this video is sponsored by ag-1 by athletic greens water is a vital resource yet many countries
worldwide face severe water shortages every year and not just developing countries just think of
the flint michigan crisis imagine pulling clean drinkable water right out of thin air
sounds like something from dune or star wars right but atmospheric water generation is very
real and thanks to some major scientific leaps awg technology may soon find its way into your home
today we're going to explore three promising awg breakthroughs could these technologies solve at
home water independence and global water shortages let's dive in so to begin with how can the blue
planet have water shortages yes water covers 70 of our planet but we're only able to use about three
percent the rest ends up in our oceans we've done a video on desalination so you should definitely
check that out but the stark truth is that for now the amount of usable water is shrinking
reasons include population growth more and more people using up our water supplies this gets
compounded when you factor in agriculture which uses up 70 to 80 percent of our water by itself
in the u.s alone leaky pipes waste roughly 6 billion gallons of water per day our house alone
had a 400 gallon per day leak which we didn't even know about until i got a water meter and tracked
it down we'll have a link to that video in the description climate change related droughts also
factor in as clouds move away from the equator and towards the poles leaving already vulnerable
regions high and dry at the time of this video 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to
clean water and nearly 2.7 billion people live in water scarce areas some estimates predict that by
2050 roughly 87 countries will be in a state of water scarcity right now about 30 percent
of the earth's fresh water lies deep underground in aquifers while many developed countries have
the technology and infrastructure to dig wells not every country does even in developed places like
california most of our freshwater comes from out of state geopolitics water management and budget
can all play major factors in accessing clean water as we mentioned extracting water from the
ocean is possible through desalination which is likely to play a vital role in the coming years
but the process can be expensive and requires loads of energy not to mention you have to have
an ocean nearby but the ocean isn't the only place to find usable water in fact there is an enormous
pool of water literally surrounding you right now the earth's atmosphere it's estimated that our
atmosphere carries about 12 900 cubic kilometers of water at any given time that's about three
times the amount of water humans consume annually so like the kid looking into the candy store the
question isn't what we want but how we get it let's step back and talk about how air from water
systems work and the different physical properties at play first it's not the heat it's the humidity
absolute humidity is the amount of moisture in the air but it's not as useful as you might think
that's because the air's ability to hold water is largely due to temperature oh so maybe it is
the heat this graph shows how many kilograms of water one kilogram of air can hold at different
temperatures interestingly at zero degrees celsius there is nearly no water in the air given the air
that bitter cold sensation that hurts your lungs when you breathe in as temperatures rise air can
hold more water so instead of absolute humidity it's more helpful to think about relative humidity
how much water is in the air versus how much it could possibly hold at a given temperature next
is the dew point which is the temperature at which air is saturated with water meaning 100 relative
humidity here water condenses out of the air since the air can't hold anymore picture a kitchen
sponge when dry it can soak up water but once it's full it can't hold anymore the air actually works
in pretty much the same way so by tweaking this dew point and exploiting this phenomenon we can
extract water out of air this then is at the heart of all the various breakthroughs we'll talk about
today and speaking of water let me take a quick moment to tell you about our sponsor this week
ag-1 by athletic greens now this isn't the first time i've talked about ag-1 that's because i've
been a very happy customer for over a year i only have a few years before i turned 40 and
after years of working hard growing this channel at the cost of my health i've decided to make a
change i'm eating better i've lost 10 pounds and i drink ag-1 every day have you ever wondered
between your meals you've gotten all the vitamins and minerals your body needs each day well ag-1
has 75 different ingredients including vitamins minerals superfoods probiotics and adaptogens
things like vitamin c zinc and healing mushrooms to support your immunity probiotics for gut health
a natural form of b12 biotin bioavailable folate and magnesium for energy and much more ag-1 is
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davinci to get started on your first purchase and receive a free one-year supply of vitamin d
and five travel packs huge thanks to athletic greens and you for supporting the show first
up is a system by tsunami products which uses a forced condenser system these were similar to
your refrigerator or air conditioner the machine pulls out moist ambient air through a series of
condensing coils where the water vapor is cooled down sufficiently to reach the dew point then the
air and moisture go through special patented extraction chambers which condense the water
even further finally the water passes through a series of filters then collects in a storage
tank ready for tappan according to the company the smaller unit the tsunami 500 can produce between
0.5 and 8 gallons per hour or up to 200 gallons per day depending on the air temperature relative
humidity and dew dewpoint where it is installed the larger tsunami 750 produces up to 330 gallons
per day what would this look like for the average consumer according to the epa the average american
uses roughly 82 gallons of water per day with the average household using about 300 gallons so even
with the smaller unit you'd be able to produce over 60 percent of your daily water needs or about
three times your daily needs if you're single and the tsunami 750 their bigger system could
potentially provide all the water you would need for your entire family it's pretty amazing
but there's more to this story these units aren't cheap while the company's website doesn't list an
official price reports suggest that the tsunami 500 could cost a whopping 30 thousand dollars and
at 750 about 50 000 but it's not just the upfront cost either these systems require
external power the 500 model uses about 7.5 kilowatts per hour while the 750 uses around 11.
for context a window air conditioner uses around 1 kilowatt per hour and a large whole house ac
about 4.5 kilowatts level 2 charging for my tesla model 3 uses between 7 and 9 kilowatts per hour
these then are serious energy hogs even if you have solar you need an absolutely massive system
to power them plus if you only run them when producing solar you can easily cut that water
generation in half since at night you're not gonna be running it if not more i'm actually
looking into an air water generation system for my net zero home build so we'll have a
lot more hands-on videos covering this stuff in the future but i would love to do something
like this one more thing to note though is that these systems have lifespans of 20 years or more
which may help justify the high upfront cost we'll do a cost comparison breakdown looking at
each technology later in the video up next let's look at the technology that's basically the exact
opposite of these active condenser models we all know nets can be great for catching fish out of
the water but what about using them to catch the water itself fog nets have been around for quite a
while using small fibers to capture and condense water from the air but these systems typically
only work in foggy or high humidity regions but a recent breakthrough by researcher josh wong and
his team at the university of akron in ohio have taken this very simple technology to a whole new
level the team used electrospun polymer nanofibers with diameters of one billionth of a meter about
three and a half atoms in width these nano fibers greatly increase the relative surface area of
the nets allowing more water to condense on the surface according to the creators a typical fog
net can capture roughly 30 liters of water per day per square meter these nanofiber nets can yield up
to 180 liters about six times the output best of all they require no electricity however wong
is developing a system that could use an electric cooling device to help cool the fibers increasing
the amount of water they can collect even further because this technology is still in the
experimental stages getting into things like cost per unit can be tricky but the researchers goal is
to create a system that is lightweight durable and cost effective the increased condensing abilities
mean that these nets can work in areas that aren't particularly humid in fact according to wong these
materials will work in areas where humidity levels are as low as 4 percent that is bone dry
the final breakthrough utilizes an emerging technology known as the super sponge super
sponges are a wide-ranging group of hydrogel and gel polymer hybrid materials essentially chemical
compounds with interlocked repeating elements you actually can see them at work in bandages diapers
or even contact lenses what makes them so special though is that they are incredibly hydrophilic
meaning in cold temperatures they can condense and absorb large amounts of water when they heat up
under solar radiation they become hydrophobic meaning that they expel all that water they
absorbed so like the nano fiber nets these systems don't need to consume any electricity to work they
just need solar input a team of researchers at the university of texas in austin led by guiha yu have
harnessed these materials to create a unique water harvesting and filtration system this version of
the gel can produce between 30 and 40 liters per kilogram per day again this particular hydrogel
is still in the lab but other hydrogels can cost between 2 600 and 3 400 per ton which comes out
to about three to four dollars per kilogram so how do these technologies compare and when
where and how might each one best fit in terms of power consumption it's pretty straightforward
tsunami product systems use between 7 and 11 kilowatt hours of power every day while the
nanofiber nets and hydrogel systems require no active power at all in terms of longevity the
tsunami product systems are rated to last over 20 years a significant edge over the other two
again being in the experimental phases it's hard to say for sure how long these technologies would
last in the real world but traditional fog nets tend to last roughly 10 years while hydrogels
generally last around 7 years hydrogels also tend to be biodegradable a factor that the other two
don't share finally let's look at cost the average american household uses roughly 300 gallons of
water per day 9 000 gallons monthly or 108 000 gallons annually right now in california water
is priced in hundreds of cubic feet or hcf one hcf equaling roughly 750 gallons of water i know
our units are stupid but please feel free to leave that in the comment section pricing uses
a tiered system as shown at 300 gallons a day that comes out to 12 hcf monthly with a base view of 27
dollars that means an average monthly water bill here in san diego where i live is between 80 and
100 a month which is less than a penny a gallon the tsunami 500 costs thirty thousand dollars
up front and it lasts 20 years and produces 200 gallons per day that means in its lifetime it can
produce up to 1.5 million gallons of water at that rate it comes out to about 2 cents per gallon but
remember 200 gallons is still less than what the average u.s household consumes in a day so even
with this machine you'd have to have a water connection to make up the difference then you
have to factor in your electricity bill assuming you don't have home solar even if we considerably
estimate 10 hours of use a day at 10 kilowatts that's a hundred kilowatts per day or 3 000 per
month in san diego 33 cents per kilowatt hour we're looking at a thousand dollars per month
just for this system sadly you'd never be able to justify this system financially while pricing
for the nano fiber net isn't currently available pricing for a standard fog net today costs around
37 dollars per square meter and can last about 10 years according to wong and his team one square
meter of this nanofiber could yield 47 gallons of water per day which means you need a little
over six square meters of nanofiber to produce the 300 gallons you'd need each day based on standard
fog net pricing that would come out to about 236 dollars but i have a feeling their electro spun
nano fiber is gonna cost substantially more than that over ten years this system could
theoretically produce over a million gallons of water which comes out to two tenths of a penny
per gallon based on san diego water prices you're looking at a payback period of three
to four months but again the real prices could be dramatically higher and remember this system
requires no electricity now again this product is not yet commercially available but you can see
why it would be so attractive finally the hydrogel again we didn't have pricing for the specific gel
but based on their commercially available products we can estimate about four dollars per kilogram
according to the researchers one kilogram can produce about nine gallons of water per day
which means we'll need about 33 kilograms to meet our daily quota which comes out to 132 dollars
again theoretically but assume the gel can last seven years that's a lifetime production of over
766 thousand gallons at a price of one tenth of a penny per gallon and a payback period of just
one or two months now of course these numbers should be taken with a sizable grain of salt
as two of the three technologies aren't even commercially available yet things like price
longevity durability are all highly speculative at this point seeing just how much energy the
conventional condensing system uses you start to realize why so much research is going into
nets and gels that are passive so yes 10 kilowatts per hour is wildly expensive but if i was facing a
water shortage and i could power this system with my solar panels it is hard to put a price on that
life-giving water production while these systems may not make financial sense for the average
american home perhaps they could find uses in rural or underdeveloped communities plus it's
not all sunshine and rainbows for the passive systems either both the gel and the net systems
require wind to push air through the various media plus output figures are wildly theoretical
with changes in temperature relative humidity and dew point throughout the day much more real world
testing would be required to truly understand their performance there is one other commercially
available product i've had my eye on and that's the source hydro panel by zero mass water this
water powered panel mounts on your roof and produces water from air entirely powered by the
solar power on board this four by eight foot panel can produce four to eight liters of water per day
depending on the day's humidity and weather and at six thousand dollars for two panels shipped
and installed you could produce eight to sixteen liters or two to four gallons a day sure you need
a hundred panels and six hundred thousand dollars to produce all 300 gallons you need for a day but
come on water out of air all day every day as you can probably tell i'm pretty passionate about this
water is a major concern for us here in california and in san diego so i'm actually looking into one
of these systems from my house to see if it would be possible to make all the water i would need on
site every day so subscribe and stay tuned because on our net zero build series on this channel we'll
cover this way more in the future so water sure it's everywhere but it's quite tricky to use as
we need it but in our current climate it's one of the greatest challenges of our time which is
why i'm so glad to know that so many smart people around the world are working on this problem and
every new idea and breakthrough matters but let us know what you think which of these technologies
has you the most excited are there any other water shortage solutions you'd like us to cover in the
future sound off in the comments below alright so that's a look at cool innovative ways of producing
water out of the air this is one of those things i'm really pumped on i have a couple of diy ideas
that i'm playing with possibly picture this a pool heat pump heater where the cold side blows in
to a water capture system so now i'm heating my pool and producing water or something like that
anyways i've got a bunch of stuff i'm cooking up so subscribe and we'll cover
all my findings in future videos all right that's a look at water from air check out
some of our other videos we think you'll like i'm rico davinci catch you guys next week