This ranks as one of the really great inventions.

to take control of this so they can make billions off the misery of others.

for now let's pretend they don't exist and enjoy the possibility of everyone having water.

Trucks could deliver bottles of ocean water and we distill them at home.
Drought solved!

Put them along a walkway where someone could receive a measured amount of fresh water for a quick rinse
or a swig of water to drink.


Tikki

I don't know if I'd trust the open pan at the bottom to not be contaminated, though. (And you'd lose quite a lot due to evaporation on a windy day.)

Am afraid we will need them soon where I live

Or the resulting fresh water to where you want it to be. Either way, you are pumping water uphill.

The actual working of such solar distilleries have been known for hundreds of years (Since the invention of Clear Glass). The problem is how to get the water to a place where the resulting fresh water is of high value. Somewhere on that water chain you can install the distillery to convert Salt waterto Fresh water but the cost of pumping the water is the main restriction.

In a pinch I could put solar distiller together in a few hours basically from junk.

And any source of water is fine, it doesn't have to be salt. If you have a contaminated source of fresh water the distiller can clean out most contaminants although it might be ineffective in a situation like West Virgina where the contaminant may have a vapor pressure higher than water at a given temperature.

I wonder if they could make a small one that they could automatically incorporate in life rafts? Maybe they could make enough H20 for survival.

They've been standard in life raft provisioning since at least 1978 (when I went in the Navy).

The ones in the life raft float so you tether them to the life raft and let them do their work.

According to Wikipedia:

you could get a half a billion of them to make 2 gallons. see how that works?

in the video.

Los Angeles needs approximately 1.5 billion gallons of water a day. I don't think there's enough room in the whole state of California to put three-quarters of a billion flowerpots out.

this is being proposed for the third world. ok, well, i mean


a liter of water don't mean shit in la. in the middle of nowhere, its a little different arithmetic.
did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video.

I also know LA is on the verge of needing to install desalination plants because there isn't enough water around to service LA.

Coast regions, for years, to combat the rising tides due to the melting polar caps. I've even suggested building pumping stations to pump water inland to man-made reservoirs, holding tanks and areas suffering from droughts. I went as far as to explain the jobs this would create across the Country, as well as helping to rebuild some of the infrastructure in the US.... only to have people, right here on DU, tell me I was nuts.

Peace,

Ghost

If you read anything about surviving in a real life situation, one of the thing you learn is 100 feet of sand or other dirt, will filter out almost all of the salt. In simple terms, walk 100 paces from the sea and dig and you will find fresh water.

Thus along the coasts of oceans, water is NOT a problem if drinking is the main concern. Crops are another problem, for they need more water but they roots often reaches down to that fresh water I just mentioned so it is rarely a problem for them.

As to other diseases, those bacteria that thrive in salt water, hate fresh water, and those bacteria that thrive in fresh water hates salt water. Thus hard for a "bug" to switch from one to the other type of water. Furthermore most of the "Bugs" that harm people, need exposure to sunlight to thrive, thus water from most springs are NOT a problem.

Now, what the water goes through can be a problem, but those are exceptions and you can tell once the well is dug (Mostly appears in Salt flats, ancient lakes that have dried up and left the salt behind, such as near the Dead Sea or the Great Salt Lake in Utah).

As to desert areas away from Salt Water, how does this system helps where they is no salt water?

Sorry, brilliant invention but for a problem that really does NOT exist, no fresh water near the ocean or other salt water body of water.

If you are on the high seas, except in very rare areas, it will rain. Survivors of ship wrecks have survived for months in open boats in the high seas, relying only on the rain that falls on the ship for water. The problem is most boats is the lack of things to catch the rain in, not lack of water and this device will take up space where a pots to collect water in could fit.

Per your response, the solution to droughts is dig wells, a hundred paces off shore and pump the water in-land?

And wouldn't that touch on, if not solve, the raising sea problem, as well? We could turn sub-saharian Africa back into the green space it was at the dawn of civilization.

Thus if you are in a survivor situation, walking 100 feet and digging will get you fresh water. Most of the coasts of the world already use this water, either for themselves via wells or by the plants growing off the coasts.

For commercial applications, you are talking of massive water pumping and massive infiltration. The System I mention is a survivor technique, in areas with no water. On most coasts these type of "wells" have been used for thousands of years, but you can only draw so much from such wells and that is enough for most coast communities but not much more.

When the US installed a water channel from the Colorado River to farms on the US side of the Border, when originally made it was sand and water would filter itself through the sand and Mexican on the Mexican side of the Border would drill wells and capture this water. The Canal is now being lined in Concrete to end this "loss" of water and the Mexicans across the borders are complaining about the loss of their "wells".

One proposal has been to build a canal for salt water from the Gulf of Cortes to the Salton Sea and leave the Salton sea rebuilt itself and then dig wells around the Sea to draw out the resulting Fresh water. Again a marginal amount of water, but this time for a very marginal cost. The proposed route would occur naturally if world wide sea levels ever raised 9 meter (about 27 feet) and you are NOT going through solid rock, but the remains of an old delta of the Colorado River.

The problem is the actual filtration of salt from salt water takes time and and is a slow but steady pace. This is NOT a thunderstorm, it is more like a light shower, but it is every day. You get to far from the sea, water seepage actual ends (Thus we are talking of less then a 1/2 mile from the coasts no more). If the water hits any clay or salt, it will go no further, for both provides solid seals against most water infiltration.

Just a comment, in theory you could dig enough wells and provide the water needed, in the real world, to many other restrictions kick in, including soils that block water movement (Clay and Salt are the best known, but they are others) and the actual filtration is via the water seeping through the ground, at a slow but steady rate.

Please don't give out any advice on the matter.

When in doubt turn to the US Army Field Manual on Survival FM-21-76

https://www.google.com/search?q=fm+21-76+us+army+survival+manual+pdf+download&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS529US529&oq=FM+21-76+US+ARMY+SURVIVAL+MANUAL&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.4223j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

FM-21-76 mentions the filtration of water on the beach.

All US Army Field Manuals (All US Field Manuals are Public Domain, the US Army wants as many of its soldiers to get them and does not really care HOW that is done).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Field_Manuals

The Story of Poon Lim and his survivial on the high seas in a life raft for 133 days, without food or water:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~judkins/survival.htm

Two deserts are called "Coastal Deserts" for unlike the Sahara and other deserts you get almost no rain from the nearby ocean:

Namibian Desert in Southwest Africa:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib_Desert

The Atacama Desert off Peru and Northern Chile:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert

Both are the results of no air flow from the East and the ocean currents flows northward and westward, drawing any moisture away from the coastal areas. The American Southwest (and Northern Mexico) and the Sahara have similar draws, but not as severe. In the case of North America, water flows from the North into the Southwest via the Colorado River and other waters that hits the Sierra Madras of California and in winter Northern Temperature zone West-East weather enters the Southwest to provide some moisture. In South American the Andes prevent any such water do to the southern hemisphere temperate zone East-West movement of weather, and in Africa similar mountains AND that drainage is to the north into the Congo keeps South West Africa Dry.

You see a similar situation in Western Australia, but the Australian mountains are in the wrong place to keep ALL moisture out of Western Australia (The mountains are a factor in keeping water out of CENTRAL Australia). Australia is just enough to the south compared to Namibia that its western areas gets some moisture do to the West-East Movement of weather in the Southern Temper Zone to keep Western Australia more grasslands then desert.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deserts_of_Australia

At least it would be vastly improved if not microbe free.

Thus contaminated water is not a big concern. The big concern is the energy input needed to achieve distillation. Remember in distillation, you basically boil away the water, and then capture it and leave it lose the energy it has absorbed and return to liquid form. You leave behind any solid particles doing any contamination (and kill off most microbes).

The big problem is the energy input and the source of that input. Even with solar you have limitations.

Maybe they take contaminates out but what about chemicals?

Very cool

Yet, most plants do need other minerals in the water, which will be removed by distilling it. Normal spring water does contain those.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]It's design is to be flexible in construction, easy for local craftspeople to make from local materials. The plans are open source. The materials are meant to be cheap and plentiful.

I'm hoping some add it soon to their line of manufacture so that it can be bought already constructed by people who don't have the talent to do it themselves.

[font face="Arial"]http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/8798/the-solar-oven-making-salt-water-drinkable/[font face="Verdana"]