous - I'm sure they're honing an experience set and training and maintenance manual. Sewage works may be a tangential example. Many sewage treatment plants basically work by sifting heavy material, then using aerobic bacteria to break down dirty water, and anaerobic bacteria to break down the aerobic bacteria (resulting in manure slosh) [a heavily simplified version]. But each plant has varying PH and mineral levels, meaning optimal bacteria are often designed for specific plant locations, and the specialist knowledge required can be very deep. I see nothing wrong with going it slow, and documenting carefully in a very hands-on way, any hiccup and both 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns' that may be overlooked in a mass roll-out. [Edit: typo]

dfc 13y ago
honing an experience set You are the first person to put those words together: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22honing+an+experience+set%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-aurora&channel=sb https://www.google.com/search?q=%22honing+an+experience+set%...
- vxNsr 13y ago
  Out of curiousity, why did you google that phrase?
  - tonyarkles 13y ago
    I'm going to guess it was "that's a cool phrase and I've never heard it before"
    - delluminatus 13y ago
      I would have guessed, "because it's an egregiously mixed metaphor"
- 13y ago

msandford 13y ago

I think the main reason is because it's just two industrial designers with no connections to any of the NGOs necessary to get the $500k worth of build-money and probably another $500k to $1.5mm worth of "let's make this happen" money. Look at the front page of the website it's posted on: http://www.architectureandvision.com/ http://www.architectureandvision.com/ Half of the stuff there is made-up concepts, not real actual things. If we were seeing this on the water.org website then yes I would absolutely agree with you that the two units as a "goal" is ridiculous. But since it seems like they have no serious funding yet and plane tickets to Africa aren't exactly cheap I think two units is reasonable.

danmaz74 13y ago
This looks like a perfect idea for a kickstarter campaign, though...
- jonhohle 13y ago
  From https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics: > Kickstarter does not allow charity, cause, > or "fund my life" projects. Check out our > project guidelines for details.
  - philtar 13y ago
    "Hi. We're warka tower. Pay $1000 and we'll make two warka towers, one for you and one for africa. You must pick up yours* *If you fail to pick it up in X days we'll take it to Africa"
    - briantakita 13y ago
      This would be a great Burning Man exhibit.
      - samstave 13y ago
        Totally -- burning man would make a great test environment. Put up 10 of these as showers...