You can't just give people pipes and stuff. You have to teach them about contamination and rigid quality control. And that is where most of these schemes fall down. Quality control.
There's little risk of contamination in piping that is 1200F. The resulting water is pure and cleaning the components every two or three months is a relatively simple process.
The current (previous) water control process in Haiti was simply down to giving them big chlorine tablets to kill bacteria and other infectious diseases. It's certainly cheap, but they have no way to make their own chlorine tablets.
Here's what you do. Set up a company making solar distilleries for third world countries, have Haitians build them, and they get to keep a percentage of the ones they build. Rather than sweatshop labor for us they'd be doing real world work for other third world countries that could benefit from the distilleries, too. All the while they'd be building up their water infrastructure (something we in the western world take for granted), and learning important lessons about hygiene.
The problem is in cross contamination from the plumbing on the cool water side. And then if you are going to do things efficiently you need regenerative counterflow heat exchangers.
And of course to get 1200F you are going to need powered mirrors.
That is no low tech get up.
I have had some experience with evaps for drinking water. Nuke powered.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Josh Cryer wrote: Give a person with poor water quality some mirrors, metal tubing, wood, and some vessels, and the knowledge to make their own distillery, they drink for a lifetime.
In Haiti, they'll hang the mirror in their outhouse, make a hooka out of the tubing, prop up their shanty with the wood, and bitch you didn't give them a lifetime supply of clorine tablets which they could have sold for a blackberry!
KitemanSA wrote:In Haiti, they'll hang the mirror in their outhouse, make a hooka out of the tubing, prop up their shanty with the wood, and bitch you didn't give them a lifetime supply of clorine tablets which they could have sold for a blackberry!
Or they'll be fascinated with the tech, be shocked at the pure water quality (distilled water is oh so delicious), and share the tech with other Haitians.
OK, maybe I'm being too optimistic. There was one guy on the news who was selling water for a dollar for 12 ounces. It was despicable.
Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is.
Josh Cryer wrote: Or they'll be fascinated with the tech, be shocked at the pure water quality (distilled water is oh so delicious), and share the tech with other Haitians.
OK, maybe I'm being too optimistic. There was one guy on the news who was selling water for a dollar for 12 ounces. It was despicable.
You mean share it with all those other Haitians they have been paying outlandish fees to their local VooDoo witchdoctors to hex? Ya; they'll do that all right. HaHaHaHaHa. I slay myself sometimes. sniff.
If you find it so despicable, go to Haiti and hand out water freely. You will probably be shot by someone because you gave water to their enemy.
MSimon wrote:Once it gets to heat it is all the same.
If it is village scale - no problem. There are only so many people you can kill at once. City scale is where you make real disasters.
We talking about nuclear here? My main issue really is that the Haitians don't have the money for it. It'd be nice if we could get small scale fission popular and cheap, but I don't see it.
Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is.
This is really an opportunity more than any other though. They are lost, the missionary groups in my town are going crazy over the possibilities of converting a whole country.
Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is.
Josh Cryer wrote:This is really an opportunity more than any other though. They are lost, the missionary groups in my town are going crazy over the possibilities of converting a whole country. :P
Good. The religion they have now hasn't helped them.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
