A new technology promises to suck water vapor out of the air and turn it into water that we can drink. How do they work and are these worthy investments?
Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Recently, we got a question from a listener who has heard about hydropanels, a technology that pulls clean water out of thin air. Frank wants to know — How do they work? And are there any downsides to using them?
We had Isha Thakkar and Emma Mejia from our Possibly Team look into this.
Isha Thakkar: Hi, Megan!
Emma Mejia: Hello!
Megan Hall: What’s that sound?
Isha Thakkar: That’s a hydropanel!
Megan Hall: So, what are these devices that pull water out of the air?
Emma Mejia: To answer this question, we talked to Alex Meyer.
Alex Meyer: I’m Alex Meyer, I’m a professor of civil engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Isha Thakkar: He says a hydropanel…
Alex Meyer: sucks moisture out of the air, and turns it into liquid, so that you can drink it.
Megan Hall: Sort of like a dehumidifier combined with a water purifier?
Emma Mejia: Like that, but it’s connected to a solar panel so it runs on renewable electricity.
Isha Thakkar: But it’s hard to know exactly how these machines work. That’s because the only information we could find about Hydropanels was from Source, the company that makes them. And, they don’t share all of the details.
Megan Hall: Noted. So based on what you could find, how much water can these hydropanels suck out of the air?
Emma Mejia: Currently, each hydropanel is about 4 by 7 feet, and can produce up to a gallon and a half of clean drinking water each day.
Megan Hall: Can people rely on that every day? Even during really hot weather?
Isha Thakkar: Well, the company says hydropanels work on dry days or humid days. In fact, they say hydropanels can even produce water in the Sonoran Desert, where the air is so dry that dehumidifiers don’t work.
Emma Mejia: But it would definitely take more energy to get water out of dry air.
Isha Thakkar: And because they run on solar power, on cloudy days, or at night, they wouldn’t work as well (or at all) unless they also have a battery.
Megan Hall: When the hydropanels suck water out of the air on dry days, is any moisture left in the atmosphere?
Isha Thakkar: Well there’s a lot of water in the air. The company that sells hydropanels, says it would take at least 70,000 hydropanels per person on Earth to change the humidity of the air itself.
Megan Hall: Whoa! So we don’t have to worry about that. How much does a hydropanel cost?
Emma Mejia: Each hydropanel goes for $3000.
Megan Hall: That seems like a lot of money for a gallon and a half of water.
Isha Thakkar: For now that’s definitely true. Alex was skeptical of hydropanels at first. But then he considered what it takes to hook people up to permanent sources of water, like water lines.
Alex Meyer: The expense of building a formal water system is very, very expensive, expensive enough, it is difficult to get loans.
Emma Mejia: So in some cases, hydropanels could help isolated communities access just enough water to drink. As Alex says,
Alex Meyer: It’s a freedom, you know, to not worry about where her next drinking water is going to come from? Or it’s safety.
Isha Thakkar: But the price would have to come down a lot before that happens.
Emma Mejia: In the meantime, think of these as a cool idea for getting water.
Megan Hall: Thanks, Isha and Emma!
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Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.
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