Our instrument for terraforming a third of the earth's surface must be the stand alone atmospheric water collector. It is appropriate to discuss the outstanding technical issues that will need to be progressively resolved.
The design concept is simple and minimal. A solar panel will collect sunlight and convert this to electrical current. This current is then stored in a storage battery. At night, after the temperature has dropped, this stored energy is used to operate a reverse refrigeration cycle drawing moisture from the atmosphere. The produced water is fed directly into the root ball of the tree.
We have four components: 1) the solar panel, 2) the battery, 3) the reverse refrigeration water collector, 4) The controls. As is obvious, items 1, 2, and 4 are readily available in some form today and can already be optimized for this particular application.
We even know that the most costly component, the solar cell is likely to drop in cost by an order of magnitude which is critical to the global adoption of this technology. And the battery technology may be easily optimized by simply taking advantage of the fact that this battery does not have to be lightweight.
That leaves us with the task of producing a simple device that captures prevailing air flow, perhaps inducing some acceleration to drop the temperature a little more, and flowing it over a cold surface to draw the moisture out of the atmosphere.
Here there is ample room for design imagination and I throw it open. We do not want too many moving parts, but I suspect a fan will be valuable to control air flow rate. The only design parameter at this point is the need to produce 100 liters of water inside of six hours.
The design concept is simple and minimal. A solar panel will collect sunlight and convert this to electrical current. This current is then stored in a storage battery. At night, after the temperature has dropped, this stored energy is used to operate a reverse refrigeration cycle drawing moisture from the atmosphere. The produced water is fed directly into the root ball of the tree.
We have four components: 1) the solar panel, 2) the battery, 3) the reverse refrigeration water collector, 4) The controls. As is obvious, items 1, 2, and 4 are readily available in some form today and can already be optimized for this particular application.
We even know that the most costly component, the solar cell is likely to drop in cost by an order of magnitude which is critical to the global adoption of this technology. And the battery technology may be easily optimized by simply taking advantage of the fact that this battery does not have to be lightweight.
That leaves us with the task of producing a simple device that captures prevailing air flow, perhaps inducing some acceleration to drop the temperature a little more, and flowing it over a cold surface to draw the moisture out of the atmosphere.
Here there is ample room for design imagination and I throw it open. We do not want too many moving parts, but I suspect a fan will be valuable to control air flow rate. The only design parameter at this point is the need to produce 100 liters of water inside of six hours.
