The Seawater Greenhouse

Part of the problem or part of the solution, is growing food. Water is step 1 of many. A company jumping right to to next step of the solution is The Seawater Greenhouse. These guys are my hero's. What an awesome project! Makes me think there might be an ideal sea water chain. Where it goes through a system like this, heating the sea water somewhat as it moves along the condensation pipes then into a solar multi-stage flash distillation into more fresh water. 

A word on Patents

I'm pretty sure since companies make desalination plants for lots of money that there are a lot of patents involved. Apparently even making something thats under patent for personal use can be illigal but
From Ius mentis
"Can a private person infringe on a patent?
Patent laws in most countries require some sort of commercial exploitation of the patented invention for the exploitation to be patent infringement. So, a private person can infringe if he, for example, makes the invention and sells it to his friends, or puts it on an advertisement-sponsored website. But if he makes it for himself out of curiosity, and only uses it himself, there is no infringement.
In the USA, also non-commercial use of the invention can be patent infringement, although it is rare for a non-commercial use by a private person to result in a lawsuit.
In practice, the chance of getting sued for patent infringement as a private individual is very slim. Patent lawsuits are very expensive, and most private persons will not be able to pay the damages to the patent holder anyway."
The laws surrounding this are pretty clear. Since I have no intention of selling anything, or making money from this I hope to not worry about it. Still, it is a consideration since ideas I've had, I've later found images on sites that make me think its probably already patented by someone else.

The Beginning, Basic Distillation

A great resource is the The U.S. Geological Survey with tons of great information. I wanted to show the "Desalination is not modern science" (read <-- that link) section on how it used to be done. I imagine a version of this to be "level 1" of the design idea. Like the simplest, no frills, not that efficient, but easy to understand and use for a few people. The water cone is probably a easier solution, but non-the-less, this is the start.

I like the thoughtfulness to add cold water to the top to aid condensation. Whats hard to understand in this graphic is how the water is collected. Well there is solar humidification invention, that has an easier to understand process called the Water Cone. The collection cone is what I want you to see as a method for collecting condensation. 

Multi-stage flash distillation

Multi-stage flash distillation is a somewhat complex technique that adds huge efficiencies to desalination. I say somewhat complex b/c when I first read it, actually the first few readings of it, I didn't get it. It was this process that I realized I needed to relearn some basic science. Like pressure and boiling points. I actually had to back track quite a ways to understand it fully, and I'm going to make a few videos to help other people understand it easier than trying to read the wiki. This will help me solidify my understanding and help other people get what I'm trying to do (eventually). I have a design, I have tons of notes in my note book but it doesn't really make sense to transcribe that into a blog, so I'll just add key parts to it as they come up.
Currently I'm building my design in Maya. So far I only have the sand filtration unit and ocean pump modeled roughly.... more on that in a bit. There's a lot of blog posts quite quickly as I brain dump all the stuff I've been researching down to here.

(if you're like me, this graphic on Wikipedia doesn't help at all)

Its explained better here but still I'll try to explain the whole process through a series of videos.

BioSand Water Filter

I've not been thinking too hard on filtration since I want to go with distillation, but I did want to highlight this geniusly simple system from Samaritan's Purse CANADA

Water Storage

This silent video shows a neat and inexpensive water storage tank made from concrete.

Also Paul Polak has a nice summation of the issues surrounding water in 3d world countries, from his book "Out of Poverty" Specifically how water to crops is the first step on a path out of poverty.
http://www.paulpolak.com/html/media_video_water.html

Points of Research:
Clean water storage

Sand Dams for semi-arid Evir

While this local is not in my area of specific interest, I love knowing this knowledge is out there. Sand dam's are such an amazing technology with so many positive effects. Basically a low damn wall is built. As seasons pass sand builds up behind the wall, retaining 20-40% of the water in the sand. That has, "cascading" positive effects on the water quality and the environment. (puns are a negative side effect of my personality)

The Q-Drum, rollable water container

So simple, The Q-Drum. Pumping water is obviously not always an option and transporting it is a significant point to consider. At around $60-$70 each, they transport 50 liters (also a 70 liter version) of water. Considering how well it works, making this kind of donation to people in need would be very direct money to need gift. I found a place where one can donate here www.lifeprojectafrica.org.
I also think this is the best rolling water transportation system out there since there is no hinge that will wear down over time, like some other systems.

Low-cost treadle pumps for irrigation

Love this idea. Its so important to be able to make the manual motion of pumping as simple (both in design and maintenance), cheap, and efficient/easy for the person manning the pump.
The pump aspect of access to clean waters it more complicated than it may appear, when dealing with the ocean.

Introduction

I've become interested in ideas surrounding access to clean water. Its something we in the first world don't think about day to day b/c its more than accessible to everyone here. Other than hunger, access to clean water is the most troubling issue I see in the 3rd world. (obviously a root of many other issues) I wondered if someone like me could do anything about that.
Me:  a visual effects artist with an art degree from Penn State, and access to the internet. Is that all, so what? hah, but that's a lot more than most people can ask for in places with these problems. I wondered could just a regular guy make a difference on an issue like this by just thinking, researching, and trying?
While there are a lot of ideas out there already and many of them better than anything I could think of for their respective purposes, my main interest is desalination of sea water for a small village of 1000 people. A somewhat arbitrary goal I suppose, and to further constrain myself, it must be self sufficient. That's not to say it would work forever, but to make something DIY enough that with some education the people could run this system as long as they needed. That's what I believe will be the hardest part based on my initial conceptualizing of the problem.
So this blog will spot light other ideas, along with my own in the area of access to clean water.