Ooohhh another dehumidifier!
But no no no no, this time, THIS time, MIT is involved so it MUST be true, because MIT would never link it’s mlname to yet another Sammy product, right?
OOOHH, And this device will even get water out of desert air, you say? Like like all the other water out of dry air products that were all such obvious scams that any 15yo could use highschool physics to explain it to you?.
Well call me sold, I’m all in in this one! By the way, I have this nice heat little bridge in my backyard, you’d LOVE it! Pay first, the. I’ll show ya, promise!
And just to make it really really clear: no, I haven’t read the article and yes, it’s a scam, and how do I know? Basic physics and, you know, seeing these devices come by every 2-4 years like clockwork and every damn time some university is funding it or attaching their names to it for some reason. I don’t even need to read the article at this point.
Here is a question: can universities please require that students have taken some basic physics courses before they allow them to start dumb scams like this?
Edit: come at me Lemmy, down vote all you want, I’m still right
I never understood why people keep falling for the ‘dehumidifer will solve world water shortages’ thing over and over. It’s an old idea and there is damn good reason you don’t see this ‘obvious’ solution deployed everywhere. (Check out the WaterSeer video if you would like to know more)
Without even clicking I already knew it was thunderf00t and yes, you’re totally right.
So sad that he barely publishes new material anymore
If it makes you feel better, thunderf00t just came out with a new video. :)
I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s on my short list!
Already seen it :) I’ve watched his videos almost since the beginning when he had his “why people laugh at creationists” series, very recommendable!
Probably this is paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/2201.10385
These are called dehumidifiers and you should not drink the water that comes out of them.
The condensed water is pure, yes. But dehumidifiers almost instantly become a breeding ground for all kinds of nasty shit. Nasty shit that is now in your ‘pure’ water.
Edit: It’s the same problem as the WaterSeer which is also a passive dehumidifier. This same idea comes up several times a year, yet you don’t see them deployed in quantity anywhere. They simply don’t work well. (The WaterSeer actually seems like a better design than what is in OP’s article.)
There are plenty ways to purify water once it’s been obtained
Absolutely. And that is the problem you actually need to solve in the places lacking potable water. They generally have some water, it just isn’t potable. Filters need regular replacing, additives like chlorine need constant resupply, and reverse osmosis is extremely energy intensive. It’s fundamentally a logistics problem.
If you’re concerned with bacterial growth in the condensate of a dehumidifier, all you need to do is boil it
There’s such a thing as botulism ; so - once the toxin causing it has formed, it doesn’t matter that you kill the bacteria that produced it with boiling the water. The toxin itself survives much harsher conditions.
I think it’s not the only danger which you haven’t considered here.
Y’all, we’re talking about condensate from a device specifically designed to capture water for drinking. We’re not talking about drinking the water dripping from your AC. Ensuring this water is drinkable is remarkably simple.
Not only that, but Clostridium botulinum only grows in anaerobic environments, so it isn’t even a remote concern in this case. That’s why you don’t hear about it much outside of canned food or instances where it’s purposefully cultivated for medical applications.
Well, if this idea is so glorious, why is none of the large array of water harvesting devices that pop up multiple times a year ever deployed at scale?
Easy answer: because they are all marketing bullshit that doesn’t solve the actual problem and instead only exists to part investors from their cash.
Really?
The waterseeer was an outright scam that never would have worked because physics, yet collecting millions in funding. And that wasn’t the first on either
This one is no difference, it’s a scam.
