My mom has a water cooler in her basement. The kind that you'd find in an office breakroom. At least once a month, a delivery guy comes by to haul those big heavy bottles of water down the stairs. Several times a month, my mother has to lift one of those suckers into place. All this just to have good drinking water in the house. It's expensive, it takes up storage space, and it's generally a nuisance.
What if you could create water... out of thin air?
A Houston company has done just that. Aquamaker converts the humidity in the air into water. It works virtually everywhere in the world, including the desert, filters out pollutants, refills itself, and (if you're not using a solar powered version) uses about 1/4 of the electricity of an eletric kettle. Plus, they're competitively priced.
This could especially be a boon to remote villages where clean water sources are scarce. They make a 5,000 litre capacity machine that runs on a solar-powered generator.
Wow!
Read more about the Aquamaker in The Jerusalem Post.
Showing posts with label Energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Energy. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Postive Post #5
Soon, telling someone that they're full of hot air may no longer be an insult. French engineer Guy Negre has developed a 5-passenger concept car that runs on compressed air!
For a no-frills, economical, get-around vehicle, he may just have something. Check out the article from BBC news for the details.
For a no-frills, economical, get-around vehicle, he may just have something. Check out the article from BBC news for the details.
Friday, March 07, 2008
DST a Sham?
Wow, am I ever a bundle of rant today.
I just got an email from the very thoughtful production manager of the theater where we're doing Sound of Music. She was reminding us to set our clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time, so that we weren't late for Sunday's performance.
It got me thinking. What is Daylight Savings Time anyway? What's it's purpose?
As a kid, I'd always heard that it had something to do with farmers having more sunlight to work. That explanation didn't set right with me though, since farmers are pretty much free to make their own hours from sun up to sun down, regardless of what the clock says.
Daylight Savings Time, ever a controversial concept intended to help reduce energy consumption, was adapted by the United States in 1918, but repealed in 1919. President Woodrow Wilson tried to repeal it... he liked to have that extra daylight time off the office clock to play golf. No joke. DST reared it's head temporarily over the next 50 years, but became standard in 1966.
Recently, a University of California study found that DST actually raises utility bills. According to sources listed in Wikipedia, it not only costs consumers more in utilities, but also creates increased revenue for many buisnesses. I guess that's why, over the years, big businesses, often backed by politicians have supported the continuance of DST, even though it's been proven to be unsuccessful in providing any kind of savings for Americans.
Yes, we'll all grudgingly "spring ahead" this Sunday while we lose an hour of sleep. But next time the question of continuing this practice comes up, let's not let the lobbyists prevail so they can sell more french fries and slurpies.
I just got an email from the very thoughtful production manager of the theater where we're doing Sound of Music. She was reminding us to set our clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time, so that we weren't late for Sunday's performance.
It got me thinking. What is Daylight Savings Time anyway? What's it's purpose?
As a kid, I'd always heard that it had something to do with farmers having more sunlight to work. That explanation didn't set right with me though, since farmers are pretty much free to make their own hours from sun up to sun down, regardless of what the clock says.
Daylight Savings Time, ever a controversial concept intended to help reduce energy consumption, was adapted by the United States in 1918, but repealed in 1919. President Woodrow Wilson tried to repeal it... he liked to have that extra daylight time off the office clock to play golf. No joke. DST reared it's head temporarily over the next 50 years, but became standard in 1966.
Recently, a University of California study found that DST actually raises utility bills. According to sources listed in Wikipedia, it not only costs consumers more in utilities, but also creates increased revenue for many buisnesses. I guess that's why, over the years, big businesses, often backed by politicians have supported the continuance of DST, even though it's been proven to be unsuccessful in providing any kind of savings for Americans.
Yes, we'll all grudgingly "spring ahead" this Sunday while we lose an hour of sleep. But next time the question of continuing this practice comes up, let's not let the lobbyists prevail so they can sell more french fries and slurpies.
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