Bicycle-powered water treatment

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in environment on (#3K2)
story imageHow do you ensure a decent supply of potable drinking water at low cost?

In Butte, Montana , Montana Tech students have come up with an interesting solution: They rigged up a water treatment process that can be attached to and operated on the back of a bicycle . The device currently costs $1000 and weighs 50 lbs, which puts their system within striking distance of being a cost-effective mobile solution. That's good news for drought stricken areas like parts of Texas, which are so hard-up for potable water they are even turning to recycling water from toilets to ensure they have enough to drink.
Reply 1 comments

Good luck, Texas (Score: 3, Insightful)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-05-07 17:08 (#1F7)

Texas is probably going to be a desert in another few decades. They are already experiencing extreme water stress of the sort that changes ecosystems. Not too late to repent, Texas! I'm kidding about repenting, but the climate change thing is real - whether you agree it's man-made or not. Humans have been utterly unable to make any difference in the rapidly expanding Sahara desert, the drying of the Gobi, the water stress of California and beyond. Ultimately, this race of apes is going to have to evolve or perish. Urk, we don't know how to evolve! We just like buying and consuming more stuff!

Read Robert D. Kaplan's The Coming Anarchy if you want a glimpse of what resource scarcity and population pressure will lead us to. Hint: looks more like Lagos, Nigeria and less like Beverly Hills, Hollywood. Have a nice generation!