Has anyone invented a handy device that will turn salt water to fresh water>

[Bobbieo]

If not, that shuld be a number one priority.

[meegbear]

1. Then we'd have enough salt to last forever!

[Perky]

2. Try this google search

http://www.google.com/search?q=desalination&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GZAZ

[bullimiami]

3. there are hand powered reverse osmosis units which can desalinate as well

as purify plain old dirty fresh water.

[NaturalHigh]

4. There is an industrial product for this.

The problem is what to do with all the waste, which is fairly toxic.

[NightWatcher]

5. nope, not yet. water desalinization is still expensive

you are a reactionary. Show me where this is actually a problem. Austrailia you say, well....ok.
we've got a few years of water left.
We'll freak out after we run out. We dont plan ahead.

[Bobbieo]

13. It might save some lives if sailors are stranded on small boats

at sea or something reactionary like that!!!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Yes.

It's called a "still."

[Breeze54]

7. There's a device. Not sure if it's 'handy'....

:shrug:

How to Turn Salt Water Into Drinking Water
http://www.wikihow.com/Turn-Salt-Water-Into-Drinking-Water

[Nederland]

8. Depends what you mean by "handy"

If handy means little, then not really. The closest thing I've seen is a small tube that works off of wave energy. I'll try and find a link.

However, if size is not important there are and have been desalination plants running all over the world for decades. Most countries in the Middle East get the majority of their water from desalination, and Israel has become the world leader in the space. I've heard that California has a couple plants up and running too, so obviously that is the direction that the world is moving toward.

[Bobbieo]

14. There is a large desalting plant in Yuma on the Colorado River

which is about to be reactivated. BTW - this is where the Israelies got the idea. My late husband hosted their tour when they cmae to Yuma in 1980.

[dysfunctional press]

9. don't worry, Dean Kamen is on the case...

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/science_news/4200569.html

“I make stuff,” Dean Kamen told a roomful of journalists this morning at the SEJ conference in Burlington, Vermont. He’s not kidding. His 440 patents include the first wearable insulin pump for diabetics, a portable peritoneal dialysis machine, and everyone’s favorite two-wheeled vehicle in the event of a traffic jam or transit strike—the Segway. Now, in the spirit of peanut-shelling humanitarian Jock Brandis, a 2006 PM Breakthrough Award winner, Kamen’s using his knack for invention to help solve a global problem.

There are one billion people in the world who lack access to safe drinking water. “As a guy who makes stuff,” Kamen recalls asking himself, “why can’t I make a box the size of a fridge with two hoses on it—one that goes into stuff that’s wet, and from the other out comes potable water?” And so he did. For about a month now, Kamen’s small point-of-use water treatment system has been sitting in a village in Honduras, treating enough water for 100 people each day.

Though it contains no degradable membranes or other parts that would have to be routinely replaced, the unit does require electricity—about a third the power of a handheld hair dryer. So Kamen built another box of about the same size to make electricity. “We don’t have time for a thermodynamics lesson, but it’s a really cool box,” he says. It can run on a wide array of fuels, including corn oil, diesel and—a more practical resource in many parts of the world—cow dung. A dung-filled pit produces an inch and a half of pressure of methane just by natural decomposition. By that method, the unit has been powering villages in Bangladesh for two weeks.

Kamen’s prototypes are a tad more expensive than Brandis’s $70 sheller; he has so far spent just under $54 million on both projects. But they could be manufactured for just under $2000 once they start rolling off a line in mass production, he says. Next to Kamen at this morning’s plenary on “Corporate Green” sat the vice-president of environment and water at Coca Cola. The moderator turned to him and asked: “So you make carbonated sugar water, right?” –Jennifer Bogo

[magellan]

10. Like a personal desalination device?

http://www.sea-pack.com/seapack.html

[kestrel91316]

11. Solar still:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_still

[TechBear_Seattle]

12. There are many devices

The simplest is a solar still, which uses the heat of the sun to evaporate sea water. The water condenses on a clear plastic sheet shaped like a cone; the pure water then drips into a holding container. You can get versions of this which will float on the ocean surface as an emergency water source when sailing.

As far as large facilities, the technology certainly exists but it has (so far) proven unfeasable. Distillation and osmotic processes require far more energy than can be provided by solar power alone, making the production of large quantities of useable water very expensive and placing the source of water even more firmly into the hands of Big Industry.

[LSK]

15. yes, its quite common

You can even buy a hand operated one at a boat parts store.

[driver8]

16. Hey...on the aircraft carrier I was stationed on we made freshwater

from saltwater.

We had two de-salination plants and could make about 250,000 gallons of fresh water a day. Some of the best water I have ever tasted!!

[daa]

17. DESALINATION: CURRENT SITUATION AND FUTURE

2. Desalination in Israel and in the World

2.1. Installations in Israel

By early 2000, 13,600 desalination units were operating worldwide, with an output of 25.9 million cubic meters (MCM) per day (approximately 8 billion cubic meters annually). Eleven percent of these installations were erected within the past two years. Of these units, 38% are located in the Persian Gulf and 17% in the US (Wangnick, 2000). Plants installed in Israel over the last 30 years have a capacity of approximately 100,000 CM/day. However, production actually amounts to 60,000 CM/day, since some of the plants, mainly those based on evaporation technology, are not in operation.

2.2. Processes

The two most widely applied processes are Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) evaporation and Reverse Osmosis (RO), each of which produces approximately 43% of the total global output. Although RO has the same output, it is employed in 68% of the installations, with only 9% of the installations using the MSF process. The reason for this similar output in both methods is that the average MSF unit produces 8,800 CM/day, while the average RO unit produces 1,200 CM/day. The distribution of the processes, capacities and number of units in the world is presented in Figures 1 and 2 (Wangnick, 2000).

From these figures it can be seen that those installations operating with the RO and the MSF methods produce 86% of the desalinated water in the world. In addition, electro-dialysis (ED) plants produce 6%, vapor compression (VC) plants produce approximately 4% and multi effect distillation (MED) produces 4% of the desalinated water in the world.

Most MSF installations operate in the Persian Gulf, whereas RO plants are common in other parts of the world. Mediterranean countries, including Spain, Malta and Cyprus, as well as Israel, have reverted to the RO method during the past two decades. All desalination plants in Israel operate using the RO method (Fig. 3).

entire article
http://www.biu.ac.il/Besa/waterarticle1.html

[TZ]

18. Aruba has a very good desalination program

Its a desert island and therefore little to NO potable water there. All their water comes from their desalination plant which seems to be a fairly green operation. The water is rated high on both taste and purity (both in world top 5). So it can be done. Of course we are talking about a small island and relatively small population here...

[Toots]

19. Desalinization plants have been around for years and years

A lot of commercial fishing vessels have them and most large processing ships. Very expensive to do it for very large projects like providing irrigation water for the Sahara desert although there is some work being done right now..

[A HERETIC I AM]

20. Not just fishing and processing vessels but yachts and virtually any watercraft

large enough to have one, has one.

Here's one;


$7494.00