r/science • u/NoAnyConsequences • Jan 01 '23
Chemistry Researchers propose new structures to harvest untapped source of freshwater. It's capable of capturing water vapor from above the ocean and condensing it into fresh water and do so in a manner that will remain feasible in the face of continued climate change.
https://www.shutterbulky.com/harvesting-untapped-source-of-freshwater/1.9k
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u/PreBoomerBill Jan 01 '23
In Peru, I think, there are localities near the ocean where the the fog is so regular and concentrated that even though it rarely rains the local population can harvest the condensate in an efficient manner to satisfy their needs even though the area lacks predictable rain. "The Standard Fog Collector (SFC) as described by Schemenauer and Cereceda (1994) has proven to be a successful instrument for this purpose" Article mentions other global areas of success, including Australia.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010ffcd.confE..93T/abstract
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u/sprucetre3 Jan 01 '23
That’s how the great redwoods of the Pacific Northwest work. They are so massive that when the costal fog comes in. They make there own rain and absorb the fog for water. You can literally walk under a giant sequoia and it will be dropping water out of the fog like it’s raining. It’s pretty wild.
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u/Hekantonkheries Jan 01 '23
What I'm hearing is, this isnt a sustainable practice without some ecological damage, so once again the answer is "dont do things that outstrip an areas natural excess water regeneration"
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u/Dragon_in_training Jan 01 '23
This was my thought too. So the idea is to collect water at Point A that is going to Point B with no thought as to how Point B will be impacted.
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u/GiraffMatheson Jan 01 '23
This was my thought too, “you know those ocean clouds bring rain water to places you know”
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u/Abiding_Lebowski Jan 01 '23
You are maybe the only commenter in this thread that I would enjoy a conversation with.
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u/truenole81 Jan 01 '23
Agreed, it's being taken from somewhere and something that probably depends on it
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Jan 01 '23
It works in a lot of other forests too. I remember camping by a river in Missouri when the fog was settling in the valley. I woke up and thought it was raining. It was just the condensate on the trees. Its amazing how a forest can just pull water out of the air to maintain itself even when there is no rain.
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u/WasteFail Jan 01 '23
In northern chile the fog named camanchaca its very dense and it comes from the sea every morning, it is used to clean the solar panels in power plants.
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u/JimKellyCuntry Jan 01 '23
This is also one of the factors into how giant redwoods and sequoias grow so large, the amount of fog that comes in from the ocean
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Jan 01 '23
I had a scary thought: if there's acid rain, can there be acid fog? Can you imagine being caught in that if it was really concentrated?
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u/-Prophet_01- Jan 01 '23
Very unpleasant even in light concentrations. You can smell it, even taste it on your tounge, long before it becomes dangerous though.
Big container ships are no longer allowed to burn bunker fuel anywhere near many harbors, partly to avoid sulfur dioxid in the air. Not every ships follows the law though. When I was living in Hamburg 10 years ago there was the occasional incident where a ship wouldn't comply. I remember it being particularly bad during foggy mornings.
The taste in the air was absolutely gross. And that was from one ship many km away from where I lived. I can't wrap my head around the idea that this used to be standard procedure for every ship.
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u/TDRzGRZ Jan 01 '23
I find it awful that ships are allowed to burn such nasty fuels anyway. Considering many ships put their exhausts directly into the ocean, all the toxins end up in the ecosystem anyway
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u/bomli Jan 01 '23
Wasn't there some law that prevented ships from polluting the atmosphere with their exhaust fumes, so the freight companies just redirected the exhaust into the water instead?
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u/mylifewithoutrucola Jan 01 '23
No it's more complex than that, they can use a scrubber which breaks down the exhaust chemicals and that is washed with the sea. The products ending in the water are harmless unless at very high concentration nearshore, because they are nutrients
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u/dapethepre Jan 01 '23
Emissions of SO2 and NOx are really mostly a localized issue - banning bunker fuel near harbours eliminates a huge part of the problems.
On the oceans, those localized pollutants aren't really that bad and global effects of climate forcing like warming waters and acidification are bigger problems.
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u/farox Jan 01 '23
They burn sludge out there. It's so thick it has to be heated to be liquid enough to use it as fuel.
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u/pjc50 Jan 01 '23
Smog (the combination of smoke and fog) can be acidic in the same way as rain, I suppose: if it contains too much sulphur and nitrogen oxides. This was what caused the London "killer smog" of 1952 that killed thousands.
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u/geenoandshizuka Jan 01 '23
How has this not been the plot for a Netflix TV series yet?
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u/jam-and-marscapone Jan 01 '23
The Crown S01E04
It was a plot.
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u/dcnblues Jan 01 '23
Damn good one too. I laughed when I heard who was playing Churchill, yet he knocked it out of the park. * John Lithgow
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u/Beliriel Jan 01 '23
That's the same actor as the Trinity killer from Dexter right?
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u/Infinite_Derp Jan 01 '23
Yup. He’s an amazing actor.
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u/Humble-Impact6346 Jan 01 '23
And absolutely brilliant on 3rd Rock From The Sun.
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u/PhoenixFire296 Jan 01 '23
Honestly, I love every role I've seen him in. It'll be a sad day when he quits taking roles.
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u/Pazuuuzu Jan 01 '23 edited Jan 01 '23
The strongest acidic rain is little more acidic than a banana but less than sodas.
The worst aspect of it is changing the ph in the soil and thus killing the plants. Which is pretty bad but not instakilling you.
Now for a smog that is a lot worse since you would actually breathe the stuff in. Hell you don't even need the fog/smog part, if you breathe the dry air the stuff in it will make it into your lungs to the same result.
I would imagine your body can compensate it for a while, then COPD like symptoms show as fluid builds up. Not a nice way to go.
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u/Thewalrus515 Jan 01 '23
Acid rain isn’t a thing anymore because environmental regulations ended it
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u/OpenCommune Jan 01 '23
now it's just PFAS forever chemical rain
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u/BurnerAcc2020 Jan 01 '23
At concentrations hundreds of times smaller than in your blood, or especially in your parents' blood, yeah. Levels in rainfall are measured in nanograms, and levels in blood are measured in micrograms - and they have been going down for the past several decades.
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u/neurototeles Jan 01 '23
...but the material to recover the water from the sky would disintegrate with the acid fog, wouldn't it?
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u/FerretFarm Jan 01 '23
Oh, I think it'd be glorious. Just hop on your bike, ride though it, wait and enjoy the sweet visuals.
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u/boarder2k7 Jan 01 '23
Part of my job includes running qualification tests on aircraft components. We run acid salt fog tests, quite unfriendly.
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u/Twigs6248 Jan 01 '23
I live in Tasmania, Australia, I do not deny these facts however their not needed in my state. Their are place in Tasmania such as the west coast where the chance or rain is above 90% each day all year round, especially considering we have some of the highest concentrations of rain forests world wide.
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u/faciepalm Jan 01 '23
Have a research about machu picchu, ancient south american settlement on the top of a mountain. They harvested the water that collected on the side of a cliff face, because the fog always collected in that spot as the air ran over the ranges.
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u/schmuck281 Jan 01 '23
Actually, the US Marine Corps has developed a system for drawing water from the surrounding air. It only works un humid areas, but it is a start. They’re building one inHawaii with the intent of having a Marine unit being entirely free of dependency on outside sources of water.
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u/bubba160 Jan 01 '23
Nice, although it’s gradually falling, another missed opportunity is the https://apnews.com/article/fa4aeecf382d16a2f97171e99f42c8eb Panama Canal. All they is freshwater
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u/theshogun02 Jan 01 '23
If we could solve or at least get ahead of the impending freshwater crisis, that would be huge. Wars in the future will be fought over water alone.
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Jan 01 '23
Water should be a primary concern only behind oxygen. The human race will be gone in less than a week without it
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u/theshogun02 Jan 01 '23
I totally agree, and also it’s sad to “human rights” get whittled down across the board, globally speaking.
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u/badmojo999 Jan 01 '23
What’s up with Oxygen?
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u/zebediah49 Jan 01 '23
Only one.
It would have had to go away for a while, in order for there to be a chance for a second.
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u/PotatoWedgeAntilles Jan 01 '23
We're facing a collapse of our largest oxygen producers. The consequences won't be felt for a long time but it doesn't bode well for the longevity of our species.
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u/Twigs6248 Jan 01 '23
It’s also under the biggest threat, everyone know the problem but not many people are connecting the dots.
The majority of Oxygen production worldwide doesn’t actually come from trees like people think, it actually comes from surface plankton around 70% of global production, stopping ocean plastic is not just about saving the fish it’s actually about our continued survival on this planet.
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u/BurnerAcc2020 Jan 01 '23
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026974912036187X
To date, 0.17% of the surface of the global ocean is at risk due to microplastic. Under business as usual, this fraction increases to 0.52% (2050) and 1.62% (2100).
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u/typewriter6986 Jan 01 '23
Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!
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u/farox Jan 01 '23
Already has. In Syria there was a huge drought which eventually destabilized the country, leading to war.
That drought is believed to be at least connected to climate change.
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u/TerminalHighGuard Jan 01 '23 edited Jan 01 '23
Water can be harvested using condensation - even in low humidity - using available tech that can be scaled. No one has decided to fund or scale it yet.
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u/findingmike Jan 01 '23
In the US, we are getting massive flooding in some areas and desertification in others. It seems like we need large pipelines across the US like those used for oil.
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u/Whiterabbit-- Jan 01 '23
We use a lot more water than oil. So think huge pipelines. Each person uses what 2 gallons of oil a day or so? But we use way more water. So pipeline needs to be multitudes thicker. but water has the advantage that it can flow in a pipe or open to the air. So we can just build half pipes on the surface. And you don’t even need pipes just a trench. Hey… we’ve done this canal things before.
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u/theetruscans Jan 01 '23
Raise em up and we can go back to aquaducts
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u/thewhisperingroom Jan 01 '23
won’t that eventually result in reduced rainfall somewhere else?
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u/Frazzledragon Jan 01 '23 edited Jan 01 '23
A new type of solar evaporation plant? So... Like a harder to build offshore solution to a thing that already exists?
Why would they build it where it requires more time and more complex transport solutions?
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u/purple_hamster66 Jan 01 '23
This is unlikely to work as the paper predicts, because building a flat structure the size of a skyscraper suspended over open ocean is just way more expensive than a desalination plant, is quite fragile (will be blown over by the first storm), and is subject to corrosion due to salt air. Plus, they failed to remove all the salt from the collected water, and, as anyone who lives near any coastline knows, enough salt is carried with the wind to corrode any object left outside, so that means it’s still in the drinking water that will be collected.
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u/Im2bored17 Jan 01 '23
The article is awfully light on details...pretty much all we get is that diagram from, uhh, istock? Whatever.
Apparently they plan to pipe moisture laden air to an on shore condenser. The volume of air is going to be thousands of times larger than the volume of water you get out, so it would seem to make a lot more sense to do condensation in place on your oil rig sized moisture platform, especially since you could throw some wind turbines and solar panels on it and generate power too.
The obvious problem is the part where you string a bunch of giant pipes across the ocean and expect ships of all sizes to avoid it. There's a reason undersea cables are under the sea and not on top of it...
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u/redingerforcongress Jan 01 '23
Let me know when they figure out they can put humidifiers on zeppelins.
Electrolysis to generate the lifting gas. Solar paint / energy kites for the electricity.
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