Great episode! I have for so long wondered why this isn't the norm for desalination, I even tried to see if there was some fundamental flaw I was unaware of that made it impractical, but haven't found any. I suspect applying a lot of heat to staged vacuum distillation system makes that significantly more compact, and controllable/reliable compared to relying on ambient temperature differences, but 8 C delta isn't that hard to find, in hot dry climates just evaporative cooling can produce much more than that most of the time.
Can we build a trompe and add it to this system before the water is supplied to end users and create electricity? I've often felt that with so many rivers in India and the interlinking project in the works, couldn't we generate electricity using trompes? As an additional benefit, since a trompe also dissolves some oxygen into the water that continues to flow back into the river, once it has exited the device, wouldn't this make the water cleaner and help the growth of aquatic life in the river - including edible fish? Given the drilling technologies we have available now, the holes we'd need for a trompe producing a decent amount of energy would be of a relatively trivial depth.
I also liked your seaweed for biofuels episode and agree with you on it being one of the only feasible paths to sustainable fuel. However, I believe we are also missing out on onshore potential. Hear me out. India has lakhs of kilometres of rivers, highways and railway tracks. The embankments on all three need to be structurally sound. Certain fast growing grasses - such as Vetiver - grow roots as deep as 12 to 15 feet and have the strength of mild steel. An embankment of 2 mts on either side - which is a very conservative estimate - would mean that each km would be equivalent to about an acre of growing area. That's a *lot* of biomass! Furthermore, water doesn't pass through a line of Vetiver, so by creating gaps that are directed to catchment areas, we could use highways and railway tracks as rainwater harvesting infrastructure. Vetiver can survive up to 2 months of freeze. So we could even use it to stop landslides and erosion in the Himalayas while harvesting biomass. Lastly Vetiver doesn't spread out of control naturally, it will go in the same straight line that it has been planted, indefinitely. So there's no danger of it being an invasive species.
Finally, what is your take on hydrothermal carbonization? Couldn't we use it to create value from our sewage as well as garbage? No need to separate wet and dry waste. Effective plastic disposal etc etc
Please make a video about hydraulic hybrids. I really feel that creating retrofit hydraulic hybrid systems for vehicles and the shift to biofuels - especially with seaweed based and biomass based production would be a gamechanger and possibly the only effective and feasible way to transition to sustainable transport.
Thanks for sharing this important technology! but... You assert that condensing water from air is not an abundant enough solution, this is incorrect. Essentially all our fresh water comes from condensing water from air in the form of rain. I have done the math on using the ocean thermocline as the cold source for condensation. It is half the cost of reverse osmosis and has zero brine. It shares the issue of LTTD that many areas do not have easy access to a large thermocline. I am a huge fan and wish you the best.
you are missing the forest for the trees . if in one location you have enough humidity for enough water extraction then its a prerequisite for a rainy season . it will not work in a dry area where u need it . This is why no one with a brain have tried it only scammer & missguided people . Read history of it how many time people have fallen for it ITS SAD
Atmospheric water harvesting is in a way kind of the same thing, but with around 100 air molecules for every water molecule, making it 100 times worse than low temperature vacuum distillation, in multiple ways. 100 times worse is a ballpark figure, that's assuming warm very humid air and significantly lower temperature of the heat sink. I you manage to extract 10 grams of water per cubic meter of air, you need to process 100 cubic meters of air to get a single liter of water. That water will contain air pollutants.
@@fishyerik Quite right. Here in California the air contains a bit less than 10g/cubic meter and of course you can't capture all of it. I estimate1720 cubic meters of air per gallon of water collected. This works out to 5 watt hrs per gallon for air flow while water pumping sea water needs an additional 20 watt hrs per gallon, so the air handling isn't really the problem. For various reasons you want to collect the air out over the ocean, lower pollutants is one reason and higher humidity is another.
@@s2tenglish You are correct that scammers and misguided folks have made the water from air topic a laughingstock. But it is incorrect to say that only brainless people have proposed it seriously. One paper from an Indian scientist can be found by searching for the words nariphaltan and dew. His only problem was his choice of a horribly inefficient condenser.
