This Tower Turns Ocean Fog Into FRESH Drinking Water!
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- Опубликовано: 15 май 2024
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Fresh water is the cornerstone of all life, and it always feels like we either have too much or too little. And while desalination has grown in popularity, it is very energy intensive to separate the salt from ocean water. But a novel idea is emerging that harnesses the water vapor right above our oceans and transports it back to land. It promises to be the lower cost lower energy alternative to desalination, but will it actually work? How much water can it realistically produce, and might this be a key solution to our water challenges in the future? Let's find out! Limitless Fresh Water Lies Right OVER The Ocean - Without Desalination!
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Chapters
0:00 - Introduction
1:12 - The Problem
4:50 - Solutions?
6:25 - Air Water Gneration
8:30 - Ocean Vapor Towers!
11:00 - Potential
12:00 Negatives?
12:50 - Costs
14:00 - Questions
15:00 - Conclusion
what we'll cover
two bit da vinci,Limitless Fresh Water Lies Right OVER The Ocean - Without Desalination!,desalination of seawater,fresh water,reverse osmosis,water availability,water filtration process,seawater desalination,water vapor towers,atmospheric water generator,atmospheric water generator project,atmospheric water harvesting,ocean awg,awg,ocean atmospheric water generation,fresh water generator,water crisis,desalination of water,desalination,drought, desert,fog,irrigation,condensate, This Tower Turns Ocean Fog Into FRESH Drinking Water! 
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Keep your personal information Safe Online with Delete Me! joindeleteme.com/TwoBitDavinci
Just use the old camper's trick. Fill a large can with salt or dirty water. Put a small can inside the large can on a support so it doesn't float and tip over. Cover the whole thing with plastic, and put a pebble on the plastic cover so it forms an inverted cone. The small can will slowly fill with pure "distilled" water through evaporation. This works best if it's hot. Now scale this mechanism up in size.
Sooooo....... Is this a 200 ft diameter surface air skimmer? How does wind speed act to drive skimming water?
I think you are Canadian Preppers brother... :)
easy way to reduce water waste is having 3 water systems at home, fresh water for drinking and shower, sewage obviously, and finally a recycled water from the wasted water treatment plant to be used on the toilets and some gardening aplicantions, since that recycled water cannot be consumed due the chemicals used on cleaning and so on, instead droping it bck on the rivers and ocean it should be taken back home to the toilet again, it may not look much but you must see the big picture here, millions of people everyday wasting 5 gallons of water everytime they flush in just one day that would fill more than one olympic pool across an entire year you can imagine, every little bit counts, special on desert areas and countrys if we can extend that water for a little bit more than all investment is worth it
Moisture farming like Luke Skywalker's Uncle Owen Lars on Tatooine.
This basically what your home A/C or dehumidifier does . I connected a bucket to my condensate drain (my dehumidifier has its own built in container) and pour the water into a 45 gallon trash can. When it gets full , I have a small pump and water my grass with it. There RUclips videos out there with other's doing this. That is what I do with the water but you may have other uses.
Ac condensate is underrated
I work in the HVAC field and I've always wondered why we aren't capturing that water and using it. There is bacteria to worry about but it's not like we don't already know how to sanitize water.
We've been watering our house plants with a dehumidifier we use in our shower for almost 10 years, but you can't put it on edible plants because of the aluminum gills on the evaporator. It will be cool when someone makes one out of stainless steel or titanium (assuming it could be done affordably).
Agreed, We will be covering that on a future video
Hey at least your using it for something
As an retired environmental engineer I was also excited to hear about this idea. There are numerous ocean locations in hot areas that have deep cold water relatively close to shore. Monterey Bay for instance. Using a thermal-cline with a closed loop cycle containing a freon base fluid that reachs from the depths to the surface could provide the force to drive a pump to send the water to shore. Routing the humid air into pipes using the cold from the depths would also provide the cooler temperatures necessary to condense the water.
We should attach these sea surface water vapor systems to piggyback onto offshore or near shore solar and wind farms since we just need to add a water pipe next to the pre-existing wire cable to transmit everything. The infrastructure and access to deep cold sea water are already there.
Hello sir. I hope you are doing well. I’m also an environmental engineer, but I haven’t had much luck with my career since I am in Latin America I a troubled country… can you give me any advise? I want to take advantage of my degree and do something both meaningful and economically productive. Thanks in advance. I hope you don’t mind.
@@albertomorales7322 You ask your college that gave you the engineering class to refer you the place where they employ people with degree. You never choose a field of work that doesn’t employ people. Why did you take this class if there is no job?
You still have to pay the cost to phase change water, that is the minimum energy cost of this kind of system which the energy cost to evaporate water at 99.9C is the same energy cost to get it from 0.1C to 99.9C which is enough energy in the same wait of copper to melt it, and doing the reverse means you have to remove that much energy. This is already assuming 100% humidity and only knocking it down a little.
Yes you could dump that heat into the sea by running the pipes down low, but then you are going to reduce heat rejection in that local area destroying habitats if you are pulling out meaningful amounts of water, because that volume of water that evaporated off carried enough energy to raise the same amount of water to 99.9C form 0.1C so if you pull out 500 million gallons from humid air you are dumping enough heat to raise 50 billion gallons by 1C.
Now on a global scale that isn't going to effect things, but on a local scale that certainly is which is the same issue you have with brine discharge, brine discharge isn't a problem if it's distributed evenly over a wide area, so you're exchanging one type of pollution for another.
Now if we are going to use refrigeration there is some good news because heat pumps can move upto 6 times more thermal energy than the electrical energy you put in with ideal conditions so you can reduce the energy needs down to heating water down to 16.7% that is assuming ideal conditions however and I am goanna guess that reverse osmosis is at worst on the same level of power consumption, but probably significantly less.
I suppose you could make it so that your only using the sea to remove some of the heat to reduce the energy consumption maybe even only use the sea to dump heat during peek energy demand or low energy supply which would make it work well with renewable, but the extra cost of having two systems to bring it ashore would increase the cost of the total system fairly significantly.
@@telsat Please don't turn RUclips into Twitter and don't ask people why they did something that didn't work out. A lot of people in great professions are unemployed during recessions and there are several in Latin America.
This should be labeled science fiction. The physical plant of these structures is simply enormous. Building only one of them would be considered a mega-project. Building multiple would be a literal impossibility. The structures are 200 meters wide, which is essentially the height of the golden gate bridge, but in width, not to mention the structure also rises 100 meters above the ocean, ignoring the size of the structure under the water. The environmental impact would be catastrophic. The size of the structures dimensions are equal to a New York City block, meaning the entire rectangular block, replete with multiple sky skyscrapers. 10 city blocks rising, hundreds of meters off the ocean floor are going to be built off the coast of major cities? This idea is sheer maddness. I hope the scientific paper detailing this project was the work of graduate students asked to dream up impractical engineering projects to solve fresh water availability and not a serious design.
a more practical design would maybe be to use a retired oil rig and adapt the design to it.
This sounds like NIMBY problem do you want water or not.
@@TwoBitDaVinciAgree, good idea!
@@TwoBitDaVincino it would not. Why tf are we so few to see the obvious cringyness in you technoreligious types???
Nature is a complex system. All attempts to alter this system to extract from it, while not understanding said system and the intricate effects our extraction had, led to disadtrous system collapse.
All. Of. Them.
So go ahead and let us fck the system that sustains us. Yippee, nothing wrong can happen. We humans know it all. We murricans will always win.
I think this could work in Namibia. They have a unique geography where they get constant fog but no rainfall and a huge desert. Most coastal places with humidity get plenty of rainfall.
Do they get fog on the ocean that often just stays there?
Systems of nets with water collection at the bottom is used in such foggy places.
@@0ooTheMAXXoo0 yah cheaper too than some over complicated techno wizardry
@@TwoBitDaVinci Yes, their whole coastline is named "skeleton coast" for all of the ships that have run ground there, because of the foggy shores next to desert. People would dehydrate and die there for over a century. There are unable to keep significant populations near their coast so there is an incredibly long stretch without any port cities. They are in a unique situation where the fog never travels inland and turns to rain, often it dispenses northward toward the Atlantic.
@@0ooTheMAXXoo0 Where is that used?
Since this depends on relative humidity and vapor pressure, it will work markedly better in warmer zones. In addition, there'll also be a large amount of microcrystalline salt that gets captured as saline vapor deposits. Normally most of this is recaptured in the ocean. It's why ocean side steel structures rust so quickly. It's a pretty massive problem. The closer the capture point is to the water the higher the salt content also.
Maybe they'll put miniature versions of these around salt water bridges in the future.
What if you put them high up like on oil rigs
As evaporation requires energy this will cool the area significantly.
(Ultimately you can freeze water by evaporation.)
But as heat pollution is a problem near power plants this could maybe be used as a fix here.
One fix for that rust problem is powder coating. Other coatings are also available and viable as well.
What are you talking about? There's no extra evaporation happening here.
I wouldn't do a tower per say, I would instead repurpose an Oil tanker sized ship. Have it go out to sea, collect the water then bring it back and pump it into holding tanks. This improves collection because you can send the ship to places where conditions are ideal and you can use deep (cold) water pumped up to the surface to cool the condenser. Plus you wouldn't have any visual pollution of large towers just off shore blocking the view.
Thats a really great Idea..... very practical for construction also since all the work could be done in a dry dock and a great use for a decommissioned ship
@@TwoBitDaVinci And as we wean ourselves of off oil, there will be a lot of surplus oil tankers.
Yes a great way to upcycle
But the oil oligarchs would protest,, "Won't we have a giant water spill if there is an accident"? :)
@@alcocklake
OGM! THE RUST!!!! 😁😁
I work in HVAC design, so I know all about taking water out of the air. I've wondered if we'd ever get good moisture farming tech, kind you see in Star Wars (Luke's uncle was a moisture farmer). The concept of taking it from the ocean's surface is fascinating. I don't know about their plan exactly, but we could probably engineer something pretty easily. Awesome video man!
Another HVAC Design guy here... In a warmer coastal climate like Chennai (India), the dew point of air close to the surface of ocean would be only 33 Deg C (91.4 Deg F) and it would not cost huge to de-humidify the air operationally, even with conventional Air-conditioning system.. The moment you add wind-turbine or sea-cooling system (you have cold water at the bottom of the ocean, at free of cost) to the entire water-harvesting technology... this will be a great combination..
Of course, salty air is only the demon here and with advances in material science and coating technology, we will eventually fight the demon out...
Instead of the tower and pumps building their containment and getting the air in volume to flow nessacry economy is an obstacle.
But you can also achieve a high air flow necessary by horizontal stacks of appropriate sheeting suspended on bouys that through wave action facilitate moist air induction and displacement of harvested air. Water recovery systems powered by wave action included.
Yes it’s not as if the climate is complexed and affected by cloud formation is it. 😂
The concept is interesting but just looking at the size of it (100m tall in the middle of the ocean ?? And 200m wide for a single tower ??) it makes sense that the water production calculation are so good, but I have doubts about the feasability and costs estimates of building, maintaining and operating these enormous structures in one of the most challenging environnement.
@@TorlyX09 I agree on that 100 m tall and 200 m wide is very hard to approve.
We know how hard it is to get windpower in the ocean approved - this will certainly also be hard.
But something can be made with it
I drew this out a few ways when I was in grade school. Teacher thought it was cool.
I've many such.
Worked on how to get these sorts of projects done, generally.
Here's another: Water use in a different way, in the desserts. Use boring tunneling to make the widest & longest you can in 9 months, as a reservoir. On the land above that dig contour trenches, back filling with composted soil & shaped into swales. Shape them to work to slow down & absorb as much water runoff as possible, work on new geopolymers. Include atmospheric water harvesting features. Design to pipe excess into the boring tunnel-reservoir. Site these densely enough to capture sufficient stormwater runoff to provide slow, multi decade, reclamation of depleted lands.
Elevator pitch version.
Ricky
This is the most exciting and practical water solving idea I have heard yet to date. I think you're right, they have really hit on something special. As soon as I heard it, it's like a light bulb went off in my head, of course, all that water is just sitting there in the air above the ocean water. It makes so much sense and sounds like it could be easily done. Kudos to you for reporting this. Nice work!!
We could also use a heat exchange system using a large amount of earth to pull the heat out of the air by burring the air ducts. Then use use pipes filled with ocean water to cool the earth that absorbed the heat.
Exciting? It's a big dehumidifier. And like all those other free water from air scams, they are pipe dreams.
A solution involving a wearable activated carbon filter that can be sold in two models: one uses a synthetic adaptor, while the other can be held in place in the foreskin like a chinese finger puzzle to recycle the water, at a potentially viable source.
This could also attach directly to the back of the hand with a IV drip so employees dont have to keep running to the cafeteria for drinks on the job, therefore better able to pay off those million dollar mortages on their shoebox condos with the apartment fever.
What happens if a corporate start bottling and selling rain clouds in sea itself ?
Most of continent will be sand dunes .
This is the same old "run your air conditioner and drink the condensation". It's essentially turning fuel into water, and it's all garbage. Desalinization is much cheaper.
I had this idea years ago. The ocean vapour towers could be enhanced by making them transparent like greenhouses. A black slab metal or rock occasionally beneath the surface due to wave action should aide evaporative throughput. Sweet.
Evaporation .. Nature Desalination plant...
"Yeah, right."
To bad that transparent material will grow algae and block the sun.
me too but i never acted on it
Natural gas????
There's NO excuse for high natural gas prices.
The only reason there are high prices is because of those stupid environmentalists.
Thank you! I love videos like these that give hope and excitement for the future!
They've been doing this on a small scale along the Namibian and South African coast, these areas have sea mist in the mornings almost all year, they put up mist nets and collect the water in chanals along the bottom of the nets, produces a surprising amount of water,
They use that same method in some parts of South America as well, especially along the Pacific Coast, it works quite well, turning arid land into productive farm land. I'd like to see it done here in Australia as well, but we Aussies are a stoic lot, with a country surrounded by water we'd rather suffer harsh and cruel droughts than to spend money on something so simple as this that would alleviate our drought problems.
I have been working on AWC for a decade. You do not need any cooling towers. The ocean water at depth is cool enough to cause condensation. You just need to pump it up. And you don't need big pumps to do this. You just need an electric current to cause electrolysis which changes the density of the water, causing it to rise (like an air pump)
My idea for optimizing AWG on a home scale:
Build a greenhouse that's attached to your house, preferably on the south/Sunward side. Water the plants within with your gray water. The greenhouse will naturally be very hot and humid within. Run your AWG in there. The plants will transpire your greywater and the AWG will work at top efficiency most days as it will be near 95% RH in there constantly.
There are many awesome water recycling methods like yours...we need to do stuff like this in arid locations...and also add water to the system where needed to not deplete the aquifers.
@Two Bit da Vinci agreed. And the reason why these water harvesting and creation methods are so important...plants are the only verifiable way to capture carbon and potentially sequester it (depending on how we process the plants material) therefore it reasons that water is the fuel for carbon capture and sequestration.
Grey water has the potential to poison the soil of edible plants.
@@stuartodell1709 Also in a greenhouse there's no rain to dissolve and wash away contaminants from raw grey water, so they will accumulate in the top soil. It's better to run grey water through bio treatment septic tanks first, but even then I would never use it for direct plant watering.
So, so cool. Thank you for your work!!! Always inspiring and hopeful.
We live in middle TN, one of the most humid (and rainiest) areas in the nation. Water bills are through the roof - $200-$300 in the summer and I have an enormous landscaping / garden. Due to the elongation of seasons many farmers are attempting double crops (plant April / end of July). Our A/C drains water from the air into a hose. Last summer I guided the hose into a 3 3 1/2 gallon bucket. It rapidly filled and I repeated twice before I called it quits. This year I attached a series of hoses that open or close. I water tomatoes, melons, peppers, flowers and herbs for next to nothing. The amount of water that only one units removes is just amazing. This project screams "venture capital" which is by far the fastest and easiest way of bringing it to the market.
The average Southern California home flushes about 15 gallons (this is a very conservative number) of clean fresh water down the sewer every day during the summer while running a home air conditioner. The energy is already spent on the A/C cooling, yet the perfectly clean water is flushed down the sewer.
(Well, not at my house. I have a large home with two A/C systems and all my condensate water is diverted and stored to water my gardens and grove. The A/C is powered by ground based solar)
Not 'perfectly clean ' The condensate has all the solids and viruses and bacteria that is washed out of the air. YUK
your right ....Ac condensate is a very underrated resource.
You should do a deep dive into water consumption in California (Industrial, Agricultural, and Municipal) in relation to the natural capacity to replace it. I suspect you'll find that the "Mega-Drought" is simply over-consumption. California (well, everyone, actually) is ignoring the actual problem by blaming the weather. California also has a 100+ year history of just draining lakes and rivers dry.
That's why this is such a great idea. It offers the chance to add more sources of water so that California and other places near the coast can refill their aquifers and turn the tide on the drought
But you have to feed the people. Would you like to pay the cost to import all the food? Or would you make farmers only grow enough food just for ca and not export any?
@Lloyd Lego you miss the whole point of a deep dive. It's investigation, not condemnation. Still, I'd make Water Districts Industrially produce the water that is consumed. Continuous man-made drought conditions severely depress the natural environment. There are species going extinct in California just because of a lack of water.
More water storage would be great.
I love all your videos no question, but this is most one of the most exciting.
for sure the best video you have ever done . being all have been good thats saying something.
Thanks, Ricky. This sounds very useful, practical and hopefully workable! Peace
This is awesome... And if you use pipelines underwater (like for petroleum, but for gas) you could even get to some water almost free, because on ocean bottom the water is cooler. Thus, this may help cool the water with no energy cost at all, and we could cool it further to extract more water. Maybe that would even work just with a pipe going under water if water is shallow enought, then you'd just have to use giant fans, no compressor at all. Easily replaceable, but you'd probably get less water overall. And warm up a bit the ocean bottom, but meh, that warm water will rise, then evaporate again, so...
this comment was so stupid on energy conservation and thermodynamics' laws that it gave me a stroke to put me at the same level.
Please be more carefull when using this level of weapon-like stupidity...
THIS IS by FAR ONE of the Most interesting Video that I've Ever Watched.
You never fail to educate me bro. Thanks
As i saw mentioned elsewhere, the water close to the surface still carries salt as microscopic crystals. The intake of vapor might require some new technological solution to filter those out, which is what usually drives up costs for ideas like these. Admittedly it could still be more efficient than desalination at the end of the day.
The authors say the collector would be 20m above the water's surface.
@@Israel_Two_Bit in an enclosed space with turbulence. So yeah salt will clog it up still.
@@vultureTX001 regular or continuous cleaning with fresh water might solve that problem. Of course, that would raise price and reduce efficiency.
That could actually be good. We're not looking for distilled water. That's bad for the body. Drinking water needs to have some salt in it. And if the vapor already has it, even better. It all depends on the concentration.
@@feynstein1004Well it depends, as a drinking water - fine, but if you wanted to use this water for watering plants, then yes you look for distilled water similar to rain. Otherwise the salt would accumulate in the soil over time destroying it completely.
Loving this one a lot. Liking, commenting, and _definitely_ already subscribed! Thank you for continuing to find so many promising technologies!
Worked in a lot of powerhouses. The old boilers had preheaters that if you reversed the system would work as condensers. They were basically giant tanks with thousands of small tubes filled with water. Your sea air could be ducted into the body of tank and if you filled the tubes with cold water that you had chilled by geo thermal means you would get condensation. Then only real power you need is for pumps and your fans. Depending on how much water you are causing to condense and the drop to the pumps. You could even put those horizontal positioned water turbine over the outlet holes of the water to help with power demand. Like videos keep it up
We like to experiment with atmospheric water capture and recycling on our homestead in the Ozarks. We have experienced a drought this year, but the passive water capture from condensation has made a big difference. Rock berms that collect morning condensation is the main system in our gardens.
So, I've thought about something more along the lines of relatively passive technology for capturing water as condensation from the ocean. Instead of building towers I envision water pumped into open troughs with glass or plexiglass panels positioned to collect condensation and divert it directly to fields for irrigation or to a water capture system. But for huge agricultural fields that may get in the way of equally huge farm machinery. A better idea is to move food production to smaller scale urban sites that use grey water condensation. Small scale urban food production should lessen the energy inputs required, especially for refrigeration and transportation. For instance, I grow all my salad fixings indoors in an area the size of a large refrigerator. Fresh food all year and no trips to the grocery store is reason enough to start bringing back residential gardening.
Completely agree on that, this will be much better than water desalination. This needs to be built, at least in a smaller scale to see if it really works.
Moeses west is responsible for this technology look him up
Agree. What I do not like is that it is currently a computer model, which means additional time for small scale proof of concept before full scale application.
@@user-mv9tt4st9k maybe the performance is not viable at different scales? Lack of efficiency vs cost vs outcome ?
I see a bright future for this tech, especially when combined with offshore wind power. With offshore wind, they're already laying down miles of cable to connect everything with the mainland... might as well lay down some water pipes at the same time to move all this fresh water to the people who need it.
Rick, knowing this is long winded I submit the following: Some years ago mechincal engineers installed an adequate amount of air-conditioning to a gymnasium as was specified by the architect but because it was a "fresh air intake only" the humidity in the area was just too much for the system's evaporator coils to remove and this lead to a very uncomfortable cool but sticky environment inside the gym. So what they came up with was placing two additional coils (one after & one prior) to the refrigerative evaporator coil with both coils connected only by a simple water loop. As the aft coil received the refrigerated air cooling it (and then passing through it so as to cool the building) that after coil would cool down along with its water loop being pumped back into the prior water coil. Now because of that the outside air entering was pre cooled removing more humidity, the evaporator coil (now 2nd of the three) too would remove even more humidity and lastly the third "after coil" likewise would remove the majority remaining humidity as well.
Other than the additional coils, the water they contained in a closed loop and the small electric pumps no additional utility cost in cooling ever happens and yes, a measured normal of 80+% humidity entering the gym was reduced to a modest 30-35% afterwards. And this says nothing about the condensation captured.
My point, if this were used in costal high humidity area's and you were going to air condition them anyway, why not make water while you're doing it and further cool your building down while doing it. Yes, you read my statement correctly.
Why..?? Because people don't use "fresh air intake only" at private facility. We cant harvest water from a closed loop 30%RH air circulation.
I love the idea. We all have seen the moisture condensing out our AC units; thank you for the quantification, it really gives a good perspective. I would note, however, that the cost argument requires clarification. Water providers have to pump and store the water around town and that implies capital, operational, and regulatory costs that may not have been considered in the analysis. I suggest that instead of using the term “the cost per beneficiary” (which people may infer as their water bill) you could refer to the cost to produce the water before distribution to the customers. Great work!
Thank you for this presentation and summary of these important ideas. I also thank you for your other presentations. Your explanations are clear and engaging. Great qualities for an educator - which you clearly are 😊
Google must be reading my mind, I've been thinking of this idea for a lil bit now, but slightly different.
My take on the idea was to use newly developed radiative cooling paints to cool down a wide air channel, then reduce the temp even further with normal condensers.
Above 75% RHI you don't even need the condensers to start yielding water as the equilibrium is 4-5C below ambient. (And I think you can push the equilibrium further given the right layering, IR absorbent undercoat, and topology)
You could push air pretty fast through it and still keep it not too long if I did the math right. a 300x4m system at 25mph could yield 12 gallons per second iirc
If increased salination is a problem with traditional desalination as you say, then this process will have exactly the same effect. There is no way around separating water from the salt.
Wouldn't this have some sort of effect on the atmosphere and rainfall since it's collecting the same vapors that in turn create weather patterns?
I was glad to see this aspect was covered, but so briefly that I'd like to hear more about that.
If you add dark-painted floating metal mesh, then evaporation rates will increase, so if you place those near the towers, then you will get more evaporation and higher air humidity in the air you're using to get water. If you add cheap imperfect metal mirrors to allow the pipes to cool down, then simply going from the higher air pressure inside the pipes to the lower air pressure inside the water silo, will get at least some of the water to condense, and you can also get dry cool air as a byproduct, in the hot humid areas where it's most valuable, like a city-wide central AC unit delivering to places which pay for it.
Those are all great ideas. We need more people thinking about creative solutions like these and then prototyping them to build actual working versions.
Wow that's ingenious. I hope they try this.
We do too
That is a great idea. They can couple it with using the ocean as a cooling element as they pump the vapors undersea to the extraction point.
Waiting for the prototype.
A beautiful machine… My chanting/meditation/prayer is for the success of the innovative humans offering real solutions to our problems. Bless them and the love they offer us.
This actually has the same net salination effect as releasing brine into the ocean, just in a more diffuse way (so it is still better). That's because decreasing the vapor pressure (which is what you are doing by pulling water out of the air) is essentially the same as desalination. To explain just a bit further... water evaporates slower when the air above it is already full of water, more water = slower evaporation so less water = faster evaporation, and that water is evaporating from the salty ocean, ie evaporative desalination. These seem like a much better way of desalinating water, but that is still in essence what it's doing, and the resultant is a saltier ocean (which is a growing issue).
Projects like these are great to meet growing water demand, but they don't solve the sustainability issue. In the end, what we need most is to be much more efficient with our use of water, because just like climate change, it's not a problem that will just naturally reverse itself.
Yes, but the water vapour above the water was likely going to be blown onshore anyway, to be replaced by dryer air from higher altitude with the normal convection currents. I don't think this dries the air above the sea to any measureable degree.
"the resultant is a saltier ocean"
You're forgetting that the water we use is recycled back to the atmosphere continuously and rains back INTO the ocean, either directly, or through rivers and underground reservoirs.
i'd have to say the main difference though is the concentration of brine dumped into the ocean, using this method would require an extraordinarily vast quantity of water to be removed from the ocean before salinity becomes a problem.
@@TheRadiastral That's really oversimplified, friend. I didn't forget about it, it's just not how it works. Water we use goes to treatment facilities. It takes time and chemicals to get it back into the environment. Even with that aside, the effects of increasing salt concentration is localized to the areas the desalination occurs, so it still has an environmental impact on local ecosystems. Even THAT aside, the ocean AS A WHOLE is becoming saltier as we mine salt from below the earth (and spread it all over our roads and use it in various chemical processes), and it makes its way into the water supply, although this is counterbalanced by the (objectively bad) melting of freshwater reservoirs of ice.
It's easy to think that because things happen slowly or spread out they aren't happening, but they are. If you have salt water and you evaporate fresh water off it, you get saltier water.
I think I see what you're saying, but this is taking advantage of a process that already naturally occurs, whereas traditional desal pumps highly concentrated brine back into the sea. It's not that this is inherently bad, it's just that local ecosystems aren't equipped to handle it.
This process is tapping into a cycle that is already taking place, and because of that, local ocean ecosystems are much more likely to adjust to it or accommodate the impact of it.
One way or the other, water generation is going to be a primary solution to growing water demand. Humans *could* conserve their way out of this, but if any other viable option (like this seemingly is) is available, humans are going to take it. I know I will.
Such a fantastic idea! Thanks for picking it up and sharing this with us. From all renewable tech channels you always pick the best technologies and ideas 👏🏽👏🏽
Glad you like it!
Totally agree. And not only that, but I think Two Bit beats many channels in delivery and balance.
"Yeah, right."
Plants need this humidity. If we such it out of atmosphere for drinking water the world would turn into a dessert. Just saying.
@@patkonelectric
Space cadets-ville.
I REALLY appreciate how you can explain the the tech, the benefits and most importantly $$ to people to weigh in their thoughts. Unfortunately, $$ takes a higher priority in some but it explains why that is and the benefits. Don't build cheap.
This is SO INTERESTING & EXCITING that I am feeling ANXIOUS. I AM LOVING IT.
So far, this is one of the best ideas I've seen for water harvesting in saltwater. 😄
12:00 It's quite nice, but the water then goes to others where it would normally rain. Even this small amount can already cause rain to fail in low-rainfall regions with poor people. So there should already be a simulation that times the changes over a decade. Rain is not about the total amount, but about the amount of precipitation per day.
Reminds me a bit of the Aswan Dam, even if the comparison is lame.
It's much more complicated than that, humidity in the air most of the time in most places will never become rain so it's not taking away anything. And 10 miles away the humidity on the ocean will be completely unaffected. Additionally, if the water is used to grow crops in a dry or drought stricken area that will actually actually increase the humidity and the likelihood of rain because of the transpiration from the plants
@@sagetmaster4 I knew the part about humidity and plants. 😄
But normally the evaporation over a large open water area with wind is something else than e.g. hilly land, right? That's why I thought of climate models (preferably satellite-based).
But unfortunately I must admit that I am not deeper in the matter then. I am curious how this will go on.
Combine this with wind generators and store the water to have it collected by a purpose built (small) tanker ship, transport it to a facility onshore to be put into the water system serving a city. This could benefit a rural area by reducing the water taken from the rural area to service the city.
Look up Moeses west he's responsible for this technology
I like that you mentioned piping it under water as a condescending stage. That was my question when watching this video. I have a ground source heat pump and it is crazy efficient as a cooling system.
If you want a really effective way of harvesting drinking water from the oceans, you would want to build a large solar-updraft tower, either as a floating device or on land near coastal area and fill the surface beneath the canapé with sea water. Dimensions are 5km diameter canapé and 1km large solar tower using strong and lightweight materials. It harvests energy from the updraft humid air, and condensers in the tower can harvest drinking water. Plus you can collect any rainfall on the 5km diamater structure and store it in tanks.
You could also built them on land near a mountain range that is a barrier for rainfall, and built the tower alongside of the slope of the mountain range, and fill the surface under the canapé with sea water (so it has to be built close to the ocean). Some of the humid air will escape and will increase rainfall in the area that normally is part of a rainshadow.
Catching the mist of the ocean, without limitations means less clouds, less rain more droughts! Less water for the global population of plants! Less water falling into the hydroelectric dams downwind!
Not really. He mentioned that the effect on the overall water cycle is minuscule. And besides, now we can just skip the middleman of clouds and get the freshwater directly.
I really hope we take this on, especially the food growing nations, the next wave of droughts is gonna be brutal. Gotta share this one!
please do share it..... hopefully someone will do some testing on it at a larger scale.
The big thing is Androids and robots take hold on doing a lot of the work we do not need a large population.
When that happens, you going to see the largest birth control you will ever see in this world.
Brilliant channel title! I can't wait to see what the two-bit Mona Lisa looks like.
Amazing video and tech - hope to see more of this - thank you :))
This is such an interesting idea. I imagine there are some things to be worked out but none of them look to be insurmountable/cost prohibitive. This concept seems like a great candidate for funding a few different groups to develop and test some different versions as test pilot projects (powered by onsite solar vs wind vs shore power source, etc) Then see which work best and iterate through resolving the issues to find to most robust solution. Since like 70pct of the population is with 100 miles of the ocean these could be a good additional source of fresh water. One thing I also think of is in places like California where any water they use at the coastal cities is competing with water needed upstream inland for agriculture and there often isn't enough for both. If they could supplement nonagricultrual water needs near the coast with these it would relieve pressure on the other water sources needed for agriculture inland...after all we also need food :-)
yes a pilot project is needed to test viability further ... but it all checks out on paper.
As a Perth resident, I would love to see something like this here. It would be great if we could allow our dams to fill and be used for recreational activities instead of being off limits. And 4 to provide all off the water requirements? No need to rely on groundwater and desalination
This is such a good idea. If we use PV and wind turbines at a sea location to draw the vapour and condense it then pipeline it to aquifer injection points we get an efficient water delivery system that chimes in with the existing infrastructure of aquifers.
Not sure if the scale of extracting freshwater this way would be sufficient but it is working in the right direction to reduce hurricanes as they are caused by water vapour over the oceans combined with the coriolis affect spinnig up the mass of vapour. I suspect this would require a much greater extraction than required by our water needs
I could see this being used to sequester a substantial portion of water in the atmosphere maybe balancing out the temperature extremes and settling the weather down, there would need to be considerations for shifts in ocean currents, but most other issues would be relatively easy to anticipate and plan for.
Finally I can be a moisture farmer on Tatooine!
This is the way 😆
This seems like a great new concept. I’d suggest the tower needs to compress the air by a small amount to increase the temperature then pipe the air through air ducts in the water so the sea water can cool the compressed air. When depressurization occurs at the land based plant the saturated air will already be chilled making the condensation require less energy
It’s all about the dew point and ambient temperature.
The biggest issue is that saltwater / marine environment is very very very corrosive. So what ever you use to get a lot of cold surface area needs to have a good thermal conductivity but be able to withstand the corrosion.
This channel is a reminder of all the things I will not see or get to experience in my lifetime :(
Or,......... we could replace San Onofre Nuclear Powerstation with a hydrogen harvesting (sea water) station that powers (repurposed) hydrogen-powered turbines to produce electricity and at the same time perfectly clean water. We get both electricity and clean water and we do not transport hydrogen.
Every time I get an ice, cold glass of water and set it on the table. I see this effect in action. I get a pool of water underneath the glass. I think this is really practicable. Does not produce a lot of brine only involves moving air over a cool surface and then goes into the water system. I think it deserves a lot more attention.
Your refrigerator used a lot of energy to cool that water down. Keep that in mind when you consider the true cost of that water. It's not free.
Again a very clear treated subject. Thanks Ricky
Standard Dehumidifier will work on an individual level, then filter & purify water. Researched doing this on a sailboat for water resupply, just need enough power.
I've thought of this a few years ago. Its the sea version of those mist catching nets . I was thinking of a passive version but the renewable energy hybrid concept makes more sense for larger populations.
yeah much closer to the source much higher miosture density and more consistency and much higher volume with a active/passive system.
@@TwoBitDaVinci Your presentation is extremely digestible and well presented. It's a refreshing part of the tech info and solutions on utube!
It doesn't. If you do it on a large scale you'll quickly get brine issues.
It works as long as it is a very small production thus not usefull. Otherwise pollution it generates becomes a huge problem fast (like all dessalting factories)
@@etienne8110 It's not desalinating. The water vapor is freshwater, it's just captured. Yes there would be an increase in salinity around the tower but it should be well diluted over a large area, so nothing like brine.
@@aesma2522 Depend on the scale of the operations.
If you only have one tower extracting a measly few liters, yeah no problems.
If you want multiple units extracting enough cubic meters to feed a city, then you'll have pollution issues.
You are too short sighted/lack the ability to have a larger scale comprehension of the process.
I was laughing as my son was telling me over the weekend that he is in the process of hooking up a hose to the water drain on his HVAC (here in Central Florida very HUMID) and is going into a 5 gallon container with a small water pump that will distribute the water to his small raised bed gardens. A great idea as my HVAC empties into a small saucer that the doves come every day and drink out of... oh, also the tiny lizards. Another GREAT video, keep them coming
Ac condensate is a great resource
Make sure you're aware and ok with the aluminum content in the water if you're using it for edible plants.
@@Eyes0penNoFear I have reviewed this in the past and have not come across any issues with using the HVAC water for plants and vegetables. There is an exception to this as I have seen some HVAC unit drains getting clogged with a White Slime. I would say that if this slime is in your HVAC water tray, then the water would not be good for watering fruits and veggies.
Natural gas????
There's NO excuse for high natural gas prices.
The only reason there are high prices is because of those stupid environmentalists.
I use dehumidifiers in my Scottish home, and other than using it for watering non-edible garden plants and equally non-edible house plants - I tip the whole lot away.
Unfortunately, with devices like HVACs and dehumidifiers, because the manufacturers are under 'no obligation' to create these machines for the use of collecting 'drinkable' water, they allow that collected water to run over surfaces containing copper, aluminium, a variety of plastics (including carcinogenic ones), and even lead.
In addition to these materials, there's also the issue of micro-organisms which commonly collect in the pipework, tanks (dehumidifiers) and trays (HVAC's). Legionnaire's Disease is an especially infamous micro-organism that instantly springs to mind.
As my husband knows a retired engineer who worked with HVACs, the strong probability of dangerous micro-organisms was his warning to us when we enquired about the safety of using collected water.
I checked sites dedicated to issues concerning HVAC's and they definitely advise 'against' using the water for edible plants, giving to pets, using it for human consumption.
It is, essentially, polluted.
Because I was still rather curious about the quality of water from a dehumidifier, I did once try the collected water from a new machine for a pot of tea.
The taste was amazing, like it was a completely different drink. There isn't a water filter I've ever used that has come close to producing water that makes tea taste so good.
However, my experiment was a one-off and I wouldn't chance it again, no matter how thoroughly I 'try' to clean the machine.
On an ocean vessel or abandoned oil platform small amounts of sea water enclosed in a transparent pressure cooker with sunlight concentrated onto the pressure cooker will vaporize the sea water at a 160 degrees or less, the salt is then scrapped off and stored for pickup and the fresh water is also stored for pick up. Since the water and salt is all removed, there's no harm to the surrounding Ocean and wildlife.
This is amazing, so simple
What I like about the idea is it poses little risk to the current water cycle operating in these areas. Throw in efficiency gains from better engineering and it sounds very promising.
That was the first thing that came to mind when I learned about AWG’s was to use the ocean and solar and wind power. Kinda a no-brainer. It’s kinda like owning your own cloud 🌧️
Great idea, as someone has mentioned we all ready have Dehumidifiers so the tech is good, but one area I can think of, is the possible reduction in cloud formation if it was widely used.
This concept makes a lot of sense in coastal regions, like a downsized residential version for a water front property. But pipe the residual cooled dried air into the house air conditioning for further energy savings.
cool idea
I wonder about corrosion resistance and related maintenance
your right and that is often the big consideration in anything in contact with salt water.
Fascinating! Here in the Bay Area the humidity is often over 100% (San Francisco fog) so it should work fabulously well. It comes pre-condensed!
One small nit: You say it may be cheaper than conventional water. The problem is that most out water bill is actually for the maintenance of the pipes. pumping costs etc. People make the same mistake with electric power - in our area the distribution costs are 60% of the bill. Even if the power was free the bill would only drop 30%. But still - a great idea!
Reminds me of the nets they use in the desert to catch the dew. How cool ❤
Very good idea, I especially liked your Solution on the condensation system. I wonder how it would work with those electrostatic wires that catch the moisture in the air?
This tech needs a lot of attention and innovation... so many great comments here just in the few hours this video has been on.
Yes! There could be a whole set of condensation technologies we could try to see which one is more efficient and effective. That's where entrepreneurs and innovative startups come in.
The war in Ukraine has nothing to do with the natural gas problem. That's a political smokescreen.
Based on a video I saw yesterday on underwater server farms, I would think circulating cold sea water through these towers could provide all the cooling needed
Yes i would think so, great idea sounds like a win win to me
The water would have to be pumped from significant depth. Really need power consumption numbers before I even think about being excited for this. Ima suggest Thunderf00t do a breakdown
Electrolysis air pump
Perhaps a separate windmill driving an Archimedes screw? Or a siphon that would flow easily once it got started..? This should be solvable, yes..?
Pumping the air under water could cause some serious problem with oxidation due to salt. Maby using some materials that avoid this. A very interesting idea
5:16 One of the reasons that desalination is not good is that “..it produces a concentrated salt water solution called brine that is usually pumped back into the ocean where it can wreak havoc by altering local salinity and temperature on the ocean floor.”
Logic tells me that this collection and removal of humidity above the ocean surface (that normally is in equilibrium, evaporating and re-condensing at the surface) will increase the local salinity by the same amount as land-based desalination. If the cool water near the ocean floor is used to help condense the humidity into liquid water, it will also have some temperature-raising effect also.
It appears that this really cool idea basically moves the system off-shore and gets rid of the pipe that would be dumping easily noticed point-source brine into the ocean.
This is why we need a large scale test of this technology to put it up against Desal tech.... we need answers to questions like yours. I would think that the effect if it is as your thinking would be by far more dispersed than traditional desal? we need more thinkers like you promoting these types of questions and seeking answers. Thanks for watching
I really like this video. Skeptics might talk about getting the water inland. Yes there are issues inland. That aside. Majority of our population is costal. In the case of the South West the biggest water right holder to the Colorado River is California. That is why they are the most reluctant to sign-off on necessary reductions--they have the most lose. This is going to be a multi solution problem. A solution in one area may have an indirect benefit for areas it doesn't directly serve.
Thanks for watching. And yes if a coastal location like california can solve its water issues it should at least in theory help those upstream and inland.
One problem I see with this idea, is that the sea mist this guys want to collect is usually salty. It comes more from the wind lifting water droplets from the surface than from evaporation.
Yeah, any costal city has higher rust problems because of that. And it can happen miles inland from the beach. So, I'm skeptical that this is as big a solution as they think it will be.
Actually, this isn't collecting mist at all. It's collecting moist air, which is air with water vapor (a gas) not a mist of tiny saltwater droplets (a liquid). That's what makes this different from fog-capture devices and it's also why it needs a lot more energy to run; because you need to compress the air and cool it to force the vapor to condense
That definitely needs to be engineered around in this application.
@@Israel_Two_Bit If it is collecting the water vapor, it will also collect the floating droplets. So the resulting water will be salty. There is no way around it. Maybe less salty than seawater, but still...
@@DrBernon Agreed. The salt is IN SOLUTION in the water. It's not some particulate that magically dissipates with [de]compression forces. You'll still have some salt left, and have spent tons of energy to get a non clean result. I'm starting to feel that this is a scam.
When seawater freezes, you get freshwater ice.
You can put seawater in a hanging bucket and collect the ice that forms on the surface of the water when the air temp is below 0 C/ 32 F.
On a small scale, it might not be very efficient, but it could save your life on a cold sailing passage if you run out of freshwater.
If you scaled it up someplace cold with access to seawater, you could make unlimited amounts of freshwater ice in the wintertime when temp was
This is a pretty clever idea indeed, according to what I’m hearing from this video. Now this would increase ocean salinity levels by just as much as desalination plants would, however it would not be very localized, which was the main issue. This is likely a not a huge issue, and probably less of an issue than other options. It would also have similar issues to avian life as wind farms as well. It’s not perfect, but it seems better than alternatives.
While you're processing that much air, you could combine this with a carbon capture filter which would be even more effective near polluting cities.
Very true.... win win
There's no benefit to _"carbon capture"._ It's a sick joke.
@@KenJackson_US Like plastic recycling and clean coal. Heck, and nuclear power too.
You're right about plastic recycling, @@nedwulin4646. But coal is an absolute necessity, clean or not, without sufficient nuclear power. And how could anyone consider nuclear power a joke? It's the all around most excellent choice. If CO2 were actually a problem, nuclear power would be the indispensable champion.
As a UK resident I find it gobsmacking how a family of four gets to use 330 gallons a day, let alone 79-80+ GALLONS per person. Lets's look at it from a metered water perspective:
1x 3 minute shower => 6 gallons I know it's less since our water flow rate is
Water being cheap is likely main reason, also appliances don't strive to conserve, but you're right it should be possible to face quite easily...
But if it's pennies you're saving and it's taking more of your precious time... again I simply think water is priced too cheap.
I don't know where this number came from, but a full accounting of per capita water use would include water used to grow the food you eat and to manufacture the products you consume. Not just direct personal consumption.
@@bobbun9630 that smacks of gross assumptions and double or even triple accounting. I'm well aware that agriculture in particular requires huge amounts of water but to bundle it into the daily "family" consumption is disengenuous at best, downright misleading at worst!
Biggest usage of water in agriculture is growing veg! So yet again Vegans hiding the fact that THEY not carnivores are a bigger issue than they make out. Cows eat grass ... Watered by rain not fresh water from the mains! 🤔🙄👎
@@boblewis5558 "Cows eat grass ... Watered by rain not fresh water from the mains!"
We're talking about the U.S. here, not the U.K. In the U.S., cows commonly eat maize an irrigated crop, for a good chunk of their lives. No, it's not irrigated with treated water, but it's a huge amount. Notably a lot of American cattle are raised in desert or semi-arid areas, and their food tends to be grown locally because irrigation is cheaper than shipping. In such areas, water is sufficiently scarce that different interests have to compete for it.
I'm not sure why you would consider accounting for agricultural or industrial use double or triple accounting. The water is only counted once, and presumably if there were fewer mouths to feed or fewer geegaws to buy the drop in demand for those things would mean less water would be expended to produce them.
This reminds me of a company now called Zeromass that around 7 or 8 years ago created a solar unit that could collect enough water each day for a families drinking needs. It had two solar panels and the water collector between the two. Worked similar to a dehumidifier and also filtered the water.
I live in Northern Utah, drought is a huge worry here, and the shrinking great salt lake. I wonder if this could work on the GSL maybe to keep some of the water it loses every summer.
if they added this along the pacific this could help relieve some of the stress on the colorado river basin that is in real danger. would be great to see the government work on something like this proactively before drought makes us have to change some things.
I've dreamt of giant floating barges powered by sunlight and wind that ship fresh water and hydrogen back to shore in smaller barges. Could really go nuts and build some super-structure type barges to control hurricanes and typhoons, absorbing all the wind energy, or all the heat/solar energy where it's concentrating before storms from in the first place.
Or just build a pipeline. Would be far more efficient
our planet is not facing a fresh water crisis.
Speak for yourself. There are water shortages all over my country
@@will_o_lamp move away from sahara.
I had this exact idea a few weeks ago and I have to say I'm a little bit disappointed that someone came up with it first. Still, I hope that these units start to spring up and help out the countries struggling with water supply.
Water temps drop pretty fast below 100ft. So dumping the heat below the surface of the ocean should save even more energy.
mechanical tidal desalition is much more scalable :)
Brine is the problem imo. Huge quantity of brine
@@crazydrifter13 and corrosion
@@chevychase3103 yes that too 😀
Your a very Smart Man. Thank you. God Speed 🐬
I strongly suspect those cost figures are too optimistic, but as you said, it's an intriguing idea.
Incredibly exciting stuff.
very cool right
incredible. they need to be constructed
This is where wave action energy needs the greatest of attention, using waves to pump air seems like an inovation completely overlooked here.
indeed that would be a awesome tech combo
Interesting thought, locate this next to a thermal battery to store the waste heat and use the heat to run turbines at night.
Idea could use some work but increasing efficiency is always good.
Pure genius!