This Breakthrough Replaces Water Desalination! 

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This video covers the most expensive and impractical ways of collecting water from air, while neglecting the most practical methods of extracting water from air (and other places). The most practical/economical way to extract water from the air, is to let nature do the most energy intensive step (of condensing the water out of the air). For people that don't live in foggy regions where fog nets may work, the most practical way to do this is to install rain gutters on your house roof, awnings, barns, sheds, solar arrays, etc., and then channel rainwater into large volume storage containers (such as big plastic containers like 275 gallon IBC totes or larger, and/or an in ground swimming pool with a cover installed over it, and/or a custom built cistern). The water collected should then be pumped up to pressure with an electric pump, and then filtered with a sediment filter, a carbon filter, and then a UV water sanitizer. Further filtering with a reverse osmosis unit, followed by a re-mineralizing pack is desirable for best water purity and final taste, but is normally non-essential for safety (unless contaminated by algae and/or radioactive fallout, in which case the reverse osmosis stage is highly recommended), if the water was already filtered through a carbon filter and UV water sanitizer. The equipment needed to do all of this in a basic and relatively small system can generally be had for less than $1000 (assuming you use DIY labor), and will generally produce vastly more average annual water output (even in desert locations), compared to vastly overpriced equipment like the "Zero Mass" air/water extraction devices. Ordinary air conditioners also produce non-negligible amounts of condensate water when running, especially when set to a very cold thermostat temperature. For common whole house AC systems, the condensate water normally collects in a tray under the cold side heat exchanger (often located in one's attic space or wherever the air handler is located). Typically, the water collected is wasted by being piped to a drain that goes into the household sewer lines. One can modify the plumbing on the drain line, so as to instead divert the condensate water to a storage container, whereby it can be purified with a carbon filter and UV sanitizer. Although condensate water is normally fairly clean, it can contain dust from the air and possible traces of mold from the cold side coils on the air conditioner, so it is still preferred to post filter the water with a carbon filter and UV sanitizer before drinking. Trying to obtain large amounts of water in this manner will be very electricity energy intensive however, as it is fundamentally the same as what the grossly overpriced "Tsunami" systems described in this RU-vid video are doing. A far more efficient way of collecting water is via a rain catchment system, but capturing incidental air conditioner condensate water is something that is potentially somewhat interesting, if you are primarily running the air conditioner for home cooling purposes, rather than for water capture purposes. The water produced requires far too much electricity to be economically competitive with other water obtainment methods, but when incidental water is captured, it is essentially a "free byproduct" of cooling off your house with the air conditioner. Although not "from the air", grey water capture and recycling is also more practical, compared to most of the schemes described in this RU-vid video. Making potable drinking water from grey water is feasible with a sand filter, a charcoal filter, a sediment filter, a carbon filter, a UV sanitizer, and a reverse osmosis based filter. This can be done both at small scale in a residential setting, and at large scale, and it is fairly economical overall. Some municipal fresh water utilities in water starved cities in the US already do this for meeting some of the city's water needs, by using "reclaimed" water as the input water source. The "reclaimed" water is sewer water that has been treated by a municipal sewage treatment plant, prior to subsequent filtering (including the most important step, the reverse osmosis purification). Cities that do this usually don't like to advertise that they are selling you recycled sewer water, but it is nevertheless still being done in some cities where there is not enough nearby surface or groundwater resources available to meet all of the city's fresh water needs directly. That said, fresh water produced via reverse osmosis filtration will normally be much cleaner and more pure than normal municipal water derived from surface water sources, even if it is recycled sewer water. Wells and sea water desalination (if you have access to sea water) will provide much more reliable and abundant water, compared to trying to capture water from the air, but there are many ways to produce clean drinking water, and they are not mutually exclusive with one another.

My air conditioner has been pulling water from the air for years

Video topic starts at 5:13 expensive dehumidifier. 7:45 fog nets with nano fibres. 9:13 super sponge hydrogel

Loving your videos. Keep up the great work. I was unaware of the tidal generation of electricity being already used. I have shared many of your videos to my Facebook. Hopefully, your information will be shared and become more widely used.

The biggest problem with all of these systems is that they work worst in places with low humidity, where they would be needed most.

I have a dehumidifier in the crawlspace with a 70 pint capacity. In summer it fills up almost every other day, in winter I don't run it as the radon system keeps the space dry enough. It is amazing seeing the amount of water coming out of the air!

Southern Africa has been having some good results from burying clay pots down about 4' under the surface it has APVC pipe up that collects the air and I believe each day it will deliver 11 quarts. The new atmospheric nets that they make that drain into a communal system could help look up Southern Algiers. The biggest thing is people need to factor in quit wasting water

Great news and information. Well presented. Easy to understand, great graphics and well explained. My hat is off to you Brother. Ty so very much God-bless you and your family 👪 ❤️

How is this different from dehumidifiers? I'm not a huge thunderf00t fan but he has several videos "debunking" a lot of claims of systems like these as they're not much of an improvement over traditional dehumidifiers. I would be interested in hearing your counter to these type of arguments.

I appreciate you posting this, but we've had functioning AWG for years. The most crude version is water dripping from an air conditioner unit. People have talked about de-humidifiers and drinking the water from those. There are battery powered solid state cooling devices that can be used to keep food cool on trips, and if they cool below the dew point, can generate water. Someone posted a funding request for a windmill with additional solar panels to run an AWG in remote areas. But the single biggest problem there is people smashing those things so they can sell the scrap metal. But again, appreciate you raising awareness.

Love the pool heat pump idea. Have you thought about a multi-tier system? Think about these add-ons. What about using a cistern system to catch rainwater and use it for non-potable things, such as washing the car, dishes, watering the lawn and adding water to the pool. You can then use the water in the pool to provide water to the toilets. The idea is to reduce drinkable/potable water to that used to drink, bathe and washing dishes. This would significantly reduce water that would be produced by these systems thereby reducing the energy needed and the amount of water needed. We used a 55 gallon pickle drum to collect water at my house for washing the car and watering the lawn and plants. It was amazing. Just after I installed it we a rain that could only be described as a mist rather than a rain. I thought we were going to need a real rain to fill the drum, but that mist filled it in about an hour. ?!? Cistern systems really could reduce the demand for potable water.

Always good to hear what's available, feasible, possible, and cost options...the more info shared, the more brainstorming to bring forth more variety, and cost effective solutions, both small and broad scale. I am interested in desalination alternatives that use magnetic nano technology; & possible cost effective piping to needed regions. Always like learning about small scale, options for dessert areas. Thank you for sharing your research

Use of greywater and other conservation methods means you can cut the 300 gallons/day down significantly. This angle needs to be part of the discussion.

I recall reading about a greenhouse system which uses seawater taken from two points at different depths. Basically the windward facing side of the greenhouse has a simple woven netting which is saturated with seawater taken from the top warm seawater intake. The warm salty water drips down the netting and evaporates as the wind passes through the netting. The sea salt stays in the netting and can be easily removed by simply wacking the netting with a carpet beater when it becomes clogged. The sea salt can also be packaged and sold. The water pumped from the second intake of colder seawater taken from deeper in the sea runs through a system of small gauge metal piping positioned above the plants in the greenhouse. The highly humid air condenses on these pipes and drips down onto the plants. It was claimed that these simple and cheap poly-greenhouses could employ 20 people and feed their families and provide enough excess water for those families while still producing enough fresh produce to be financially viable. the pumps run on solar power needing only a few panels to maintain the electric needs. Unfortunately this will only work if you are near a sea.

Your final note on using the swimming pool as a heat sink for the cooling part of a condenser does sound intriguing.... until the pool gets so hot that you need to start cooling it! I'd like to see the math on whether the condensation you manage to achieve is wiped out by the elevated evaporation due to heating the pool. Or simply factoring in how much water you need to keep topping up the pool to counteract normal evaporation in the first place.

Start by reducing consumption. I Cape Town we have been through a recent severe drought. Lots of great ideas have been around for reducing consumption. 20 gal per day per person is fairly easy to get to. Rain water collection, water wise gardens, grey water harvesting. No treatment is necessary if these waters are only used in the garden.

Places like San Diego have very little humidity although it seems to be increasing slowly as a climate warms where you need the water the most is Desert communities that have the least amount in the air

So what I'm hearing is that we need a transparent hydrogel coating for solar panels that can absorb water during the night and then evaporate it off during the day to cool the panel.

Great video, thanks! Would be awesome if you could make the calculations in SI units.

I live in Houston TX USA. A couple years back we replaced our central air conditioning unit with a heat pump and moved the primary condensation drain from the domestic sewer to the outside (Just reroute the pipe out side). The heat/ac unit is in the attic. Then I bought a 55 gallon food grade plastic barrel and ran the condensate drain into the barrel. Initially, I planned to use the condensate to water my potted plants. Well, after 7 days the drum overflowed. The ac produces over 7.5+ gallons of water daily. That's 225 gallons water monthly. Understanding we live in a high humidity area other areas might not see the same results. I plan to use the water for a 50 ft raised bed garden. Water water everywhere, we just need to learn how to find it.

One other way to save on water - turn off the shower, while you apply shampoo and wash yourself, don't water your lawn, use a dishwasher etc. but as long as water is so cheap and few people will care I guess.

Rain collection and grey water reuse. You could also go get a few off the shelf dehumidifiers and put them out in the yard.

In S. Florida we have the opposite problem. Getting rid of water in the air in the house. So not only do we have an HVAC system, we also have a dehumidifier. The dogs prefer the condensate to even the ground water from the well. If we are lucky, we can keep the RH down to 50% but both units will be producing gallons of water per day. I also use it as needed for top off water for the battery bank.

Here in Tucson we have salt cedars that were brought here over two hundred years ago. When they are small they get fresh water from the ground but when they get really big they rely on the water in the air.

I once heard of an idea for water desalination, don’t know how well it would work: you build a long thin “mini-greenhouse”, say two feet wide and tall and a mile long. A salt-water trough runs down the middle, from which water evaporates. It recondenses on something (what would work best?) and drips into shaded and partially covered collector troughs running down each side.

I’m definitely most into those nets. I aspire to build a homestead cabin in my 30s and while those industrial Tsunami ones would be fantastic scaled up and energy efficiency optimized for communities, those nets and gels (I can’t really imagine too much use out of the gels though, not sure why) would be awesome for a cabin. I’d still have a well and a rainwater system obviously, but, it’d be great to have that extra diversity and take some load off of the groundwater as the shifting rains dry new ground out, especially since plants in my experience don’t really use humidity as much as we’d think. Awesome stuff with seriously low impact, I love it.

It's so nice to come to an informative and entertaining channel which has videos which do not have that awful fashionable annoying and distracting music over the voice. Those videos will not age well, but these on this channel, with just this wonderful voice, will be timeless treasures. Thank you.

Good Video! Even here in Washington State, people take water for granted. Glad you guys are getting some rain, at least I hope it's getting down your way.

"Uses 7 kilowatts per hour" -- correction, the kilowatt is an instantaneous consumption unit, so to find out per hour how much it adds up to, the unit would be then kilowatt-hour. So the correct way to express that would have been "Uses 7 kilowatts-hour per hour" or by simplification "Uses 7 kilowatts".

After watching so many Thunderfoot videos on how cost inefficient these dehumidifiers are and cost more than trucking in water, I’m very skeptical.

Back in the early 1970s, when I was in Forestry school, I read in a book something to the effect that as much water flows over the state of Arizona in one week as flows down the Mississippi river in a month, so this doesn't surprise me.

I installed a heat pump hot water heater last year and collect the waste water from my unit. I currently produce 5 gallons a month (average) and have it stored for emergency water purposes. Since I make BIOCHAR I can use that to filter the heat pump water if needed. Nice presentation.

Wow, they built a big dehumidifier. And I wonder about the environmental wisdom of pulling water out of the air on a large scale.

I know what a dehumidifier is, just popped in to see what the take on it is/was here. Just buy any dehumidifier then get a small filter system to treat and filter the water. Your good. The filter system would be the key due to the nature of it and having to literally force the water through the filter. How about a geothermal style condenser that uses water cooled under ground in a grid to condense water from the air. The trick would be figuring out how to power the small pump. I guess that would need to be done via solar panels and batteries. But I am thinking maybe convection might also work if you ad in back flow valves to keep the water flowing in a loop. I just bought a large flat style HVAC coil and am planning on initially using cold well water to air condition my work shop. Later I want to use a under ground cooling loop instead of the well water. I am betting the well water at 50 degrees may act as a dehumidifier so I will need a drain, a drain is already built into the HVAC coil so I could collect that water, filer it and then drink it. but do not need to. In the end places that are vary dry concerning humidity and have no local rivers, that would be a difficult place to pull water from the air. Those places are were this water out of air is actually needed.

This definitely doesn't make desalination plants obsolete. We just have to actually use the desalination plants and water generators to run them.

The big question for me is what happens to the atmosphere when humanity around the world uses these technologies. The potential changes to ecosystems would probably create the next global crisis as areas around the world would blame other parts of the world for their water shortages.

I have a Rheem Protera 303L/80 freedom gallon’s ;) heat pump water heater. I haven’t measured it but I imagine this would be a much more efficient route as you heat your water it draws in you warm moist air spitting out cold dry air and waste water. Basically a dehumidifier for my basement. I would love to figure out how I can recirculate that in my system. Or just use it in plants in the summer.

I would argue just using desalination and then building water pipelines or other transport methods for a vast majority of situations. You would have to do an energy analysis of one process against the other to really understand the difference, but I believe desalination is many times more cost effective and easier to do in bulk. I think in certain situations, like if you were to make a hyper-efficient air balloon using renewables where travel is slow and producing water in the air is convenient, or if you are at a high elevation where the transport cost offsets costs, then due to the scenario it may be a better choice though.

One additional cost to factor into water extraction systems compared to a community water connection is that in the latter the water arrives under pressure. So with the water extraction system, it at least has to be mounted up high, or you need a pump. Not insurmountable, but just something to include.

Thank you. Most educational.

I wonder how long before Thunderfoot does a video debunking this subject again?

So these Tsunami systems are basically A/C units. I was hoping for something more innovative. My A/C unit also creates a lot of water as well.

GREAT RESEARCH.I Love your videos

As someone that works in Water Treatment, it should be noted that the water from all 4 of these technologies would produce un-mineralized and undisinfected water. This means that you really shouldn't drink it and you can not interconnect it to the standard water grid. That doesn't even factor in power to pump collected water to holding or to pressurize holding to your 2nd grid. Community scale water treatment has many advantages to homebrew. More cost effective desalination (MIT's new system or ocean vapor collection) will blow the socks off of any in-home appliance.

The Source Hydropanels at the end actually produce less water than just leaving a bucket with the same x/y dimensions outside to collect the average rainfall in most US cities, if you average it out over a full year. 8 litres (each panel's cited maximum daily output) is about 2.11 gallons and I'm led to believe that Wal-Mart will sell buckets that hold more than that for way less than $3000 each. You can make your own bucket-feeder system to catch rain for a home storage tank (which presumably you'd need to buy as well to make proper use of any of these systems anyway) for a steal by comparison... or just set up your house's whole roof into a funnel run-off system instead and save on buckets.

It's called a dehumidifier😂😂😂😂they've been around awhile.

Living in Florida, I've considered collecting, filtering rain water. Including the addition of distilling process for potable water.

I remember the problem about desalination ... As I was in South France, Spain and also saw this in Thailand ... build the unit near a salines (salt harvesting area) and offer them the already higher salt water ... To take the water in the air will ALSO have other long term effects on the climate or sure regions as less water, also less rain. So Salinas might be better way, as first get drinking water, and after get salt and force more water to evaporate !

I like you analysis. I looked into capture nets in the past 10 years. I live on the coast that has fog nearly every morning so it seems ideal. However, afternoon wind is quite rough on the equipment and sunlight breaks down the nets quickly. Then there's birds.. finally filtration is still needed.

This is one of the subjects I've been looking into the fog net. Seems the best, self sustainable, cheap and no electric required option out there. Look forward to your progress and updates. Thanks for sharing 👍🇬🇧

desalination can be done without power input (other than ambient heat) flood a field to a shallow depth covered by a clear slanted roof. water evaporates condenses on the roof and rolls downhill to a collection point. mush slower than using a boat load of electricity but it works best in areas that are dry and hot, which is also where the most water is needed. after several cycles of flooding and evaporating - collect the salt left behind as a bonus

Great video! yes.. I would love you to review the mini desalination units that Manoj Bhargava talks about in his documentary?? It seems like they could be floated up and down the coast of California to refill some of the ground water that has been overtapped to prevent saltwater intrusion. Love to hear your thoughts on that.

A passive system, even if only used for drinking water, is worth it. Survival isn't going to be based in doing your laundry or taking a shower.

Great video! The only thing to also consider in these options is maintenance. Dehumidifiers need cleaning and their pumps get clogged. I'm sure nets get dirty and need cleaning

In the nineties I opened up Air, Water & Ice inc to promote the use of condensate as pure drinking water and clean clear ice. The other aspect was using the water from a de humidifier for reef keepers.

I had never heard of fog nets or super sponges. Thank you! There are plenty of other methods too; you could do a regular series with content for years. One system that comes to mind from decades ago (sorry I can't recall the name) is basically an aqueduct the desalinates along the way. Picture a sealed duct, transparent on top, with a partition running down the middle. The transparent top is sloped towards the fresh water side. Salt water is pumped into the other side. As the salt water flows down the aqueduct, sunlight warms the water so that it starts to condense on the top. The condensed water rolls down the slope to the other side. By the time the aqueduct reaches its destination, the salty side is dry and the fresh side is full. The salt needs to be scraped out periodically, and some energy is required for lift stations. But most of the energy for desalinization comes from the sun.

I moved into a house with a spa recently. I was surprised to learn that you're supposed to drain/refill them pretty regularly. I was definitely annoyed when I had to figure out how much it would cost me to refill my 1300 gallon spa after I found out water was priced by hcf. However I was surprised how little it cost for that much water.

Given one of the properties of aerogels is (when dry) they’re incredibly light, it strikes me that 33kg might need a huge amount of space - some of the lightest are around 160g per cubic meter, with others being ~1.5kg per cubic meter So depending on how dense it is, 33kg could take up anywhere from 22m^3 (pretty big, but might fit domestic house plots) to 206m^3 (huge, likely not feasible domestically unless you own a farm)

For many people a simple water collection system from the rain off your roof with a sizable storage could be enough for your cleaning needs, while one of the systems you talked about could work for drinking and cooking. We waste drinking water on washing ourselves everyday.

Dam great video. Looking forward got that pool to water conversion video pls:) . Very exciting

It's a de humidifier with a filter so why do they cost so much? Not the way to go, unless absolutely necessary.

There is a difference between the amount of water you need versus what you'd typically use, I suppose. So from just a survival aspect, you wouldn't need 300 gallons per day. For some applications like flushing your toilet, perhaps there are other options like reusing Ggrey water rr even a composting toilet.

DIY idea: a hollow backing behind your solar panels. Blow are through the system to cool solar panels (improves efficiency), then run that warm air to a closed system below or around your pool to cool the air. Then to a condenser that extracts the water. Think of it this way. Condenser/heat exchange unit in the middle. Hot air comes from roof. Cool air from the pool/ground.

Since you are in San Diego, and near the ocean, consider this: Forty foot high towers above the maximum high tide level (actually a U shaped pipe) in which the South side is black and the north facing pipe in the shade is white. A near full vacuum is created at the top of the tower (loop). The sea water essentially boils on the sunny side, and fresh water condenses on the shady side. Pumps push the fresh water to holding towers while making sure that the tower pipes do not go dry. Salt concentrations will go up in the local area, but sea life will likely evolve and adapt to that environment. Also, at night fresh water would condense on the South side pipe which would help keep salt build-up from being a problem. As far as natural condensation nets, I have found that if I let my pasture grass grow, I do not need to water and it stays green until late July, to early August. My back yard is now just starting to turn to straw with one variety and good seed heads. Another variety is still rather green and just starting to dry out on the seed heads. I've not irrigated at all this year, and I live in a high desert.

I just watched your video, water from air. Judging by my own experience, I think a lot of air conditioning is needed by humidity in the house. It seems that these more passive techniques can assist with this. For regular AC, dehumidifying uses close to the same energy as AC. If we could incorporate a dehumidifying system like these, we could lower the need. Even if the net needs charging, it would certainly be much less. That would certainly be handled by solar. I don't really understand how to use the gel, so not so many ideas. What do you think?

Really interesting video, especially during the early stages of a drought here in the UK. Something I wanted to comment on though was your figure for the average U.S househould's water consumption at 300 gallons per day. Here in the UK that figure is around 80 and elsewhere, in Israel for example, nestled in the arid climate of the levant, that figure is closer to 50 gallons. These technologies have an incredible amount of potential but the U.S really ought to seek to reduce their usage at the same time. The smaller Tsunami-500 unit could potentially provide enough water for 4 average Israeli homes, yet it can't even produce enough for ONE single average household in the U.S? You really don't need that much water and places like Israel will be better equipped to deal with a lack of water in the future where the U.S will really struggle to come to terms without acclimatising first.

We had one of these 'tsunami like' units in our basement in the 1960s already, we called it a 'de-humidifier.' It made a lot of noise and a fair bit of heat but it did yield several gallons of water per day. Of course we didn't want it and ran it down the drain.

My family and I have lived in Thailand for about 13 years now and we purchased a condensation electric water system which produces all our drinking water for a family of three. The unit consumes about the same power as our refrigerator and the cost of the unit 12 years ago was less than $1000. We have solar power which produces most of our electric needs. We have saved a lot of money not buying water and have not consumed thousands of plastic bottles. The unit produces a max amount of 16 liters of water/ day.

It would be interesting to see how well each of these work in someplace that is truly dry, like Yuma, Vegas, or Bakersfield. Maybe a head to head competition to see which can produce the most water in a 72 hour period. Limit each to a system sized at less than $100/month cost for energy and amortized capital cost. If the manufacturers truly believe in their claims, they should welcome that chance to prove themselves.

Have you ever used a dehumidifier? Have you ever tasted the water from a dehumidifier? It's nasty but anyway I wonder about the hydro gels. How do you extract the water? Do you squeeze it to release it so there has to be some kind of electricity used at some point so there's that cost too, right? I don't know. I'm very curious about the hydro gels. I don't think the nets are going to be all that practical. Can you imagine if you live in an area like I don't know San Francisco somewhere along the coast and everybody on their roof has a as one of these net systems? I don't know if that would be acceptable from a Civic standpoint.

- thanks so much - great stuff; I like the solar panel a couple of gallons of drinking water/day is more than all we need

Amazing stuff. Studio is looking good

Awesome video, I don't get how we use liters for soda, but everything else is typically measured in gallons. We already know what a liter is visually why can't we use it for everything else and make conversions so much easier! Same thing with cubic centimeters. The roof mounted solar collectors looks like it has promise in areas where freezing isn't an issue, like in most desert areas that really need it.

This sounds great...especially the fog net (I think it's the best of the three). I'm wondering though..."How will the use of these systems affect the atmosphere/local weather?" If many persons in a given locale are using the system(s), would that compromise the possibility of rain hence, the water supply to the rivers etc.? 🤔 Scale up to an entire country or continent using these systems, then...😯 That's taking the rain before it falls. This may exacerbate water shortage 🤷🏽 What do you guys think? 🤔

There is a small scale that is at any big box store. Just get a dehumidifier. And have the outlet go to external storage. Then you have to do your own filtration from there but you can get water from air for just over 100 bucks. This will not be making enough to support your daily use or for the household but in a pinch when you need water from the air this is how you can do it on a budget.

Great study thanks

Couldn't you passively produce the wind needed for the mist netting or hydrogels with a solar tower? As the tower heats the air inside the chimney, the rising warmed air draws more air in from the base. As long as the temperature differential exists, it will continue to function.

Devils Advocate: Is there a threat of overdoing it taking so much water out of the atmosphere that it negatively effects the water cycle?

One thing to consider, typical consumption numbers include flushing toilets and washing dishes. The important part is how much a person needs to consume, and possibly cook with. The rest could use any water available.

Great ideas, I have plenty of water cheap on my island but thinking in future possible situations, I am a fan of alternative of water production.

I’m interested in scaleable water systems that can have impact far above individual needs. I think this is going to become one of the key planetary issues of this century. I’m looking forward to additional development in this area, great video, thanks.

Its very simple. Areas with low humidity have limited fresh water, areas with high humidity usually have plenty of fresh water. That's all you need to know to understand how pointless this technology is.

Here in New Zealand almost all houses in the rural area do not have a town supply. We collect our own from rain water or stream or bore, most of us realize the importance of water conservation, the idea of using over 300 gallons of water per day for the average house is insane, yes some of these technologies look valuable. however the more frugal use and ensuring the system is in good order would go a huge way to alleviating the problem. A change in the ecosystem of housing would also help a great deal, I know some areas in the US are already doing this.

I live in Sweden. Have a cold spring in the woods 100m next to my house. Water constantly overflows the 500L barrier. If I don’t use it, it flows to the creek in liters per minute. 5 Celsius, free and never freezes (-42c is my record here) it’s a luxury

Another great video as always! IMHO, California needs to invest heavily in renewable powered desalination/lithium extraction in conjunction with fixing the Salton Sea one way or another... Since there are 11 lithium extraction operations proposed for the area using renewables as well it seems like one the largest environmental "crissatunity" moments for California in its history... Also SMR's since nuclear itself isn't the issue. It's what to do with all that still radioactive "waste"... Then again, the French have mastered that with reprocessing/recycling/transmutation and glassification of low and medium level waste.

This is one of my favorite channels. The content is just so damn interesting.

It may be a small amount, but take the waste water condensation pipes from your home AC and store that. It may not add up for home use, but may aid in watering a garden.

If you want to find ways to reduce your water usage as well, I recommend looking into shower recirculation systems. Also saves on electricity, so a plus there

Being in our nature to mess things up, how many of these systems would it take for us to dry out the air to the point we reduce the normal amount of rain? Imagine it would be orders of magnitude higher than I can imagine, but an interesting question. Thank you for the great content.

If billions of people start pulling water out of the air, would it stop raining as often? If so, wouldn't that be a major issue?

The simple fact is that places that have trouble getting water often lack the level of humidity needed to make water condensers effective. Places where you can collect water "out of thin air," it's typically massively abundant. The only way that I could think of an aerial condenser system being a good idea would be at sea, where you could build a massive scale condensor project to collect moist sea breezes, ones that would be unlikely to turn into useful land rain on their own, and then dumps that water into storage tanks to be transported inland where they need it. You could perhaps do this in the various seas around the Middle East, for example.

And, like others surely have commented, have a look at rainwater storage, and separating drinking water from water needed for washing. flushing, etc.

Aside from the title being clickbait, none of these solutions is going to be the silver bullet. Water depends on the local climate conditions and cost of each method. A multipronged approach is needed (from least expensive to most): - Conserving water by planting lawns with low water use plants, leak repair, better toilets, etc. - Large storm water collection projects. Collection systems dependant on weather are unreliable: $230 - 260 / acre-foot - Brackish desalination: $840 - $1,200 / acre-foot - Non potable reuse (may cost more due to infrastructure): $550 - $1,200 / acre-foot - Indirect potable reuse: $1,100 - $1,600 / acre-foot - Desalination for extremely arid areas: $1,900+ / acre-foot Source: The Cost of Alternative Water Supply and Efficiency Options in California, October 2016 Also check out reallifelore's "How Las Vegas Exists in America's Driest Desert"

You're baiting Thunderfoot to debunk these, right?

I collect my central AC water into a cistern for house use .you are good!!

Another great video! Your focus is on human drinking water production but domestic and commercial irrigation is a huge consumer of that same precious potable water too. Many air capture systems in the discussions can and are being used today for irrigation allowing for more human consumable water to be available as demand increases and available water decreases due to climate change in desert regions. Larger commercial buildings are big producers of AC condensate. I have personally witnessed 3-4 gpm of condensate from a single air handler on a hot day and researched using it for irrigation. Sometimes its a easy retrofit and sometimes not. There are two buildings I am aware of that have their own capture systems in addition to internal biological waste water treatment systems that use the reclaimed water for toilets and irrigation. One is in Santa Monica and the other is in San Francisco. Ricky, you may look at those buildings and MCRD's (Marine Corp Recruit Depot) biological waste water treatment system as an interesting topic for a future video. The local USGBC may be able to help you find contacts. As for other capture systems, I have read a couple of papers where material scientists are looking at biomimicry for improved capture designs such as the Namibian Beetle carapace which has unique ridges designed to capture the fog water and funnel the water to its mouth. They have incorporated it into a low cost net design significantly improving effectiveness. Some communities in African deserts build sculptures which are quite effective at capturing water from the air. There isn't going to be one technology to solve our water issues but a portfolio approach from efficiency to technologies appropriate for the geographical and societal locations. Your videos give me hope for the future and are quite thought provoking. Keep up the great work.

Good video!! Very attractive from start to finish. However, the wisest thing that should be on every smart individuals list is to invest in different streams of income that are not dependent on the government to generate money, especially now business and investing is the easiest way to make money regardless of what party makes it to the oval office.

You should REALLY watch some Thunderf00t's videos about past "miracle" water-out-of-air companies (that all failed). It's the basic thermodynamics that does not agree with using electricity to cool and condense water out of air. You even list the numbers yourself, although I have an impression that you don't grasp them: an 11 kilowatt machine running nonstop rocudes a few 100 liters of water per day. The cost of electricity (which you avoid in your final "cost calculation") is ENORMOUS. It would be the largest (by far) consumer of electricity in households ever. It would quickly turn the water shortage into a severe energy shortage (not solving the water shortage at all). I am hugely disappointed by this video (having enjoyed some of your videos in the past).

EDIT: What I'm getting at is of that 300 gal/day the majority could easily be replaced with lower "quality" gray water. Honestly a "divide and conquer" approach is the best way to go about it. Gathering gray water (rain runoff, water from ACs/dehumidifiers, etc) for non-potable uses, while reducing usage through high efficiency machines (for clothes and dish washing) and closed loop showers for people/pet washing. You only need potable levels of filtration for a small amount per day, usually in the 10-20 gallons range for a house.