An Israeli scientist has stumbled upon a solution to the brine problem. He uses mineral accretion through electrolysis to concentrate all of the salts and minerals into solid bars. These bars can then be processed to recover minerals for industrial and construction processes
I had this idea 10 years ago while working on the construction of a large desalination plant. The engineers all thought it was a good idea, but with 100 problems. The first problem is that most coastlines don't have consistent waves. Some coasts have little or no movement for days. The second problem is maintenance. Anything done offshore is 10 to 100 times more expensive and slow. One engineer suggested the Western coast of Australia for consistent wave action. However, I think there is already something similar to be tested in that area? This would probably be good in some niche applications. My design was actually to scale it massively to a large floating platform/barge. Something big enough to have a crew and multiple sources of energy (waves, solar, wind, thermal differential, etc...) However, I wish them the best and that they prove the desalination engineers wrong!
On the faq section of their website they state that the buoys will be installed 0.5-1.5kms from the coast. They also start producing water at the 1m wave and optimal production is at a 1.5m wave
@@Unitedstatesian there wouldn’t need to be waves all the time, they just need to be recurring frequently enough. I would expect that a study of at least a year would be done before the installation so that the best coast/site is identified and risk is mitigated. The website says that they can even install it up to 5kms from the coast if required. The website also states that maintenance is expected to be minimal and the site expected to last about 20 years, however they have not built the glacier system yet which is the real game-changer. So I do not expect we will hear from this company for another 5 years but to me it looks like the best solution to the desalination problem if they can scale it up
I love the simplicity and efficiency of not having to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy and back again. Two big areas of concerns are durability and maintenance costs. If more offshore testing reveals problems with those I hope they can find good solutions.
Direct kinetic energy use could work for reverse osmosis in windmills. That'd get rid of the generators but you'd still need motors as a backup, and I'm not sure how drive shaft technology has faired since the electrification of industry. It fits wind well since you store the energy as a product and save on conversion/transmission losses. To reduce drive shaft complexity and gearing you can use a decentralized layout and pump the water like in the video but that complicates the backup motor system.
@@JustHaveaThink Darn! I wish I’d seen this in time to attend Oneka’s November 17th presentation at the 14th Annual BlueTech Week in San Diego, that’s just a hop from here in Newport Beach! Anyone here able to attend? Our local community only last year blocked the Poseidon plant scheduled for Huntington Beach, due to the destructive downsides & economic inefficiencies you mentioned. Here’s hoping that Oneka’s FL pilot pans out, as we in the Southern California “desert” would surely welcome them! From reading the comments: Re: Ocean Stresses, Collection Infrastructure, Maintenance, etc. They could be located a few miles offshore, where our defunct oil platforms, with their convenient anchor pads, are now. There could be single manifolds bringing fresh water down from a wind farm-like array of surface plants with piping piggybacking on existing oil to shore make ways. There could even be large solar & wind arrays out there sharing a common infrastructure. We have two such sites located ~1/4 mile apart that could provide redundancy. As decades long drill rig dismantling is underway, I’m sure this would be welcomed by the local community of those with the needed expertise & experience to make the transition. From my 10 months working on San Clemente Is. (down coast from Sealab where we chatted with the Cousteau support divers) & being “in” the sea as a lifelong surfer, this sort of thing doesn’t seem anywhere near as challenging as what North Seas wind farms pose. And HB is known as Surf City from its consistent waves where most of the damaging stuff gets filtered by all of our Channel Islands. The biggest I’ve ridden (in SD) was 18’ & it very rarely gets over “pier busting” 15’. Circulating the components for maintenance should be a no brainer with a support/maintenance facility in San Pedro or even off/near Seal Beach (whose very activist residents might welcome the opportunities after thorough consideration). We also have one of the world’s largest (ocean charged?) aquifers that could serve as a storage repository. Please keep us updated! Thx.
I've been involved with the water industry in the US for two decades and I'm always excited to see anyone working on solving the problem of humanity's ever increasing need for more potable water. Although in the long run I don't think this technology will be able to produce cheaper water since my understanding is that the RO filters are the major expense I still think this is a brilliant idea and I'm glad they are doing it. One of the factors I like is that they are modular. Anytime you can create redundancy your reliability increases and I think that is important.
One of the aspects you did not bring up I read studies on is an aquaculture platform associated with the float development I think it was called “eco park” concept that takes advantage of the ocean’s natural habitat for food production (Ex seaweed production, fish school aggregation, etc). When combined water and aquaculture revenue resources are used the capital cost picture gets less challenging. Would be interesting if these folks team up with the engineers who did the eco park concept (that was a Cozumel feasibility study for OTEC energy barge, desalinated water, plus aquaculture; I ran the numbers on that out of curiosity to check how it looks from a U.S. municipal energy and water pass through off take). Aquaculture basically paid for the build in that study - but I’m always skeptical about something paying for itself on paper like that. Interesting thought though.
They are talking about 2 cents a gallon at scale so that is perfectly in tune with municipal water systems. My only question would be on system maintenance -- a 60 micron intake filter would seem to me to require quite a bit of cleaning to keep the water flowing.
As a sailor I have some idea about the constant need for upkeep of marine systems. Missing was the cost of maintenance. Filters and strainers must be cleaned/replaced. Mechanical systems in seawater don't live forever. Production will be strongly related to sea state, also unstated. Solar panels get coated in guano and sea salt. Storms? Logs and floating debris?
If you worked with heavy machinery, tractors and semi-trucks you would have made the same deduction. Wear affects all mechanical parts and manufacturing/quality control affects all manufactured components, so basically everything lol
Elegant, simple, low tech, addresses an existential problem. There will be bugs to work out but they’ll be fixable. This is the kind of genius that we need in the world.
At last Dave, a video which does not feature a new battery start-up! I hope this one succeeds because it could save lives and reduce future water wars. Thanks for showing it to us 👍🏻
As a California resident this video was very encouraging. I am curious about what is involved in the maintenance of such devices. Also, as a surfer I know the waves can be very small thus limiting the mechanical drive needed to produce fresh water. What is the minimum wave height required to produce the needed pressure to drive the system?
I imagine it can be made so that the amount of water produced per hour increases and decreases with wave height rather than having it drop to zero. It would be a matter of the amount of mechanical leverage to give to the wave motion. With only slightly clever engineering, leverages can be adjusted. Wave conditions tend to last for hours so the adjustment would only need to happen slowly. This would put it in the grasp of a small solar panel's power output.
CA resident here, and I always like seeing new developments in desalination. I do see maintenance as a big issue. Standard desalination plants need constant maintenance too, but they aren't floating in the ocean. As for the needed wave height, I think that value could be quite low. With enough displacement and anchor weight, large forces and pressures could be generate with a delta height of a few inches depending on a) the ability to convert delta h into vertical motion as opposed to pitch, and b) the speed and effectiveness of the check valves. If all of those design elements can be met, operation could be possible in nearly all surface conditions, albeit with reduced output in calm conditions. If I were designing the system I would run 3 in tandem (merging after the pressure unit) to take out pitch losses in calm conditions, and allow for higher output in rough conditions.
Do the salt water batteries require the water? Would it be possible to extract the salt to use in the salt batteries rather than dumping it back into the ocean? Salt water batteries are touted as safer than lithium.
It seems you can put these as far out as you want and use mini pipelines to send the water back to shore. Also, the waves don’t need to be surfing waves…. The shipping lanes probably generate enough just on their own.
@@kensmith5694 I wonder if it's as simple as a ratchet to drive the pressurising system? Then more or less any wave size bigger than the ratchet step (a couple of cm?) will add some energy.
Excellent report. Makes me think that we need more “decentralized” micro systems, be it power generation or water desalination. The great utility scale / “economy of scale” solutions sometimes generate bigger problems in a spatial and temporal sense.
Yes…the knee jerk response is usually that decentralization is inefficient, but the flip side is one ginormous Achilles heel (brine concentration, no redundancy and failure causing widespread disruption). Diversity of systems and wide distribution principles bring us back to the strategies in nature. Maintenance issues are also offset by having the components easily retrievable …they can still be serviced and repaired at a more centralized facility, but their distribution and redundancy actually equates to more continuity or service and less likelihood of widespread disruptions.
I also support decentralised systems. I see these small desalination rafts as an addition to current water systems in places like California to take the pressure off the current system and reduce the use of Colorado River water in the state.
Considering how hotter summers seem to strain the old UK potable water supply industry, I wouldn't be surprised to see something like these deployed around the coast in the next few decades. I wonder if their technology could be merged with off shore wind (and maybe solar) generation, so that one platform generates both fresh water and renewable energy (for more than just their sensors)?
@@sammason2300 Personally I don't have faith in a mass of people to selflessly regulate themselves. Therefore I think having a backup system is better than relying on the good will of the people.
The UK had a problem with sewage discharge onto beaches this year. Look up Feargal Sharkey. Happened directly after they got some rain after prolonged drought.
@Jon Knight. Hello. My understanding of these matters is that adding the ability to send electricity to shore would add significant cost, so if you perhaps looked at this from the "add this to an existing floating platform of some kind" angle, then possibly yes, but that would significantly change the approach being taken here...
As a denizen of the arid UK, living in the centre, away from any waves, but enjoying an annual rainfall that could meet the most extravagant demands for water imaginable, I would have thought we need only capture and store a slightly increased proportion of rain to have more than we need. Even moderation would not be needed.
It will be interesting to see how it scales. I'd think wave energy would be less and less effective at moving the platform as it gets bigger, at least relative to its size, and that the salinity radius would be considerably larger than a couple meters for the bigger platforms. I could see it working very well for places like islands though, where you have a lot of shoreline relative to the amount of water you need. Obviously, somewhere off screen, the Professor had Gilligan and Skipper build one of these. It always bothered me that they didn't seem to have any shortages of fresh water on such a small island!
Would love to see a scaled-down version of this suitable for boats (10-20 gallons/day). Current onboard desalination solutions are not only complex and costly, but consume significant amounts of power that must be generated (solar, wind, generator, etc.).
Yeah. Land-based desalination plant users have some sort of an alternative usually (a more pricey/difficult alternative but still an alternative, e.g. a trek to some sort of a well dozens of miles away). On a boat, there is literally NO alternative (and you need fresh water for not just drinking, but also washing dishes/clothes/yourselves as salty water is higroscopic and further salt will simply stick to you, you will never be clean)
@@katm9877 the line is attached to the ground on one side and on the pulley and hydraulic cylinder of the buoy on the other side. So when the buoy moves up and down with the waves, it makes cycles of pulls and release the rope which create mechanical power. If there is no fixed point on the bottom of the sea, energy won't come from the waves but from the boat itself.
"scaled-down version of this (10-20 gallons/day)" can be built by yourself, as it should be sufficiently small for DIY... Of course, the system in anchored on the ground, and as others said, cannot be used when sailing, only when standing still, and being anchored. And when anchored, most probably in a marina, the waves are much smaller than on the open sea...
This sounds like a really clever solution. There are some concerns about the practicality, in particular when it comes to maintaining a distributed system out at sea. To me, this sounds like problems that can and need to be fixed, rather than problems that would make the whole system infeasible
Fantastic! I hope those people figure out the large scale plants ASAP!! Congratulations to them! And thank you for bringing this info to us! Take Care, Jim in Phoenix.
Marine growth at the intakes is almost as much as issue with the current large scale desal plants -- the added disadvantage here is that with the intakes being distributed it would take more effort to keep them clean than for one single intake. Storm damage is a fair point: in the extreme the whole flotilla of desal boats could "escape" in a severe storm and you'd not only lose production at the time when you most need it (think after a hurricane) you'd have damages to pay to anyone whose property was damaged by those rogue boats.
@@trueriver1950 I worked in desalination for 25 years (Thermal) and intakes were always a problem with regard to marine growth. Some large plants had mechanised screen cleaning systems, but this only worked for initial large debris collection.
The key is to bring down the cost of the platforms - with intended installations to be a rough grid in the water, perhaps they could serve dual purpose as fish farms or as hybrid systems designed to be installed on existing wave energy generators to provide water generation options to their customers etc
It looks like a great idea for particular applications. I hope the testing turns out well for them. More power to engineering I say. Having a team of engineers develop a project and then have a team of engineers says why it won't work and then have a team of engineers make it work is their version of scientific peer review without the waffle speak.
Besides the one made from recycled PET (which would disintegrate over time in the alkaline sea water) it seems to be a good idea. However, many small units usually cause higher cost per production unit, and more problems than one big unit. And if they can pipe the fresh water to the shore, they could surely use a similar system to distribute the brine over a wider area for a big unit. Well, let's see how it will work.
Another wonderful video, Dave. Thanks for all the effort you put into these programs. I regularly link to them, and believe you are making a huge difference for putting humanity onto a good pathway... I believe this could be a key technology for the coast of California.... to put in large installations of these... to produce literally millions of gallons of fresh water... to help mitigate forest fires, and secure more water for agriculture (especially ORGANIC Agriculture). 🙂 Stay happy and well. You ARE appreciated.
I've ALWAYS been a big fan of desalinization. Among my big questions tho is, why do we have to pump the salts back into the seas? Surely some of those trace elements would be valuable enough to capture them right? Or even to be sold off as... well... salt, rather than mining it as we do in so many places? Also, obviously all, or meaningfully all, the water we would pump out would go back into the sea eventually, further negating the salinity issue in the long term, but more locally is it reasonable to assume that for megacities that might come to rely on desalination that it could affect local sea level and water currents or is that far too large of a problem for any one city to cause? Humans have always been good at saying "that wont be a problem" only for it to turn into... well... climate change
The brine from reverse osmosis is only about 3 times more salty than normal sea water. It's enough to be bad for the local environment, but not enough to be profitable to concentrate further. With distillation it might be a different case since you could in theory evaporate enough water that the salt would precipitate when the water cools down.
I work in the water treatment sector. However, I should note that I specialize in freshwater treatment and not salt water. However, RO (reverse osmosis) is still part of my training. Slightly off topic first, this does not have to be limited to desalination. RO is on the top shelf of water treatment standards, and this could be a power free RO treatment from a lake or river which could make RO viable for smaller municipalities that can't afford RO's larger than other process upfront costs on top of ongoing high-power cost. Rivers and lakes would no doubt generate smaller flows as they have less wave action, but it might be in the realm of viability. To the meat of the topic. The most important issue that will sink or float these is what are the requirements for where these can be placed? If this has to be 10 miles out to get the proper wave action or avoid ecology disruption, that will add a whole pack of issues. My instillation has a great number of satellite installations, and it is so prohibitively often that something happens at one of the satellites that it requires people on shift 24/7/365 to go handle them and put things back in service. If a group of these serves anything more then 10k consumers I would see these requiring the same. I think the best option in this case would be to create something akin to an oil rig that sits at the center of were these are all tethered and maintain a staff on it that would also serve as the normal operators that WTPs have. Maybe existing oil rigs could be repurposed for that when we kick that particular dirty habit. While land purchase costs would be effectively zero, building the O&M structure could quickly eat those savings. Resiliency. Salt water is hell on just about every material mankind has ever made. I have some serious concerns about how long the equipment structure and the RO equipment could last in these conditions. Underwater maintenance costs and infiltration. Fun fact, pipes leak. The water distribution lines that pipe water to your tap can lose as much as 10% of the water that is treated before it can get to your tap. Those lines also break on occasion, and they would do the same while lying on the surface of the ocean floor too. The costs and added danger of fixing a broken line under water could be slightly prohibitive. The water head above this pipe could also cause raw sea water to infiltrate your freshwater line. I would bet that EPA would require you to re-treat the water to some degree before finishing the water. The good news is that this second treatment would be tremendously easier the second time around. Scale. In the USA the average person uses 100-150 gals of water a day. So, if the glacier class has a diameter of 12 meters and puts out 500 cubic m/d each one makes enough water for 880 people. That would be 1,135 units for a city of 1 million which is 128,255 sq ft of flotilla if they were pressed together which I doubt they could be. That is between 2 or 3 American football fields. Sure, it is a big ocean, but these are going to take up a fair chunk of surface space to provide water. Reliability. I think it would still be prudent to have another land-based desalination plant to make up the difference when the waves are not pumping enough water. You should always think of how much more water you will be treating as your system grows and this overbuilding could make up for breakdowns at sea which might not be able to be repaired quickly or find funding to expand quickly enough. I think having a land-based parallel component would also be a wise choice in case of things that happen in the ocean with some regularity like... hurricanes. One addition to these that I would highly recommend is a system for the platform to be remote piloted like a drone including the ability to raise its anchor and disconnect from its effluent so that it can be piloted back to a repair dock for maintenance. Conclusion. If this product does what it says and to EPA standards, this just might be in the realm of viability, but it has a laundry list of hurdles to clear.
I find the conversion to/from electricity to be frustratingly inefficient. I'm always looking for passive solar tech. Passive wave tech is a new one for me, very cool.
My biggest question is how energy-intensive it is to make and maintain the platform itself, in comparison to other solutions. I don't see it being necessarily worse, but it can be an important factor.
@@filonin2 Yes once deployed it only needs a bit of a bilge pump to keep it floating as some slightly clever cables to keep it on station. It may be worth adding a winch system that can pull the whole thing down to the bottom to ride out a storm.
I also just don't see this happening, but I'd love it if the team can prove me wrong. My main worry is, like you've implied, underestimation of how much it costs to keep something sea-worthy, especially something like this where it's attached to the bottom and is getting yanked on with every wave, likely requiring annual or even quarterly maintenance that will be expensive. I'm also curious on how it could be deployed near population centers, where water recreation is in high demand. Many in the population, especially those with the deepest pockets who live on the coast and have boats they want to sail around in where they please, will not want their water space taken up and disrupted. This means there are likely to be deep-pocketed enemies of deployment of this technology anywhere near population centers, and that's another issue the company will need to work through. (Though my guess is that this is a smaller problem than the material and maintenance economics.)
@@dosadoodle You have a point - saline water would probably corrode some materials faster which could require an accelerated maintenance schedule. But there could also be a silver bullet here - most water-proof materials made from plastics (fossil-fuel or plant-based) are generally more resistant to corrosion from salinity, and the fact that the whole thing is supported by its buoyancy, means that it shouldn't require materials which need to bear much load (such as metals and metal-based composites, that corrode faster). So I'm thinking that perhaps the materials tradeoff could actually make this thing require less maintenance than on-land desalinization plants. It would like comparing apples and oranges in terms of maintenance.
@@filonin2 it's a floating barge that needs to be firmly anchored. So you need a concrete anchor of at least the same weight as the displacement of the barge. In addition a steel chain or cable/s of sufficient strength and durability. So initiale energy expenditures are way higher than it looks on a glance.
I absolutely enjoy your videos, learning so much from you - thanks! Frankly I did like your prior background. If you’re going to continue using this room, please add some lights.
I’ve extensive experience with desalination and mechanical/electrical systems. This is a horrible idea. Stick with the ground mount plants and add multiple discharge points to reduce salinity hot spots. Use renewable energy to power the plants with standard pumps and hydropneumatic pressure tanks. Having to maintain these systems out at sea makes zero sense. Using a purely mechanical system driven by waves/swell is going to be a maintenance nightmare. I used to be a marine engineer in ships, I know this. The solution already exists, just improve it with better environmental design in intakes, discharges and renewable power supply systems.
Thank you for the great new video, and for the quick tour of your filming facility. ;-) I always thought you were in a house. As sheds go that one looks very nice, but it is winter now. Desalinating seawater is one of the most important challenges of our time, and it looks like Oneka has some good ideas there. What I like: 1. It's elegant. Using wave power without converting it to electricity is very clever. Presumably this will solve the problem of waves not being constant. Waves pulse like a heartbeat, on and off, which is a problem for machines like motors and pumps that are built to use a steady supply of electricity. If this whole thing is powered by the mechanical action of water pushing through the system it shouldn't matter if everything is idle between pulses. 2. It's decentralized. I love their concept of desalinating 25% of the water and having multiple outfalls from separate units. Desalination is such an industrial process it seems like a sin not to get every last possible drop of water for every unit of energy expended. But if nature is providing the mechanical power, efficiency isn't such a concern. And not hurting the environment (more than it can naturally bear) would make this system vastly preferable to just about everything else. What I'm not so sure about: 1. Maintenance. If these things do form the basis of artificial reefs they're going to get crusted over with all kinds of sea life. That 60 micron strainer at the bottom is particularly vulnerable. It's going to get clogged, and will probably require regular cleaning to keep filter feeders off. The filters inside the unit may be similar. And since they're offshore it means somebody will have to get in a boat on a regular basis and go out there to do maintenance. 2. The pipe to shore. I guess this depends upon how their "pressure and flow optimization system" works. They've got to push the fresh water a long way before it gets to shore, and this process also depends entirely upon wave power. Will there be enough pressure in the pipes to move those huge quantities of water long distances every day? I guess they must have this figured out, but it seems like the hardest part of the process to me. But every system has potential problems, and this one is very clever and looks like it has huge benefits over the usual reverse osmosis. I hope they make a big splash in the industry and become successful.
I am pretty skeptical. Anything done in open water is way more expensive than done on land. How much does it cost to build the platforms? How much does it cost to lay the pipes to shore? How much maintenance does it need?
it is just a matter of cost versus profit, we are maintaining oil rigs for decades, so once the water costs more than oil we probably have no problems with costs anymore
Professor Steven Salter of the University of Edinburgh came up with a similar idea about 20 years ago - based on the Salter Duck wave power device he invented in the 1970s. I remember him seeking funding for this idea - but I don't think he managed to get it. Fresh drinking water isn't a concern for the UK... Glad to see a similar idea is gaining interest. I hope these go into wide scale production. Could go a long way to reduce conflicts in several regions of the world.
I love the modularity introduced by the Oneka team. Seems to me that they've put thought into the Operation of this tech in the design stage, even before selling the first unit. I can see how they won that DoE grant. One thing that stuck out to me, however, was that these devices float and operate in 1 meter-high water, meaning that these devices will be deployed in majority coastline waters. These waters are already being pursued for a number of interests, like tourism or real estate or wildlife sanctuaries, so I would want this company to be lock-step in communications with those stakeholders. Lastly, even though this tech is mechanics-based and no electricity-based, I think it would behoove Oneka to keep an eye on offshore wind farms and consider mutual operation therein. We've already seen in the last few weeks how China deployed an offshore wind + solar farm, first in the world. So while I doubt that sort of integration is possible at this stage for this kind of tech, I think it's still something to consider because offshore wind/solar platforms open up more rigging space than endangered coastlines. Then again though, the whole mechanical design might not even work for deployments that far out from shore. Electric-based systems could help here, piggy backing off curtailed renewables, but that idea is clearly outside the scope of this company. Great innovation! Thanks for covering it Dave!
Keeping close to the shore would also be necessary to keep the water pipes short enough that the system does not cost too much or need extra pumps. Like wind farms, the platforms would have lots of free space between units so most activities can be done without them interfering each other. But yeah, no doubt it would cause trouble if someone wanted to use that area for a public beach or boat channel.
It will take some iteration to find the correct unit size and configuration. Many small ones will probably be too expensive to maintain but if you get to a global fleet parts and maintenance is standardized. Lots of 20 year olds with scuba gear will have a job in any configuration. Marine life will plug up the intake fast anywhere that barnacles and mollusks thrive. I wonder if most of the kit should not be onshore and centralized across N pumps offshore.
Whoops, I've already trodden a load of mud over his carpet in my eagerness to get inside and my bum on the settee. If only I'd paused to just have a ...
I am trying to wrap my head over the way the floating station is anchored and how it keeps the outgoing connection with 7 meter waves. This seems good for some locations but what about calmer waters or bay areas . It is encouraging to see a variety of ideas getting tested and in some form used so as to develop them.
It's encouraging that there are people who can see options to conventional (just add more energy) thinking to solve problems. I like the new setup, but I think your lighting may require some tweaking. I noticed that your eyes changed from fairly well lit to very shadowy as you moved. So, more light or a head restraint? 😉
More light coming from the general area of the camera would be a good way to improve the lighting. A spread out light source from that direction would always light all of his face even if he turns his head a bit. Ideally the source should extend both sides of the camera.
Concentrated brine has always been my bug bare in these things and cooked seafood is now another one, so this has my vote. The one thing that we shouldn't lose sight of though is that PET breaks down in the sun releasing micro plastics that can over time be an issue. That's why even though their is a cost associated with it, more organic or mineral based solutions may(??) offer better environmental credentials.
Oneka's approach definetely seems more right since theres no overhead through conversion into electricity. One might have to question if those boats will last long enough over time to make fixed water possible as claimed.
@@SeeNickView Its not the the large overall but the mechanically intricate parts that are most likely to fail and lead to not working stations. And unlike industiral boats where you literally just slap a zinc plate and let it absorb the corrosion, you cant to that in teeny tiny details.
@@DRakeTRofKBam Yeah, I thought it was some sort of cathodic protection. That kind of configuration for Oneka's technology would mean a lot more operational labor, especially for larger and large fleets. Does probably make more sense to go with (recycled) plastic in this case
@@incognitotorpedo42 If they scale it up to mass production it might be more sustainable to produce the platforms with materials suited for commercial boats. Even if those materials are "problematic" they might be better / more sustainable all things considered. I think the "recycled plastic" bullet point is a marketing issue. It sounds good when applying for subsidies (one more environmental friendly check) and when trying to get the media interested in reporting. It is not set in stone that is has to be recycled plastics if they ever mass produce. The plumbing, pipes, the pumps & valves must be as durable as possible to lower maintainance cost anyway, so I guess that eliminates recycled materials. The shell can be anything: fibre glass, recycled plastic. As long as it withstands sea water, the mechanical forces, and UV radiation. Until they are able to mass produce there might be new materials or production methods availabe: Better stabilized recycled plastics, "better" (more sustainably) produced conventional materials.
This was a very inspiring video. I've been thinking for quite a while about wave powered converters and wave powered battery storage, but this mechanical invention is a great idea as well. There will be mechanical challenges, as always there are, but never the less the idea is brilliant and I wish them the best of luck!! Hope to see an updates in few months. Thank you for the inspiring video!
This is brilliant and highly suitable for homes and small facilities near coastal areas on a decentralized basis. I think that not needing to be connected to a centralized water system is its best feature.
The Oneida technology has gone through vigorous evaluation by various agencies, including the DOE, and has been awarded large sums of money to spur development. While a number of questions and concerns have been brought up in the comments, none of them strike me as show stoppers. Maintenance costs would obviously depend on design considerations and parts/materials replacement costs plus labor. Presumably, the engineers working on the prototypes have factored those issues into the business model. If the company projects that its water will sell for a quarter the cost of the output of existing desalination plants, then I would give them the benefit of the doubt in judging whether maintenance and other operational expenses have been taken into consideration. Personally, I find the technology at least superficially exciting for all the reasons David outlined. I look forward to learning more about it as time goes on. And, yes, David, you need better lighting. 😉
"the engineers working on the prototypes have factored those issues" Oh you would be suprised how mamy terrible projects got thru the "engineering department" and got funding from our tax money. Many "revolutionary ground breaking technologies" are just scams made by rich peple to get funding from the gov (our money)
I've always liked the use of wave power which seems under used to me. As a side note I'm sure it's much nicer to move indoors as the days become colder, perhaps you could add a front 'photography ring led light' to brighten up the presentation slightly as I did turn up the screen brightness on my pad to compensate. If many people did that we would be adding to the power draw slightly which would be ironic 😅. Love the clear way your videos are presented 👍.
I wonder how the fresh water collector pipe overcomes fatigue and abrasion from constant movement as the floating platform shifts around on the surface of the sea.
Yeah, they'd need to anchor it with something. Probably an equivalent pilon that you'd use for running conduit aboveground, where the conduit run sits about 30-60 cm above the ground. Thinking a big concrete/steel/plastic staple, but who knows lol
Call me dubious. Wave energy is really diffuse. Maintenance of equipment in the sea is expensive. Water is really of low value as products go. Makes more sense to build dams and not have large populations in desert areas without fresh water resources.
Las Vegas in the US has extremely efficient water savings practices in place. If anything, dams interrupt ecosystems that can impact other local economic actors, favoring the mega-agrobusiness actors that can afford cuts of the Colorado river and such. Obviously this tech wouldn't work in deserts, so other processes, like humidity capture, might be better suited for the specificities therein.
@@kayakMike1000 Already did, you feed-and-breed twit. I chose to avoid ever having children. By the level of smug narcissism you've just demonstrated, the human race definitely doesn't need your barely average genetic material.
@@SeeNickView If you have human populations of around 8 billion people, you are going to have dams. The problem with dams is that they never involve market based pricing. Mega-agrobusinesses aren't getting water because they can afford to pay, it is because they have more senior water rights in our flawed system of water property rights.
I would have thought that current Desal plants would incorporate salt pools, since you end up with a concentrated brine in the first place might as well turn that waste stream into something profitable.
Way, way too much salt for there to be a use for it. Also usually not situated in a way that allows for square kilometers of pools at all, let alone for that to be financially viable.
@@SeeNickView It's an economics problem. The salt you produced would be worth a lot less than the extra cost of producing it. So it's just like setting fire to large piles of money.
@@incognitotorpedo42 Salts do have value in the chemicals industry, so I wonder if the supply chains could be set up for that Still, we're talking about exploitation of the ocean's minerals beyond just water now, which to a lot of global organizations can be unethical. Interesting to dream about, maybe
The prospect of commercial desalination solutions of various sizes, that a) are 100% powered by renewables and b) significantly address the production and release of environmentally damaging highly concentrated brine, is brilliant. Oneka Technologies' wave-powered desalination plants look very promising, indeed. As I'm always keen to say, though, there is no silver bullet, only silver buckshot. With that said, there will be applications where either thermal- or RO-based desalination are appropriate. However, they do need to address and resolve the brine production and discharge issues. And, again, the scarcity of freshwater on a global scale, coupled with water insecurity in an ever increasing share of the world population, *water reclamation* needs to quickly become the norm. As with any other element needed to support humankind, it's massively less expensive to recycle/reclaim than it is to extract. So, with water already extracted from rivers, lakes and groundwater, then foolishly used for things like washing up (dishes, clothes, etc.), bathing and flushing toilets, wastewater treatment back to potable water isn't only possible, it's also massively affordable, not to mention the answer that makes the most sense ecologically.
It seems to me that for small scale, combining wind and solar would be better than waves if you went the thermal path. I was going to explain the idea fully but found that pictures would be needed. Basic points: 1) A column of about 26 feet of water will make a vacuum at the top enough to boil water. 2) Boiling it would make it get cold unless you supply a heat source 3) Just a few PSI pressure will make water condense at that same temperature. 4) Condensing water would get hot unless you can take away the heat. 5) a heat exchanger between 2 and 4 can supply some of what each needs. 6) Solar power can directly drive heat into the boiling with little loss 7) Wind power can make the mechanical effort needed at #3
I'm guessing that as with everything we do, this will work better in some locations, than in others. But it looks like a great alternative to what is being used currently. I wish them well. We need more innovations like this. I'm sure there will be those that will see only problems but if we listened to them, nothing would ever get delivered. See you next week ☺👍🥛
It's brilliant of course and giving of more real hope. Thanks as ever David and Patrons. I consider my knowledge on anchoring boats good hense the question of very deep anchoring. I guess those underwater drones might be required to assure the vessels stay put in worst weathers. They will I giess have the radio auto Identification system AIS, night time warming lights and any fog horns running on the PVs . not a big power ask for this amount of deck space.
Thank you for another thought provoking presentation. The concept of taking a smaller percentage of water from the sea on each pass through the system, seems to help over ride one of the key objections of the drought hand wringers. There is a distinct possibility that this approach will not work in it’s present form. But if it shows some unseen benefits that attract supporters or competitors, it will have served a useful purpose, and helped our planet. I was employed for several decades in a product development group of an international rigid container manufacturer. They still have a facility dedicated to recycling the HDPE (2), and PETE (1) materials. One of these materials has a specific gravity greater than water, and will sink in fresh water. However, I do not know about the results in the average sea water density. Another point to ponder is that 5here can only be a certain percentage of recycled material mixed in with virgin material in order to produce a serviceable product. One solution to the scrap plastic issue, since our population would rather take the “out the window, and in your yard” form of recycling, has been used in some European countries, is to burn the granulated scrap plastic, as a partial source of fuel for steen production and other applications that will change in the future. As a closing thought, I believe that it was Henry Ford, who stated that if you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. This is hardly an acceptable future for our planet, and it’s inhabitants, either animals or plants.
Before we dump all the other desalination systems, I have been up to the north of Western Australia where they have massive salt pans to provide sea salt, through drying sea water in big tidal pools where there is a gradual increasing the brine concentration until it crystallises out to be scooped out with large earthmoving machines. Surely one of these desalination processes could be used to start such a system off so that there is no brine discharge back to the sea and there is a value added product as well as the pure water.
Good video. 2 questions: 1) How are they collecting the desalinated water? How much energy is being spent doing that? The more infrastructure required, the bigger carbon required. 2) Regardless of the percentage of the brine that is sent back into the body of water, it's still the same total brine. Yes, dispersing it more evenly will cause less disruption. But does that % actually matter when the whole brine recycled is the same? All in all, great innovative ideas. I think there are some bugs to work out, though.
A very interesting system! it will be interesting to see how they can produce a reliable bearing system for that underwater pulley (8:01) - but I suppose there's many rustproof materials to choose from these days. Hope it is successful and can be rolled out world-wide!
It would be good to know 1. How long the test runs have been for each of their systems 2. What their plans for a maintenance schedule are 3. How much each aspect of the lifetime cost contributes to the whole (production, operations including maintenance, decommissioning) 4. Which locations are suitable for the example capacity. Which coasts have waters with enough energy to enable the production of 30 or 50 m³ of water per day with the Iceberg?
Brilliant idea and execution. The only question I have is how much maintenance does the system require as this is not addressed in your video. Thanks for a very informative show!
This desalinization technology,where possible could add to removing loads of co’2 from the air by helping add more farming in many areas with either to low or insufficient potable water,plus other techniques all upcoming,likely a win win win for us all. Thanks for bring this out,now pass this on to the right authority’s as fast as as possible,please.
Excellent finding’s!!! One thing about an amount salt in de output water will be increased by size of the device - ice berg class or glacier class will cause higher amount of salt in de water around.
I really like this Oneka which uses mechanical wave energy. Oneka's small, dispersed boats are good for the environment, but are they economical? Don't forget that they aren't on land! That makes transporting desalinated water more expensive. After all, a pipeline on land is cheaper than a submerged one. However, they use the free energy of the waves. That may improve the economics significantly due to the amount of energy used in distillation and reverse osmosis.
An Israeli scientist has stumbled upon a solution to the brine problem. He uses mineral accretion through electrolysis to concentrate all of the salts and minerals into solid bars. These bars can then be processed to recover minerals for industrial and construction processes
I had this idea 10 years ago while working on the construction of a large desalination plant. The engineers all thought it was a good idea, but with 100 problems.
The first problem is that most coastlines don't have consistent waves. Some coasts have little or no movement for days.
The second problem is maintenance. Anything done offshore is 10 to 100 times more expensive and slow.
One engineer suggested the Western coast of Australia for consistent wave action. However, I think there is already something similar to be tested in that area?
This would probably be good in some niche applications.
My design was actually to scale it massively to a large floating platform/barge. Something big enough to have a crew and multiple sources of energy (waves, solar, wind, thermal differential, etc...)
However, I wish them the best and that they prove the desalination engineers wrong!
Wouldn't scaling it up make using the waves more difficult because a large floating structure is moved less by the waves?
On the faq section of their website they state that the buoys will be installed 0.5-1.5kms from the coast. They also start producing water at the 1m wave and optimal production is at a 1.5m wave
@@florinadrian5174 no, the ocean is a million times more powerful than needed.
@@thexperimenter88 anything offshore is complex. Even at 100m. And nobody can control if and when there are waves.
@@Unitedstatesian there wouldn’t need to be waves all the time, they just need to be recurring frequently enough. I would expect that a study of at least a year would be done before the installation so that the best coast/site is identified and risk is mitigated.
The website says that they can even install it up to 5kms from the coast if required.
The website also states that maintenance is expected to be minimal and the site expected to last about 20 years, however they have not built the glacier system yet which is the real game-changer.
So I do not expect we will hear from this company for another 5 years but to me it looks like the best solution to the desalination problem if they can scale it up
I love the simplicity and efficiency of not having to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy and back again. Two big areas of concerns are durability and maintenance costs. If more offshore testing reveals problems with those I hope they can find good solutions.
Direct kinetic energy use could work for reverse osmosis in windmills. That'd get rid of the generators but you'd still need motors as a backup, and I'm not sure how drive shaft technology has faired since the electrification of industry. It fits wind well since you store the energy as a product and save on conversion/transmission losses. To reduce drive shaft complexity and gearing you can use a decentralized layout and pump the water like in the video but that complicates the backup motor system.
Sounds wonderful. I would love to see an update on this video in 6 months to a year with peer reviews of this tech.
Will do
@@JustHaveaThink 🤞
@@JustHaveaThink Darn! I wish I’d seen this in time to attend Oneka’s November 17th presentation at the 14th Annual BlueTech Week in San Diego, that’s just a hop from here in Newport Beach! Anyone here able to attend? Our local community only last year blocked the Poseidon plant scheduled for Huntington Beach, due to the destructive downsides & economic inefficiencies you mentioned. Here’s hoping that Oneka’s FL pilot pans out, as we in the Southern California “desert” would surely welcome them!
From reading the comments: Re: Ocean Stresses, Collection Infrastructure, Maintenance, etc. They could be located a few miles offshore, where our defunct oil platforms, with their convenient anchor pads, are now. There could be single manifolds bringing fresh water down from a wind farm-like array of surface plants with piping piggybacking on existing oil to shore make ways. There could even be large solar & wind arrays out there sharing a common infrastructure. We have two such sites located ~1/4 mile apart that could provide redundancy. As decades long drill rig dismantling is underway, I’m sure this would be welcomed by the local community of those with the needed expertise & experience to make the transition. From my 10 months working on San Clemente Is. (down coast from Sealab where we chatted with the Cousteau support divers) & being “in” the sea as a lifelong surfer, this sort of thing doesn’t seem anywhere near as challenging as what North Seas wind farms pose. And HB is known as Surf City from its consistent waves where most of the damaging stuff gets filtered by all of our Channel Islands. The biggest I’ve ridden (in SD) was 18’ & it very rarely gets over “pier busting” 15’. Circulating the components for maintenance should be a no brainer with a support/maintenance facility in San Pedro or even off/near Seal Beach (whose very activist residents might welcome the opportunities after thorough consideration). We also have one of the world’s largest (ocean charged?) aquifers that could serve as a storage repository. Please keep us updated! Thx.
@@JustHaveaThink looking forward to it.
@@Crunch_dGH Just keep stealing the water from Arizona, its cheaper.
I love it when you bring us some good news
Glad you liked it :-)
Amen! We need more hope
Good news is that we have a saviour.
I've been involved with the water industry in the US for two decades and I'm always excited to see anyone working on solving the problem of humanity's ever increasing need for more potable water.
Although in the long run I don't think this technology will be able to produce cheaper water since my understanding is that the RO filters are the major expense I still think this is a brilliant idea and I'm glad they are doing it. One of the factors I like is that they are modular. Anytime you can create redundancy your reliability increases and I think that is important.
We just need less people, send them to Mars.
Everytime you put technology in the sea, the reliability decreases.
One of the aspects you did not bring up I read studies on is an aquaculture platform associated with the float development I think it was called “eco park” concept that takes advantage of the ocean’s natural habitat for food production (Ex seaweed production, fish school aggregation, etc). When combined water and aquaculture revenue resources are used the capital cost picture gets less challenging. Would be interesting if these folks team up with the engineers who did the eco park concept (that was a Cozumel feasibility study for OTEC energy barge, desalinated water, plus aquaculture; I ran the numbers on that out of curiosity to check how it looks from a U.S. municipal energy and water pass through off take). Aquaculture basically paid for the build in that study - but I’m always skeptical about something paying for itself on paper like that. Interesting thought though.
Water from an aquaculture plarform is not the cleanest, so it would probably be bad for the filters.
They are talking about 2 cents a gallon at scale so that is perfectly in tune with municipal water systems. My only question would be on system maintenance -- a 60 micron intake filter would seem to me to require quite a bit of cleaning to keep the water flowing.
Just build several units in a duty standby mode. The maintenance is well known though the cost of that scale maybe an issue.
Think revere flush to clean the filter.
@@pauleohl Yes, it showed the brine being expelled through the filter.
@@riveness A spare or two is almost always a good idea but that adds to your costs.
@@DavidM2002 of course. But you would not leave the critical inlet without redundancy
As a sailor I have some idea about the constant need for upkeep of marine systems. Missing was the cost of maintenance. Filters and strainers must be cleaned/replaced. Mechanical systems in seawater don't live forever. Production will be strongly related to sea state, also unstated. Solar panels get coated in guano and sea salt. Storms? Logs and floating debris?
If you worked with heavy machinery, tractors and semi-trucks you would have made the same deduction. Wear affects all mechanical parts and manufacturing/quality control affects all manufactured components, so basically everything lol
Elegant, simple, low tech, addresses an existential problem. There will be bugs to work out but they’ll be fixable. This is the kind of genius that we need in the world.
At last Dave, a video which does not feature a new battery start-up! I hope this one succeeds because it could save lives and reduce future water wars. Thanks for showing it to us 👍🏻
As a California resident this video was very encouraging. I am curious about what is involved in the maintenance of such devices. Also, as a surfer I know the waves can be very small thus limiting the mechanical drive needed to produce fresh water. What is the minimum wave height required to produce the needed pressure to drive the system?
I imagine it can be made so that the amount of water produced per hour increases and decreases with wave height rather than having it drop to zero. It would be a matter of the amount of mechanical leverage to give to the wave motion. With only slightly clever engineering, leverages can be adjusted. Wave conditions tend to last for hours so the adjustment would only need to happen slowly. This would put it in the grasp of a small solar panel's power output.
CA resident here, and I always like seeing new developments in desalination.
I do see maintenance as a big issue. Standard desalination plants need constant maintenance too, but they aren't floating in the ocean.
As for the needed wave height, I think that value could be quite low. With enough displacement and anchor weight, large forces and pressures could be generate with a delta height of a few inches depending on a) the ability to convert delta h into vertical motion as opposed to pitch, and b) the speed and effectiveness of the check valves. If all of those design elements can be met, operation could be possible in nearly all surface conditions, albeit with reduced output in calm conditions.
If I were designing the system I would run 3 in tandem (merging after the pressure unit) to take out pitch losses in calm conditions, and allow for higher output in rough conditions.
Do the salt water batteries require the water? Would it be possible to extract the salt to use in the salt batteries rather than dumping it back into the ocean? Salt water batteries are touted as safer than lithium.
It seems you can put these as far out as you want and use mini pipelines to send the water back to shore.
Also, the waves don’t need to be surfing waves…. The shipping lanes probably generate enough just on their own.
@@kensmith5694 I wonder if it's as simple as a ratchet to drive the pressurising system? Then more or less any wave size bigger than the ratchet step (a couple of cm?) will add some energy.
Excellent report. Makes me think that we need more “decentralized” micro systems, be it power generation or water desalination. The great utility scale / “economy of scale” solutions sometimes generate bigger problems in a spatial and temporal sense.
Yes…the knee jerk response is usually that decentralization is inefficient, but the flip side is one ginormous Achilles heel (brine concentration, no redundancy and failure causing widespread disruption).
Diversity of systems and wide distribution principles bring us back to the strategies in nature. Maintenance issues are also offset by having the components easily retrievable …they can still be serviced and repaired at a more centralized facility, but their distribution and redundancy actually equates to more continuity or service and less likelihood of widespread disruptions.
@@pohkeee Why don't they haul the broken wind turbines to a central repair facility?
I also support decentralised systems. I see these small desalination rafts as an addition to current water systems in places like California to take the pressure off the current system and reduce the use of Colorado River water in the state.
Considering how hotter summers seem to strain the old UK potable water supply industry, I wouldn't be surprised to see something like these deployed around the coast in the next few decades. I wonder if their technology could be merged with off shore wind (and maybe solar) generation, so that one platform generates both fresh water and renewable energy (for more than just their sensors)?
Britain is blessed with abundant rainfall. A bit of moderation during the occasional dry spell is all that's required
@@sammason2300 Personally I don't have faith in a mass of people to selflessly regulate themselves. Therefore I think having a backup system is better than relying on the good will of the people.
The UK had a problem with sewage discharge onto beaches this year. Look up Feargal Sharkey. Happened directly after they got some rain after prolonged drought.
@Jon Knight. Hello. My understanding of these matters is that adding the ability to send electricity to shore would add significant cost, so if you perhaps looked at this from the "add this to an existing floating platform of some kind" angle, then possibly yes, but that would significantly change the approach being taken here...
As a denizen of the arid UK, living in the centre, away from any waves, but enjoying an annual rainfall that could meet the most extravagant demands for water imaginable, I would have thought we need only capture and store a slightly increased proportion of rain to have more than we need. Even moderation would not be needed.
It will be interesting to see how it scales. I'd think wave energy would be less and less effective at moving the platform as it gets bigger, at least relative to its size, and that the salinity radius would be considerably larger than a couple meters for the bigger platforms.
I could see it working very well for places like islands though, where you have a lot of shoreline relative to the amount of water you need. Obviously, somewhere off screen, the Professor had Gilligan and Skipper build one of these. It always bothered me that they didn't seem to have any shortages of fresh water on such a small island!
I think that's why instead of building bigger and bigger the glacier class was comprised of 40 units, instead of a few huge ones.
The best thing about this channel is that it's one of the few (only?) channel(s) I'm aware of that actually focuses on *solutions*. Thank you.
I have never understood the brine issue. You just need to dilute the brine in more water before you release it to bring it down.
Ignore the facts that don't support your argument.
I'm a mechanical engineer and have been in the wave-powered RO industry for the last five years. Its nice to see a a video put up about it.
Would love to see a scaled-down version of this suitable for boats (10-20 gallons/day). Current onboard desalination solutions are not only complex and costly, but consume significant amounts of power that must be generated (solar, wind, generator, etc.).
Yeah. Land-based desalination plant users have some sort of an alternative usually (a more pricey/difficult alternative but still an alternative, e.g. a trek to some sort of a well dozens of miles away). On a boat, there is literally NO alternative (and you need fresh water for not just drinking, but also washing dishes/clothes/yourselves as salty water is higroscopic and further salt will simply stick to you, you will never be clean)
You need a mooring line for the desal system to work. So it won't work when you are sailing.
@@niconico3907 does the line need to be above water? Ships often pull various lines behind them for various reasons...
@@katm9877 the line is attached to the ground on one side and on the pulley and hydraulic cylinder of the buoy on the other side. So when the buoy moves up and down with the waves, it makes cycles of pulls and release the rope which create mechanical power. If there is no fixed point on the bottom of the sea, energy won't come from the waves but from the boat itself.
"scaled-down version of this (10-20 gallons/day)" can be built by yourself, as it should be sufficiently small for DIY... Of course, the system in anchored on the ground, and as others said, cannot be used when sailing, only when standing still, and being anchored. And when anchored, most probably in a marina, the waves are much smaller than on the open sea...
Very nicely-produced video and easy to understand! Please keep us updated on this! ❤
This sounds like a really clever solution. There are some concerns about the practicality, in particular when it comes to maintaining a distributed system out at sea. To me, this sounds like problems that can and need to be fixed, rather than problems that would make the whole system infeasible
Fantastic! I hope those people figure out the large scale plants ASAP!! Congratulations to them! And thank you for bringing this info to us! Take Care, Jim in Phoenix.
I'm not knocking this process but it is still prone to eventual storm damage and marine growth at the intakes. Hope they can overcome these problems.
Marine growth at the intakes is almost as much as issue with the current large scale desal plants -- the added disadvantage here is that with the intakes being distributed it would take more effort to keep them clean than for one single intake.
Storm damage is a fair point: in the extreme the whole flotilla of desal boats could "escape" in a severe storm and you'd not only lose production at the time when you most need it (think after a hurricane) you'd have damages to pay to anyone whose property was damaged by those rogue boats.
@@trueriver1950 I worked in desalination for 25 years (Thermal) and intakes were always a problem with regard to marine growth. Some large plants had mechanised screen cleaning systems, but this only worked for initial large debris collection.
@@rogerwilson6367 :) seems like we agree then
@@trueriver1950 Yes 😃
Ima not hold my breath for this to be scalable and cost efficient. Like, at all.
This channel deserves more than a million subscribers.
The key is to bring down the cost of the platforms - with intended installations to be a rough grid in the water, perhaps they could serve dual purpose as fish farms or as hybrid systems designed to be installed on existing wave energy generators to provide water generation options to their customers etc
Hey, the background is nice and I'm all for being comfortable! I'm glad to hear of your ongoing success!
It looks like a great idea for particular applications. I hope the testing turns out well for them. More power to engineering I say. Having a team of engineers develop a project and then have a team of engineers says why it won't work and then have a team of engineers make it work is their version of scientific peer review without the waffle speak.
I think that intro is the calmest gentlest most mundane "fuck the haters" bit I have ever seen and I'm here for it 10/10, no notes
Besides the one made from recycled PET (which would disintegrate over time in the alkaline sea water) it seems to be a good idea. However, many small units usually cause higher cost per production unit, and more problems than one big unit. And if they can pipe the fresh water to the shore, they could surely use a similar system to distribute the brine over a wider area for a big unit.
Well, let's see how it will work.
It looks brilliant, definitely will be part of the solution- the key will be the continuous fine-tuning of the design.
Need some fill light there! Do you have a ring light to go behind/around the camera, Dave?
Played with the lighting a bit for the next video (next Sunday). I think it's a bit better for that one.
Another wonderful video, Dave. Thanks for all the effort you put into these programs. I regularly link to them, and believe you are making a huge difference for putting humanity onto a good pathway... I believe this could be a key technology for the coast of California.... to put in large installations of these... to produce literally millions of gallons of fresh water... to help mitigate forest fires, and secure more water for agriculture (especially ORGANIC Agriculture). 🙂 Stay happy and well. You ARE appreciated.
I've ALWAYS been a big fan of desalinization. Among my big questions tho is, why do we have to pump the salts back into the seas? Surely some of those trace elements would be valuable enough to capture them right? Or even to be sold off as... well... salt, rather than mining it as we do in so many places?
Also, obviously all, or meaningfully all, the water we would pump out would go back into the sea eventually, further negating the salinity issue in the long term, but more locally is it reasonable to assume that for megacities that might come to rely on desalination that it could affect local sea level and water currents or is that far too large of a problem for any one city to cause? Humans have always been good at saying "that wont be a problem" only for it to turn into... well... climate change
The brine from reverse osmosis is only about 3 times more salty than normal sea water. It's enough to be bad for the local environment, but not enough to be profitable to concentrate further.
With distillation it might be a different case since you could in theory evaporate enough water that the salt would precipitate when the water cools down.
I think this is an awesome technology that has applications in many other industries! Game changer!
Nice to see you moving up! Your enthusiasm has also ranked up a bit. Bravo!
I work in the water treatment sector. However, I should note that I specialize in freshwater treatment and not salt water. However, RO (reverse osmosis) is still part of my training.
Slightly off topic first, this does not have to be limited to desalination. RO is on the top shelf of water treatment standards, and this could be a power free RO treatment from a lake or river which could make RO viable for smaller municipalities that can't afford RO's larger than other process upfront costs on top of ongoing high-power cost. Rivers and lakes would no doubt generate smaller flows as they have less wave action, but it might be in the realm of viability.
To the meat of the topic. The most important issue that will sink or float these is what are the requirements for where these can be placed? If this has to be 10 miles out to get the proper wave action or avoid ecology disruption, that will add a whole pack of issues. My instillation has a great number of satellite installations, and it is so prohibitively often that something happens at one of the satellites that it requires people on shift 24/7/365 to go handle them and put things back in service. If a group of these serves anything more then 10k consumers I would see these requiring the same. I think the best option in this case would be to create something akin to an oil rig that sits at the center of were these are all tethered and maintain a staff on it that would also serve as the normal operators that WTPs have. Maybe existing oil rigs could be repurposed for that when we kick that particular dirty habit. While land purchase costs would be effectively zero, building the O&M structure could quickly eat those savings.
Resiliency. Salt water is hell on just about every material mankind has ever made. I have some serious concerns about how long the equipment structure and the RO equipment could last in these conditions.
Underwater maintenance costs and infiltration. Fun fact, pipes leak. The water distribution lines that pipe water to your tap can lose as much as 10% of the water that is treated before it can get to your tap. Those lines also break on occasion, and they would do the same while lying on the surface of the ocean floor too. The costs and added danger of fixing a broken line under water could be slightly prohibitive. The water head above this pipe could also cause raw sea water to infiltrate your freshwater line. I would bet that EPA would require you to re-treat the water to some degree before finishing the water. The good news is that this second treatment would be tremendously easier the second time around.
Scale. In the USA the average person uses 100-150 gals of water a day. So, if the glacier class has a diameter of 12 meters and puts out 500 cubic m/d each one makes enough water for 880 people. That would be 1,135 units for a city of 1 million which is 128,255 sq ft of flotilla if they were pressed together which I doubt they could be. That is between 2 or 3 American football fields. Sure, it is a big ocean, but these are going to take up a fair chunk of surface space to provide water.
Reliability. I think it would still be prudent to have another land-based desalination plant to make up the difference when the waves are not pumping enough water. You should always think of how much more water you will be treating as your system grows and this overbuilding could make up for breakdowns at sea which might not be able to be repaired quickly or find funding to expand quickly enough. I think having a land-based parallel component would also be a wise choice in case of things that happen in the ocean with some regularity like... hurricanes.
One addition to these that I would highly recommend is a system for the platform to be remote piloted like a drone including the ability to raise its anchor and disconnect from its effluent so that it can be piloted back to a repair dock for maintenance.
Conclusion. If this product does what it says and to EPA standards, this just might be in the realm of viability, but it has a laundry list of hurdles to clear.
I find the conversion to/from electricity to be frustratingly inefficient. I'm always looking for passive solar tech. Passive wave tech is a new one for me, very cool.
Thanks for letting me learn about a company almost next door to me and that I've never heard about.
My biggest question is how energy-intensive it is to make and maintain the platform itself, in comparison to other solutions. I don't see it being necessarily worse, but it can be an important factor.
It's a floating barge. Not much energy needed.
@@filonin2 Yes once deployed it only needs a bit of a bilge pump to keep it floating as some slightly clever cables to keep it on station. It may be worth adding a winch system that can pull the whole thing down to the bottom to ride out a storm.
I also just don't see this happening, but I'd love it if the team can prove me wrong. My main worry is, like you've implied, underestimation of how much it costs to keep something sea-worthy, especially something like this where it's attached to the bottom and is getting yanked on with every wave, likely requiring annual or even quarterly maintenance that will be expensive.
I'm also curious on how it could be deployed near population centers, where water recreation is in high demand. Many in the population, especially those with the deepest pockets who live on the coast and have boats they want to sail around in where they please, will not want their water space taken up and disrupted. This means there are likely to be deep-pocketed enemies of deployment of this technology anywhere near population centers, and that's another issue the company will need to work through. (Though my guess is that this is a smaller problem than the material and maintenance economics.)
@@dosadoodle You have a point - saline water would probably corrode some materials faster which could require an accelerated maintenance schedule. But there could also be a silver bullet here - most water-proof materials made from plastics (fossil-fuel or plant-based) are generally more resistant to corrosion from salinity, and the fact that the whole thing is supported by its buoyancy, means that it shouldn't require materials which need to bear much load (such as metals and metal-based composites, that corrode faster).
So I'm thinking that perhaps the materials tradeoff could actually make this thing require less maintenance than on-land desalinization plants. It would like comparing apples and oranges in terms of maintenance.
@@filonin2 it's a floating barge that needs to be firmly anchored. So you need a concrete anchor of at least the same weight as the displacement of the barge. In addition a steel chain or cable/s of sufficient strength and durability. So initiale energy expenditures are way higher than it looks on a glance.
I absolutely enjoy your videos, learning so much from you - thanks! Frankly I did like your prior background. If you’re going to continue using this room, please add some lights.
I’ve extensive experience with desalination and mechanical/electrical systems. This is a horrible idea. Stick with the ground mount plants and add multiple discharge points to reduce salinity hot spots. Use renewable energy to power the plants with standard pumps and hydropneumatic pressure tanks. Having to maintain these systems out at sea makes zero sense. Using a purely mechanical system driven by waves/swell is going to be a maintenance nightmare. I used to be a marine engineer in ships, I know this. The solution already exists, just improve it with better environmental design in intakes, discharges and renewable power supply systems.
Thank you for the great new video, and for the quick tour of your filming facility. ;-) I always thought you were in a house. As sheds go that one looks very nice, but it is winter now.
Desalinating seawater is one of the most important challenges of our time, and it looks like Oneka has some good ideas there. What I like:
1. It's elegant. Using wave power without converting it to electricity is very clever. Presumably this will solve the problem of waves not being constant. Waves pulse like a heartbeat, on and off, which is a problem for machines like motors and pumps that are built to use a steady supply of electricity. If this whole thing is powered by the mechanical action of water pushing through the system it shouldn't matter if everything is idle between pulses.
2. It's decentralized. I love their concept of desalinating 25% of the water and having multiple outfalls from separate units. Desalination is such an industrial process it seems like a sin not to get every last possible drop of water for every unit of energy expended. But if nature is providing the mechanical power, efficiency isn't such a concern. And not hurting the environment (more than it can naturally bear) would make this system vastly preferable to just about everything else.
What I'm not so sure about:
1. Maintenance. If these things do form the basis of artificial reefs they're going to get crusted over with all kinds of sea life. That 60 micron strainer at the bottom is particularly vulnerable. It's going to get clogged, and will probably require regular cleaning to keep filter feeders off. The filters inside the unit may be similar. And since they're offshore it means somebody will have to get in a boat on a regular basis and go out there to do maintenance.
2. The pipe to shore. I guess this depends upon how their "pressure and flow optimization system" works. They've got to push the fresh water a long way before it gets to shore, and this process also depends entirely upon wave power. Will there be enough pressure in the pipes to move those huge quantities of water long distances every day? I guess they must have this figured out, but it seems like the hardest part of the process to me.
But every system has potential problems, and this one is very clever and looks like it has huge benefits over the usual reverse osmosis. I hope they make a big splash in the industry and become successful.
I am pretty skeptical. Anything done in open water is way more expensive than done on land. How much does it cost to build the platforms? How much does it cost to lay the pipes to shore? How much maintenance does it need?
it is just a matter of cost versus profit, we are maintaining oil rigs for decades, so once the water costs more than oil we probably have no problems with costs anymore
Professor Steven Salter of the University of Edinburgh came up with a similar idea about 20 years ago - based on the Salter Duck wave power device he invented in the 1970s. I remember him seeking funding for this idea - but I don't think he managed to get it. Fresh drinking water isn't a concern for the UK...
Glad to see a similar idea is gaining interest. I hope these go into wide scale production. Could go a long way to reduce conflicts in several regions of the world.
I love the modularity introduced by the Oneka team. Seems to me that they've put thought into the Operation of this tech in the design stage, even before selling the first unit. I can see how they won that DoE grant.
One thing that stuck out to me, however, was that these devices float and operate in 1 meter-high water, meaning that these devices will be deployed in majority coastline waters. These waters are already being pursued for a number of interests, like tourism or real estate or wildlife sanctuaries, so I would want this company to be lock-step in communications with those stakeholders.
Lastly, even though this tech is mechanics-based and no electricity-based, I think it would behoove Oneka to keep an eye on offshore wind farms and consider mutual operation therein. We've already seen in the last few weeks how China deployed an offshore wind + solar farm, first in the world. So while I doubt that sort of integration is possible at this stage for this kind of tech, I think it's still something to consider because offshore wind/solar platforms open up more rigging space than endangered coastlines. Then again though, the whole mechanical design might not even work for deployments that far out from shore. Electric-based systems could help here, piggy backing off curtailed renewables, but that idea is clearly outside the scope of this company.
Great innovation! Thanks for covering it Dave!
Keeping close to the shore would also be necessary to keep the water pipes short enough that the system does not cost too much or need extra pumps. Like wind farms, the platforms would have lots of free space between units so most activities can be done without them interfering each other. But yeah, no doubt it would cause trouble if someone wanted to use that area for a public beach or boat channel.
@@AnalystPrime You're right. Offshore platform integration might be better suited for utility/municipal scales.
It will take some iteration to find the correct unit size and configuration. Many small ones will probably be too expensive to maintain but if you get to a global fleet parts and maintenance is standardized. Lots of 20 year olds with scuba gear will have a job in any configuration. Marine life will plug up the intake fast anywhere that barnacles and mollusks thrive. I wonder if most of the kit should not be onshore and centralized across N pumps offshore.
As usual, your topic and presentation is excellent!
As for your new setting, better illumination would be nice.
Thanks Sam. Played with the lighting a bit for the next video (next Sunday). I think it's a bit better for that one.
Love the new background, much less distracting.
Thanks for letting us in, shoes off I take it.
Whoops, I've already trodden a load of mud over his carpet in my eagerness to get inside and my bum on the settee. If only I'd paused to just have a ...
Of course :-)
I enjoyed this post very very much. Very exciting for coastal residents.
So nice to count on your videos to be sophisticated and only well mannered conversation. Thanks for being the adult in the room.
At a first glance this sounds brilliant. Hopefully it becomes the future way to.desalinate water.
I am trying to wrap my head over the way the floating station is anchored and how it keeps the outgoing connection with 7 meter waves. This seems good for some locations but what about calmer waters or bay areas . It is encouraging to see a variety of ideas getting tested and in some form used so as to develop them.
It's encouraging that there are people who can see options to conventional (just add more energy) thinking to solve problems.
I like the new setup, but I think your lighting may require some tweaking. I noticed that your eyes changed from fairly well lit to very shadowy as you moved. So, more light or a head restraint? 😉
More light coming from the general area of the camera would be a good way to improve the lighting. A spread out light source from that direction would always light all of his face even if he turns his head a bit.
Ideally the source should extend both sides of the camera.
Played with the lighting a bit for the next video (next Sunday). I think it's a bit better for that one.
My vote would be for the head restraint idea :D I'm sure it wouldn't be distracting or cause any questions at all
@@kensmith5694 thus ring lights ;)
@@falconerd343 Ring lights tend to put all the light face on. "fill lights" are needed with them.
Concentrated brine has always been my bug bare in these things and cooked seafood is now another one, so this has my vote. The one thing that we shouldn't lose sight of though is that PET breaks down in the sun releasing micro plastics that can over time be an issue. That's why even though their is a cost associated with it, more organic or mineral based solutions may(??) offer better environmental credentials.
Oneka's approach definetely seems more right since theres no overhead through conversion into electricity. One might have to question if those boats will last long enough over time to make fixed water possible as claimed.
How long do fishing boats last in the ocean? Years? Decades?
Do these boats use the same materials as those industrial boats?
@@SeeNickView These boats are made of recycled plastic. Industrial boats use tougher materials.
@@SeeNickView Its not the the large overall but the mechanically intricate parts that are most likely to fail and lead to not working stations. And unlike industiral boats where you literally just slap a zinc plate and let it absorb the corrosion, you cant to that in teeny tiny details.
@@DRakeTRofKBam Yeah, I thought it was some sort of cathodic protection. That kind of configuration for Oneka's technology would mean a lot more operational labor, especially for larger and large fleets.
Does probably make more sense to go with (recycled) plastic in this case
@@incognitotorpedo42 If they scale it up to mass production it might be more sustainable to produce the platforms with materials suited for commercial boats. Even if those materials are "problematic" they might be better / more sustainable all things considered. I think the "recycled plastic" bullet point is a marketing issue. It sounds good when applying for subsidies (one more environmental friendly check) and when trying to get the media interested in reporting.
It is not set in stone that is has to be recycled plastics if they ever mass produce. The plumbing, pipes, the pumps & valves must be as durable as possible to lower maintainance cost anyway, so I guess that eliminates recycled materials. The shell can be anything: fibre glass, recycled plastic. As long as it withstands sea water, the mechanical forces, and UV radiation.
Until they are able to mass produce there might be new materials or production methods availabe: Better stabilized recycled plastics, "better" (more sustainably) produced conventional materials.
This was a very inspiring video. I've been thinking for quite a while about wave powered converters and wave powered battery storage, but this mechanical invention is a great idea as well. There will be mechanical challenges, as always there are, but never the less the idea is brilliant and I wish them the best of luck!! Hope to see an updates in few months. Thank you for the inspiring video!
You still have the portrait that one of your viewers' little kid drew, so I'm good with the new background.
Wouldn't ever have lost that :-)
This is brilliant and highly suitable for homes and small facilities near coastal areas on a decentralized basis. I think that not needing to be connected to a centralized water system is its best feature.
Glad youre keeping warm. The new setup could use some more light (in intensity).
Played with the lighting a bit for the next video (next Sunday). I think it's a bit better for that one.
Just happy you're safe and warm, Dave. Keep up the good work 😉.
The Oneida technology has gone through vigorous evaluation by various agencies, including the DOE, and has been awarded large sums of money to spur development. While a number of questions and concerns have been brought up in the comments, none of them strike me as show stoppers. Maintenance costs would obviously depend on design considerations and parts/materials replacement costs plus labor. Presumably, the engineers working on the prototypes have factored those issues into the business model. If the company projects that its water will sell for a quarter the cost of the output of existing desalination plants, then I would give them the benefit of the doubt in judging whether maintenance and other operational expenses have been taken into consideration. Personally, I find the technology at least superficially exciting for all the reasons David outlined. I look forward to learning more about it as time goes on. And, yes, David, you need better lighting. 😉
"the engineers working on the prototypes have factored those issues" Oh you would be suprised how mamy terrible projects got thru the "engineering department" and got funding from our tax money. Many "revolutionary ground breaking technologies" are just scams made by rich peple to get funding from the gov (our money)
I've always liked the use of wave power which seems under used to me. As a side note I'm sure it's much nicer to move indoors as the days become colder, perhaps you could add a front 'photography ring led light' to brighten up the presentation slightly as I did turn up the screen brightness on my pad to compensate. If many people did that we would be adding to the power draw slightly which would be ironic 😅. Love the clear way your videos are presented 👍.
I wonder how the fresh water collector pipe overcomes fatigue and abrasion from constant movement as the floating platform shifts around on the surface of the sea.
Yeah, they'd need to anchor it with something. Probably an equivalent pilon that you'd use for running conduit aboveground, where the conduit run sits about 30-60 cm above the ground.
Thinking a big concrete/steel/plastic staple, but who knows lol
A firehose should last several decades.
Warm inside your house is good, i would do the same.
Oneka seem to be on the right track.
Just add some lumens…;-) Good on ‘yer Dave. Stay warm.
Played with the lighting a bit for the next video (next Sunday). I think it's a bit better for that one.
We work in mid and north coast in Kenya and access to water like this could be really really great for local water resiliency!
Call me dubious. Wave energy is really diffuse. Maintenance of equipment in the sea is expensive. Water is really of low value as products go. Makes more sense to build dams and not have large populations in desert areas without fresh water resources.
Totally agree with you, especially about not having large populations - period.
Las Vegas in the US has extremely efficient water savings practices in place.
If anything, dams interrupt ecosystems that can impact other local economic actors, favoring the mega-agrobusiness actors that can afford cuts of the Colorado river and such.
Obviously this tech wouldn't work in deserts, so other processes, like humidity capture, might be better suited for the specificities therein.
@@WWZenaDo do your part, lead by example.
@@kayakMike1000 Already did, you feed-and-breed twit. I chose to avoid ever having children. By the level of smug narcissism you've just demonstrated, the human race definitely doesn't need your barely average genetic material.
@@SeeNickView If you have human populations of around 8 billion people, you are going to have dams. The problem with dams is that they never involve market based pricing. Mega-agrobusinesses aren't getting water because they can afford to pay, it is because they have more senior water rights in our flawed system of water property rights.
I love the comment section of this channel.❤
I would have thought that current Desal plants would incorporate salt pools, since you end up with a concentrated brine in the first place might as well turn that waste stream into something profitable.
Way, way too much salt for there to be a use for it.
Also usually not situated in a way that allows for square kilometers of pools at all, let alone for that to be financially viable.
Great video, Dave, I wonder how they stand up to hurricaines or typhoons?
@@aenorist2431 Sounds like an engineering problem, and not a physics problem.
@@SeeNickView It's an economics problem. The salt you produced would be worth a lot less than the extra cost of producing it. So it's just like setting fire to large piles of money.
@@incognitotorpedo42 Salts do have value in the chemicals industry, so I wonder if the supply chains could be set up for that
Still, we're talking about exploitation of the ocean's minerals beyond just water now, which to a lot of global organizations can be unethical.
Interesting to dream about, maybe
The prospect of commercial desalination solutions of various sizes, that a) are 100% powered by renewables and b) significantly address the production and release of environmentally damaging highly concentrated brine, is brilliant.
Oneka Technologies' wave-powered desalination plants look very promising, indeed.
As I'm always keen to say, though, there is no silver bullet, only silver buckshot. With that said, there will be applications where either thermal- or RO-based desalination are appropriate. However, they do need to address and resolve the brine production and discharge issues.
And, again, the scarcity of freshwater on a global scale, coupled with water insecurity in an ever increasing share of the world population, *water reclamation* needs to quickly become the norm. As with any other element needed to support humankind, it's massively less expensive to recycle/reclaim than it is to extract.
So, with water already extracted from rivers, lakes and groundwater, then foolishly used for things like washing up (dishes, clothes, etc.), bathing and flushing toilets, wastewater treatment back to potable water isn't only possible, it's also massively affordable, not to mention the answer that makes the most sense ecologically.
Fabulous! Just the type of thinking we need. Now we need to find a productive use of the brine!
It seems to me that for small scale, combining wind and solar would be better than waves if you went the thermal path.
I was going to explain the idea fully but found that pictures would be needed.
Basic points:
1) A column of about 26 feet of water will make a vacuum at the top enough to boil water.
2) Boiling it would make it get cold unless you supply a heat source
3) Just a few PSI pressure will make water condense at that same temperature.
4) Condensing water would get hot unless you can take away the heat.
5) a heat exchanger between 2 and 4 can supply some of what each needs.
6) Solar power can directly drive heat into the boiling with little loss
7) Wind power can make the mechanical effort needed at #3
I'm guessing that as with everything we do, this will work better in some locations, than in others. But it looks like a great alternative to what is being used currently. I wish them well. We need more innovations like this. I'm sure there will be those that will see only problems but if we listened to them, nothing would ever get delivered. See you next week ☺👍🥛
I liked the change! Now you have more confort for the videos!
Have a great week, sir!
Thank you Isaac. Much appreciated. You have a good week too :-)
I've no problem with the room, the content is still spot on but a little extra lighting wouldn't be amiss.
It's brilliant of course and giving of more real hope. Thanks as ever David and Patrons.
I consider my knowledge on anchoring boats good hense the question of very deep anchoring. I guess those underwater drones might be required to assure the vessels stay put in worst weathers.
They will I giess have the radio auto Identification system AIS, night time warming lights and any fog horns running on the PVs . not a big power ask for this amount of deck space.
I listen to what this man has to say, not a bit worried about the background of his studio.
Thank you for another thought provoking presentation. The concept of taking a smaller percentage of water from the sea on each pass through the system, seems to help over ride one of the key objections of the drought hand wringers.
There is a distinct possibility that this approach will not work in it’s present form. But if it shows some unseen benefits that attract supporters or competitors, it will have served a useful purpose, and helped our planet.
I was employed for several decades in a product development group of an international rigid container manufacturer. They still have a facility dedicated to recycling the HDPE (2), and PETE (1) materials. One of these materials has a specific gravity greater than water, and will sink in fresh water. However, I do not know about the results in the average sea water density. Another point to ponder is that 5here can only be a certain percentage of recycled material mixed in with virgin material in order to produce a serviceable product. One solution to the scrap plastic issue, since our population would rather take the “out the window, and in your yard” form of recycling, has been used in some European countries, is to burn the granulated scrap plastic, as a partial source of fuel for steen production and other applications that will change in the future.
As a closing thought, I believe that it was Henry Ford, who stated that if you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. This is hardly an acceptable future for our planet, and it’s inhabitants, either animals or plants.
Very elegant solution
Sounds good . Collecting and storeing rainwater made from the evaporative energy of the sun is also good.And simple..
Before we dump all the other desalination systems, I have been up to the north of Western Australia where they have massive salt pans to provide sea salt, through drying sea water in big tidal pools where there is a gradual increasing the brine concentration until it crystallises out to be scooped out with large earthmoving machines.
Surely one of these desalination processes could be used to start such a system off so that there is no brine discharge back to the sea and there is a value added product as well as the pure water.
A beautifully simple and effective solution I fear for its survival
Bravo Camille!
Good video. 2 questions:
1) How are they collecting the desalinated water? How much energy is being spent doing that? The more infrastructure required, the bigger carbon required.
2) Regardless of the percentage of the brine that is sent back into the body of water, it's still the same total brine.
Yes, dispersing it more evenly will cause less disruption. But does that % actually matter when the whole brine recycled is the same?
All in all, great innovative ideas. I think there are some bugs to work out, though.
The symmetry of the bookshelves is very pleasing
I love this change! It is a very cozy, and feels intimate.
Cheers Tyler. Much appreciated
A very interesting system! it will be interesting to see how they can produce a reliable bearing system for that underwater pulley (8:01) - but I suppose there's many rustproof materials to choose from these days. Hope it is successful and can be rolled out world-wide!
It would be good to know
1. How long the test runs have been for each of their systems
2. What their plans for a maintenance schedule are
3. How much each aspect of the lifetime cost contributes to the whole (production, operations including maintenance, decommissioning)
4. Which locations are suitable for the example capacity. Which coasts have waters with enough energy to enable the production of 30 or 50 m³ of water per day with the Iceberg?
Brilliant idea and execution. The only question I have is how much maintenance does the system require as this is not addressed in your video. Thanks for a very informative show!
Great to see ideas being explored and implemented. Your explanation is well done as usual. Thanks!
This desalinization technology,where possible could add to removing loads of co’2 from the air by helping add more farming in many areas with either to low or insufficient potable water,plus other techniques all upcoming,likely a win win win for us all. Thanks for bring this out,now pass this on to the right authority’s as fast as as possible,please.
Excellent finding’s!!! One thing about an amount salt in de output water will be increased by size of the device - ice berg class or glacier class will cause higher amount of salt in de water around.
I really like this Oneka which uses mechanical wave energy.
Oneka's small, dispersed boats are good for the environment, but are they economical? Don't forget that they aren't on land! That makes transporting desalinated water more expensive. After all, a pipeline on land is cheaper than a submerged one.
However, they use the free energy of the waves. That may improve the economics significantly due to the amount of energy used in distillation and reverse osmosis.
This guy is inspirational
This is both fascinating and encouraging. Thanks, as always.
That said, the new, dim, noisy, low-res video setup definitely needs some tweaking.
Brilliant solution. Thanks for the great info as usual!
Shows great promise. I could see this on lakes and maybe rivers as well.
Good to see the tech development, go to be a better way than now.
Might need to look at your lighting levels in your new filming location.