Update 3/27/08: Wired has a little bit more information on the magic water machine. The new and improved part of Kamen’s distiller is that it is super efficient.
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I’ve been trying to find out more about Dean Kamen’s water purifier and am not getting much. It is a vapor compression distiller which is not a new technology. So, I don’t know what is so new or exciting about Kamen’s version. Perhaps it is destined to be like the Segway (”[it] will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy”). Much ado about nothing.
On a related topic, Phillippe Rekacewicz has produced some great maps of world access to drinking water, sanitation, etc.
More on water access via Treehugger. My post on Dean Kamen’s water purifier.
2 responses so far ↓
ashbox01 // March 26, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Kamen and his vapor compression distiller were a 60 Minutes story several years ago. My mind was blown that evening. And then… nothing… for years. His appearance on Colbert the other night seems to have ignited much more buzz. I just can’t help but wonder if it, as said earlier, it will turn into the next Segway. If the water is truly pure or even potable, and if it really does produce electricity, and if it doesn’t have a nasty toxic waste product for poor villagers to wallow in, then why — YEARS after it first was introduced — isn’t this already in use everywhere? I mean, really, why?
naturallyinteresting // March 27, 2008 at 9:41 am
Yea, it looked exciting on the Colbert Report, but there is not much more information about it (nothing on his website). Empty self-promotion perhaps.
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