Weird Hydrological Science

Do you remember Luke Skywalker’s youth, living with his aunt and uncle on their windstill farm? On desert planet Tatooine they harvest moisture from the air, and sell it. Similar imagined technology appears among the Fremen people of Frank Herbert’s Dune.

Inventors eventually produce the things dreamed up by science fiction authors, and Popular Mechanics has another example in the latest edition. The article title: “How This Harvester Literally Makes Water Out of Thin Air.”

The startup for this project, Water Harvester Inc., will soon begin marketing a device about the size of an oven that can churn out 7 to 10 liters of water per day, enough cooking water for two or three adults per day.

Plus, there's a second version that's more the size of a small refrigerator, which will produce 200 to 250 liters of water per day. That's enough for an entire household to fill up glasses with drinking water, cook dinner, and take a shower each day. 

I like the sound of this technology. It could make living in arid places more practical. It has to be cheaper than drilling a well.

Later ... I notice they didn’t claim the larger unit produces enough water to flush toilets. Having experienced pit toilets, that’s a serious disincentive unless shower water can be recycled for toilet flushing.

For those who don't think in "liters," the larger unit produces roughly 55 gallons of water per day. That's the volume of a standard steel oil drum.