Providing Drinking Water Using Cloud Moisture
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology
Russian Scientist and His ColeaguesAre Developing a New Device Capable of Collecting Moisture from Clouds and Channeling It Back Down to Earth So That It Can Be Used for Drinkable H2O and Electricity Generation
The device is known as the air hydroelectric station (Air HES), and it features both a weather balloon stationed thousands of meters into the atmosphere and a unit that collects cloud moisture. The moisture is then sent to the ground through conduit attachments, where a turbo generator creates energy from the water pressure.
Air HES was developed by a team of scientists led by Andrew Kazantsev, and he told redOrbit via email the company had already completed a prototype capable of producing approximately five liters of water from low level clouds in about one hour. Kazantsev and his colleagues have recently launched anIndiegogo campaignwith the hopes they will be able to secure the $14,000 in funding required to complete a full-scale version of the Air HES device.
The primary component of Air HES is the cloud collector, which is a vertically-hanging curtain of vapor-condensing mesh that traps moisture in its fibers as the clouds pass through it, explained Colin Jeffrey of the websiteGizmag. The water then travels down a special coating on the mesh, where it is collected in a reservoir at the base and funneled to the attachments.
The Air HES is lifted into the sky using an aerostat, which the research team compares to a blimp or a large weather balloon. The aerostat is typically used to monitor climate conditions in the stratosphere, and since the device requires a height of just 7,000 feet to reach the mid-level clouds found in the troposphere, it is ideal to serve as the lifting unit for the Air HES, since it is capable of traveling to heights of 60,000 feet to 120,000 feet.
Based on annual precipitation of approximately one meter of rainfall, and given that Air HES collects moisture from clouds, the developers claim their device is capable of producing roughly 800 terawatts (TW) of power - 60 times more than currently needed by the global population, and over 400 times more than all electrical power stations combined, according to their figures. Furthermore, it would be more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels.
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