Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 15 Feb 2013 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100409/1701238954/dailydirt-fresh-drinking-water.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100409/1701238954/dailydirt-fresh-drinking-water.shtml

Saudi Arabia is planning to build the world's biggest desalination plant, capable of processing 158 million gallons of water in a day, by 2018. Exporting fresh water could be Saudi Arabia's next valuable product. [url]

Dean Kamen (the inventor of the Segway) has been working on a device called a Slingshot that purifies water and generates electricity. Over a billion people don't have access to clean water or electricity, so that's a lot of people who might benefit if this device works out economically. [url]

A desalination battery uses electricity to separate sodium chloride from sea water. This technology isn't quite ready to generate tons of cheap, potable water yet, but it's a nice first step towards more cost effective ways of making sea water more useful. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100409/1701238954 Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110726/18173715268/dailydirt-safe-drinking-water.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110726/18173715268/dailydirt-safe-drinking-water.shtml

Banana peels have actually been proven to effectively filter out various harmful metals from water. They don't kill bacteria, though, and stuffing them into Brita bottles probably won't work, either. [url]

Desalination should be a "last resort" for water purification, but it's been getting more widely used despite its costs. Desalination technology is improving, but it still uses a lot of energy. [url]

Perhaps the real last resort, though, should be towing an iceberg to where you need fresh water. A 30 million ton iceberg could provide enough drinking water for about about 500,000 people -- for a year. [url]

A bunch of companies are promoting water conservation with the slogan: "Wasting Water is Weird." Will quirky viral videos help people to conserve water? [url]

To discover more related links on stuff we eat or drink, check out what's brewing on StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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