Clean Drinking Water is a Good Idea -

Dean Kamen is the epitome of the inventive spirit in us all. While we have patent lawyers argueing with who came up with one click shopping first, we have Mr. Kamen actually developing and progressing technologies with tangible benefits.

As a counter-point though, one has to wonder what the increased consumption would come from 1.1 billion people who are saved due to this invention. Im not being morbid or anything. You have to solve the problems as they develop.

While distillation is a better route than RO for water purification, I truly doubt that evaporation/condensation of "raw sewage " would provide a desirable feedstock for the "Slingshot". With all the hype, distilled water from contaminated sources still has a lot of carryover of low boiling compounds which if condensed would produce a noxious liquid.

As to Segeways, I've seen then and know they work and have some usefulness, but I fail to see widespread use of these units except where people are too lazy to walk. No wonder obesity is rampant in the US.

1. The Segway was, initially, to be powered by a Stirling Engine.

2. A water still incorporating a Stirling Engine was supposed to be built en mass at a low cost to provide distilled water for villages in Africa. This was several year ago.

3. The Slingshot should much like item 2. above running on cow-dung aka B.S.

4, "The Slingshot is one of those once-in-a-lifetime inventions that truly can save the world. It takes any contaminated source of water, even pure raw sewage, and blasts the water out of the source by vaporizing it, extracting it, and storing it. The contents that have been extracted from the water is deposited in a separate bin and can even be used as a combustible to power the engine!?

Vaporware? $1,000.00 a pop when and IF. Wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn??? Don't hold you breath!

A water still incorporating a Stirling Engine was supposed to be built en mass at a low cost to provide distilled water for villages in Africa. This was several year ago."

I've liked the concept of Stirling Engines and their possibilities since I was knee high to a science teacher. Trouble is, in Africa, it's not feasible because it does not address the three essential and primary IN THE FIRST PLACE criteria for the poverty stricken citizens there.

1. Afford-ability

2. Simple to maintain and repair

3. Human powered.

A Sterling engine is none of the above.

However - for the sake of simplicity in getting clean drinking water:

In order to keep coyotes and raccoons from invading my back yard pet water and food I placed an empty ten foot square of bricks. Over the bricks I placed a ten by ten sheet of plastic sheeting and weighted that with rocks and brick shards around the edge. In the center of the square plastic is a half firebrick placed over a small hole, also in the center of the sheet making the sheet into a clear, wrinkled cone. (could be a stone or any kind of weight just so it focuses condensate to run to the center of the sheet.)

Under the center of this sheet is a coffee can with a small drilled out hole just above the bottom on the side of the can. Jammed into that hole is an old piece of rubber garden hose that snakes from the centr of the square, through one of the bricks and over the back yard retaining wall down to an old galvanized wash tub bought for 50 cents at a yard sale.

Water drips into the coffee can and drains to the make shift water trough all day long, leached from the ground and some from occasional rain storms (hence the hole in the center of the plastic.). There are no moving parts except the water which is gravity powered; it's a solar still; all materials are discards and detritus materials.... Clean drinking water for the denizens of the drain ditch turned criter highway, keeps them at bay and I don't have to go to extraordinary lengths to protect my back yard pets, in the bargain. I have to replace the clear sheet of plastic about twice a year in order to get a couple-three hundred gallons of clean drinking water per replaced plastic sheet.

oh, I quite liked the idea. I thought it would be powered by an external fuel source, wood etc. driving a stirling engine to operate a pump reducing pressure in the vessel and thus evaporating water leaving the suspended solids etc behind. Within the article was the comment that the segway used technology developed for the wheel chair operating on the same principle, that side of things is good surely.

Interesting responses though.