If recent reports about accelerated global warming are true, then we are headed for trouble sooner rather than later. Expect things like drought in tropical areas and more water stress in areas that are arid now.
Thinking about how that new MIT solar distillation method might be deployed on a smaller scale in shipping container size kits as complete systems once assembled. They would be actively driven systems with pumps fans and heat pump condensers all powered by a dozen solar panels with little storage required. The interior dimensions of a standard 40ft shipping container in metric are: L=12M x W=2.33M x H=2.35H and if solar the distillation collectors were 2M x 10M (20sqM) and 10cm thick, then a stack of 12 of them would be 1.2 meters high, say they were thicker and the stack was 2 meters high. That still leaves 2 meters on one end for pumps, blowers and heat pump while using the empty container as a condenser (with insulation) and space on the top and sides for supporting structural parts and hoses to be stored.
The point of all this is one might have a 4M x 30M collection area solar distillation plant supported in the center by the shipping container condensing unit that contains everything required to condense the water the panels generate. The panels are supported by the structure once assembled that extends on either end of the container and has a total collecting area of 120 square meters. Let's say the PV powered actively driven system can produce a steady 15 liters of water per meter per hour and with 120 x15=1440 liters of water an hour, lets round it off to 1500 liters of fresh water per hour. Further let's say it can do that for just 8 hours on average a day while the sun shines 8 X 1500= 12,000 liters of water a day.
Can one manufacture such a shipping container sized system economically? How much would water cost over a year or 10 with such a system? They can be mass produced in a factory in China and everything is in a shipping container along with the instructions for assembly and operation. Heat pumps are pretty cheap and one with the hot end in the incoming seawater would be very efficient, solar panels and shipping containers are cheap too. The panels are just a black solar heat collectors with sea water sandwiched between the thermal collector and a PTFE membrane that is not too expensive either and a space below to collect the water vapor coming through the membrane so blowers can remove it to the condenser unit shaded under the collector panels mounted on an angle to a steel frame. Maybe land can be graded to the right slope and the panels simply placed on the ground too.
We will see, if the idea works out for businesses, then this would be one logical route to follow and 12,000 liters of water a day can keep a lot of people going and when they are done with it, it can be used to grow things too. It's over 42 million liters a year (12000 x 365), so the cost per liter should be low and the distillation container unit might be sold for $30 or $40,000, maybe less. Seems affordable even at $100,000 and can be made modular. It might cost even less if the shipping container were returned after unloading. If you think about it a module that could condense that much water using solar powered PV with a heat pump using cold seawater and containing all the other blowers and pumps required could be pretty compact a cubic meter or so and could sit under solar the collector array and be shaded by it.
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