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jedberg • today at 5:48 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

True but in those areas it also tends to rain a lot so it's less necessary. I'm thinking about Mediterranean and desert climates.


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OneDeuxTriSeiGo • today at 6:00 PM

As long as the water is being locally used and locally discharged (i.e. via a drainage field) it shouldn't seriously have an impact. The water would return to the water table and either be used by plants or get wicked back into the air via capillary action from evaporation on the surface.

mrguyorama • today at 8:55 PM

In places with low ambient humidity, harvesting water from the air is an atrocious process. The physics have not changed since people came up with this idea the last time, and the time before that.

For reasons of thermodynamics, pulling water out of the air uses more energy than desalination, and that's before the fact that you have to have a large fan to move a large volume of air to get a few drops of water.

It is on the order of using 60X as much energy to dehumidify air if you are trying to produce bulk water, rather than just desalinating water through a method like reverse osmosis

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