Friday, March 16, 2012

The Future of Water: The Slingshot

Dean Kamen is possibly the world's greatest living inventor. Although he has been well-known among futurists for years, he rose to wider fame when he invented the Segway in 2001. His inventions also include the world's first wheelchair capable of climbing and descending stairs, and the world's first drug infusion pump which is used to provide diabetics with insulin on an as-needed basis. Kamen is remarkable because unlike most inventors, he does not work under the umbrella of a large corporation, university, or government agency. He is truly a DIY innovator.

Kamen's latest invention sets the stage to change the lives of billions of people over the next decade. His new water purification system, dubbed the Slingshot, is far cheaper and more accessible than anything that has come before it. The refrigerator-sized Slingshot is capable of taking “anything wet,” in Kamen's words, and transforming it into water that is so pure that it can be both consumed and used in sterile injections. It can convert ocean water, polluted water, or raw sewage from an outhouse into pure drinking water.

It works by heating the “raw” water to a boiling point, compressing it under just the right amount of pressure, then allowing it to condense and cool in a separate chamber of the machine. The technique is known as vapor compression distillation. The amount of energy that is required to power the machine is equivalent to the amount it takes to run a small coffee-maker, and enough energy is left over to allow the users to charge cell phones and other electronic devices. It can run on any source of energy, including cow dung. Since the parts of the world where clean water is in short supply tend to also be the places where electricity is in short supply, the ability to power the machine on cow dung is very important for its success. It means that it can work in societies which do not have any energy infrastructure in place.

Kamen plans to sell the machines for $1,000 to $2,000 – a bargain, considering that the machine can produce a thousand liters of clean water every day, and is designed to last for several years without any maintenance. Kamen envisions them being placed in communities all over the world and shared as communal property. He has partnered with Coca-Cola to use Coke's distribution channels to bring the Slingshot to the most remote parts of the world. At this price, even the poorest communities should be able to afford a Slingshot.

Nearly 50% of the world's disease burden is due to people not having access to clean water. More than 1.1 billion people do not have access to clean water, and the UN projects this number will rise to 2.7 billion people by 2025 if nothing changes. But the Slingshot will make sure that things do indeed change. It removes salt, chemicals, urine, feces, poison, parasites, bacteria, eggs, viruses, and all other substances that make water undrinkable.

At the Slingshot's price and energy requirements, water shortages – arguably the biggest cause of extreme poverty in the world today – could be virtually eliminated, as the machine is rolled out to the poorest parts of the world via Coca-Cola's world-class distribution channels. In the longer term, Slingshot (or its successors) could even be able to “greenify” regions of the world like the Arabian Peninsula, which have plenty of salt water nearby but very little freshwater. We could solve many of the environmental problems that our agricultural systems have created by recycling polluted water.

97.5% of the world's water is salt water, and another 1.8% is locked up in the glaciers and ice caps. All of our water shortages are due to lack of access to the remaining 0.7% of the world's water. If we can tap into just a tiny fraction of the previously unusable water by removing salt, we could provide plenty of water for everyone on earth.

PREDICTION:

By 2030 – Less than 3% of the world's people do not have access to clean drinking water.

6 comments:

  1. duuuuuude... that is AWESOME. I hadn't heard anything about this guy. Water has been something on my mind the last few years. With how irresponsible the bottled water industry is among other things.

    This brightened my day for sure. Just watched a video about these Italian guys who went to Africa to try and aid villages. He talked about how dumb it is to leave generators and well digging equipment that can't be powered by the locals. Being able to run on such a versatile supply of powers is what made this sound so awesome.

    This could go a LOOOOOONG way towards improving living conditions in a lot of poor communities.

    Tell the hipsters to donate to buy these for people in Uganda instead of friggin bracelets and posters...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I read that the apparatus can process sewage water. I wonder how the machine can prevent volatile compounds like ammonia to re-condense and spoil the end-product?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really have high hopes for the Slingshot. It has such amazing potential to revolutionize the entire planet and to help billions of people.

    However, I think partnering with The Coca Cola company is a huge mistake. They are one of the biggest water owning companies on the planet, and have been responsible for many injustices concerning clean drinking water in developing nations.

    They have nothing to gain from the Slingshot, and would only prosper from restricting it's development and distribution. Perhaps that's part of the reason it's was announced 4 years ago and there has been almost no news on it's development since.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. not sure if you're aware, but the slingshot was invented over 5 years ago and hasn't gained any significant ground since then. the reason for this is that it's cost is simply too high to become a feasible product to diffuse into developing countries.
      Partnering with Coca-Cola (whatever their intentions may be) just might be the one and only thing that might save this invention and get it to the people that need it.

      Delete
  4. How can I get one... many? Are they in distribution?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Same question than Pastor above, is it available now? Is there a web site somewhere? I tried to find more real info about it and could not find any!

    If anyone knows specific info, please let me know!

    Roger Pilon, Editor
    The Planet Fixer Digest

    ReplyDelete