New, More Efficient Water Purification Device

Famed inventor Dean Kamen has created an efficient, inexpensive water purification system that could help a billion people worldwide who don't have access to clean water. The system is more efficient than other water purification systems because it recycles waste heat used in the distillation process.

At $2000 per unit, the systems can provide enough clean water for about a hundred people. While that's impressive, it's unlikely that people in the poorest parts of the world—where these systems would be most needed—can afford to spend two grand for every thousand people in the area. Maybe some philanthropic organization like the Gates Foundation will come along and help out, but until then Kamen's invention is just something for him to get clean water in his lab.

Brewing a Sustainable Energy Solution

The Queensland, Australia, Government's Sustainable Energy Innovation Fund has granted $140,000(AU) to the University of Queensland for a joint project between UQ and Foster's to turn beer wastewater into electricity.

The project will use the waste water from the fermentation process--water that is rich with sugars, starches, and alcohol--to power fuel cells, generating energy and clean water in the process. The process won't generate much electricity--only about 2 kW. Basically it's a wastewater treatment system that also generates a small amount of free electricity.

And while generating electricity using alternative energy methods is a worthwhile goal in and of itself, this process also allows for efficient recycling of wastewater in an area (Queensland) that has been hit with serious droughts for many years. “Energy and water supply are among the biggest challenges we will face in the coming decades,” Dr Korneel Rabaey, a postdoctoral research fellow at UQ's Advanced Wastewater Management Centre, said, and this research project addresses both of those challenges.

I thought I'd blog about this because I'm pretty passionate about alternative energy technologies, and even more passionate about beer.

A Better Way to Clean Water

From the category of Pretty Cool News With a Lot of Applications, researchers at the University of Delaware have devised a new, inexpensive means of removing viruses from drinking water by using elemental iron.

The technology would be tremendously useful in parts of the world where clean water is difficult to come by, as the elemental iron used to purify the water is available as a by-product of iron and steel production. It would also be useful in the U.S. and other industrialized countries as it would allow water utilities to stop using chlorine to purify water supplies.

The researchers suggest that the process could also be applied to other tasks besides purifying drinking water, especially agricultural processes. The technique is said to be capable of removing up to 99.999% of viruses from water.

Water on Mars

NASA just issued a press release with some major implications, revealing that images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor indicate the presence that liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars within the last seven years.

"These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program.

Liquid water is important, because it is believed that any microbial life existing on Mars would need liquid water (not vapors or ice) in order to survive.

Today's announcement is the first to reveal newly deposited material apparently carried by fluids after earlier imaging of the same gullies. The two sites are inside craters in the Terra Sirenum and the Centauri Montes regions of southern Mars.

"These fresh deposits suggest that at some places and times on present-day Mars, liquid water is emerging from beneath the ground and briefly flowing down the slopes. This possibility raises questions about how the water would stay melted below ground, how widespread it might be, and whether there's a below-ground wet habitat conducive to life. Future missions may provide the answers," said Malin.