Wind Turbines Produce Drinkable Water Out of Thin Air

Water shortage is one of the most common problems of the modern world. Even with the proliferation of modern technology, there are still a countless number of communities around the world that are still largely deprived of a good source of safe, usable, and drinkable water.

Tapping onto our saltwater reserves via desalinization, may someday hold the key to ultimately solve this problem. But what if the community is at a place that is nowhere near the sea? What if you are in the middle of a region that is hardly blessed by any source of water at all? Perhaps a great alternative is to tap onto our water reserves floating in the air.

Water Out of Thin Air

Most wind turbines often provide direct power via electricity. The WMS1000 Wind Turbine however, uses the electricity generated by the rotating blades and turbine to instead collect moisture, literally producing water out of thin air. The brainchild of the invention was Eole Water founder Marc Parent, and the idea was inspired and first conceived when he played around the idea of using the condensed water in air conditioners for something that is productive and useful.

Just like your air conditioner condenses water when it is used, the WMS1000 starts its work by condensing air around it using a compressor. The liquid water that gets collected is then directed to a pipe inside its supporting stand, making its way to a storage tank that is just directly below the wind turbine. There, the water then goes through a purification process to finally make it safe to consume. The electrical power required for the entire operation is around 30 kilowatts, which is promptly provided by the wind turbines as the blades spin regularly at wind speeds of about 15mph.

The WMS1000 is projected to be able to produce 1000 to 1500 liters of safe drinking water every day (roughly enough for a small remote community). When successfully deployed at faraway communities for example, they would have direct access to water without the need to perilously transport it using trucks (that might not even reach its destination safely due to absence of roads).

A Technological Oasis, at Any Place

The desert and other extremely arid areas are perhaps the best areas where this kind of technology could be used greatly. For example, a prototype of the WMS1000 was previously deployed at Abu Dhabi, providing its users with a consistent 800 liters of water each day during the entire period of its testing. In practice though, the WMS1000 can be deployed at any place where there is no regular source of water. That is of course, as long as that place has the needed wind speeds to keep the wind turbine working regularly.

The absence of a natural source of water for hundreds of miles makes areas unsuitable for human communities and settlements. With these kinds of green innovations however, remote community systems can be sustained, and people indigenous to such far areas won’t have to move to more populated areas just to secure a steady water supply.

Photo credit:  Some rights reserved by EnvironmentBlog via Flickr.

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Christian Crisostomo (250 Posts)

Christian Crisostomo is just your average tech geek that loves to see man's newest and most recent technological exploits. He holds great interest in the potentials of green technology, and is enthusiastic about the continuous development of environment-friendly alternative energy.

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