Bill Gates Endorses Water From Human Waste 245
theodp writes: GeekWire reports that Bill gates is certainly leading by example, appearing in a video in which he sips "a glass of delicious drinking water" produced from human waste processed by Janicki Bioenergy's OmniProcessor, which can take sewer sludge and turn it into clean drinking water, electricity and clean ash. So how was it? "The water tasted as good as any I've had out of a bottle," said Bill. "And having studied the engineering behind it, I would happily drink it every day. It's that safe."
A Natural (Score:3, Funny)
I mean the guy already excelled at selling SHIT to people for years...
Re:A Natural (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean the guy already excelled at selling SHIT to people for years...
Cheap shot gets an instant mod-up, to "Insightful," no surprise there.
Re:A Natural (Score:4, Insightful)
And such is the fickle nature of the mods.
On topic, people would have to note statistically, every molecule of H2O has at some time been inside a creature. So we are all drinking sewage/waste/carrion water.
Re:A Natural (Score:5, Interesting)
And it doesn't seem to be hurting the astronauts on the ISS [nasa.gov] (from the year 2000)
The ECLSS Water Recycling System (WRS), developed at the MSFC, will reclaim waste waters from the Space Shuttle's fuel cells, from urine, from oral hygiene and hand washing, and by condensing humidity from the air. Without such careful recycling 40,000 pounds per year of water from Earth would be required to resupply a minimum of four crewmembers for the life of the station.
Not even research animals are excused from the program.
"Lab animals on the ISS breath and urinate, too, and we plan to reclaim their waste products along with the crew's. A full complement of 72 rats would equal about one human in terms of water reclamation," says Layne Carter, a water-processing specialist at the MSFC.
It might sound disgusting, but water leaving the space station's purification machines will be cleaner than what most of us drink on Earth.
"The water that we generate is much cleaner than anything you'll ever get out of any tap in the United States," says Carter. "We certainly do a much more aggressive treatment process (than municipal waste water treatment plants). We have practically ultra-pure water by the time our water's finished."
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I think the problem is... (Score:3)
So you don't check/change the filtration equipment as much anymore. Your guys are working 16 hour shifts for 20% less than minimum wage 5 year
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statistically, every molecule of H2O has at some time been inside a creature. So we are all drinking sewage/waste/carrion water.
Statistically, every glass of water has at thousands of water molecules from the Shit of Jesus (or the prophet of your choice), which makes it all holy water, right?
Let's check the math. There are about 1.4 * 10^21 L of water in the oceans (1.4 billion km^3). There are about 5.5 moles, or 3.3 * 10^25 molecules of water in a liter. So one liter of water mixed evenly in the oceans gives about 2 * 10^4 original molecules per liter of oceans. Heck, by holistic standards, it's all hyper-turbo-super-holy wate
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Not every molecule. Comet based asteroids have water, and do enter Earth's ecosphere constantly. There's also slight quite slight amounts of water in ancient rock being exposed to the surface, and volcanic vents that may bore through rock that predates life. It would be quite difficult to measure and there may not be even a molecule of it in a typical glass of water, but they do exist on Earth.
I'm afraid such is the fickle nature of using absolutes.
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You should have just pointed out what plants do with water, they split it into hydrogen and oxygen and so that is the only time water is really truly actually consumed. It then requires combustion of one form or another to turn those atoms of hydrogen and oxygen back into water. So new water that has not been used by anything is being created as we speak and old water is disappearing either by being split into it's component parts or as is want to happen, being turned into new molecules by the addition of
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Hmm, is that true? Granted that many of the water molecules in my body have been inside many, many living animals and passed through one way or another, surely there are (a LOT of) water molecules being made and unmade every day through ionic dissociation. It might be more accurate to say that every atom of H and O in your body has been through a creature, but not necessarily bonded into water. Then there is "new water" produced when primordial hydrogen or methane are oxidized. Finally, I haven't done t
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It was made from sewage, not just urine. It's literally water derived from shit.
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As necessary about the water filter ration system on the ISS, it turns yesterday's coffee into tomorrow's coffee. Seriously though I am in LA and they're such focus on water efficiency of the people are seriously thinking of this.
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Really? Wake me up when they stop watering their lawns and start wearing stillsuits.
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After all, we don't look at ancient Rome's always-on fountains fed by aqueducts in that light, even though they had no off-valve.
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Future generations may look back on us and wonder how we could just waste water so easily.
Because this isn't Arrakis, and most of the Earth's surface is covered in water, which will still be there for future generations as long as we don't find a way to effeciently fuse normal hydrogen for energy.
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One man's piss is another man's ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually the majority of water has never been drunk by a human before. But almost all of it would have been drunk by a dinosaur at some point. Include every species ever and yes it's pretty much been piss at some point. [xkcd.com]
Re:One man's piss is another man's ... (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe if you are talking about each individual water molecule. But if you take any given glass of water, it no doubt contains water molecules that were part of Napoleon's piss.
There are more water molecules in a glass of water than there are glasses of water in the ocean.
Re:One man's piss is another man's ... (Score:5, Informative)
that's an understatement, there are more molecules of water in a glass of water ( 2 * 10 ^ 25) than there are estimated stars in the visible universe (10 ^ 24).
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Yech!
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You obviously have no idea what the Water Cycle is.
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Pretty much a slam dunk. It's a popular demonstration in Stats courses -- though the subject is usually Oliver Cromwell.
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Bill Gates studied the engineering behind it? I am so reassured...
Human waste contains heaps of harmful bacteria. If I am going to drink water recycled in this manner, I'd prefer to have the engineering studied by an independant water quality professional, say, an environmental engineer? And for the output water to be studied by health professionals and microbiologists. Some long term testing on how well the product holds up as the filters degrade would be nice too. That first glass may be clean and delicious, what about the the tenth, hundredth, or thousandth glass?
The recommendation of the former CEO of a software corporation (no matter how successful) doesn't really give me that high a level of confidence in the product.
Would you rather they tested it on some poor mouse?
Re:One man's piss is another man's ... (Score:5, Funny)
Would you rather they tested it on some poor mouse?
I see your point. The correct lab testing protocol should be CEOs, then lawyers, then lab rats, and then finally humans.
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Bill Gates studied the engineering behind it? I am so reassured...
Human waste contains heaps of harmful bacteria. If I am going to drink water recycled in this manner, I'd prefer to have the engineering studied by an independant water quality professional, say, an environmental engineer? And for the output water to be studied by health professionals and microbiologists. Some long term testing on how well the product holds up as the filters degrade would be nice too. That first glass may be clean and delicious, what about the the tenth, hundredth, or thousandth glass?
The recommendation of the former CEO of a software corporation (no matter how successful) doesn't really give me that high a level of confidence in the product.
Would you rather they tested it on some poor mouse?
How about Bennet Haselton?
Re:One man's piss is another man's ... (Score:5, Informative)
Human waste contains heaps of harmful bacteria.
Poo? Yes. Piss? No.
Your kidneys filter at the molecular level and thus are VERY good at preventing bacteria from entering your bladder. If bacteria ever entered your bladder, you'd routinely have bladder and/or urinary tract infections, namely because no blood flows to those regions so you have no T cells to combat it. While urine smells foul and probably tastes worse, it wouldn't kill you to drink it. (But still don't do it anyways because it contains waste materials that your kidneys removed from your blood for a very good reason.)
That said, we also have the artificial means of doing the filtering job that kidneys do, so it wouldn't surprise me if this technique also worked on poo.
If I am going to drink water recycled in this manner, I'd prefer to have the engineering studied by an independant water quality professional, say, an environmental engineer? And for the output water to be studied by health professionals and microbiologists.
Bill Gates didn't invent it, and he isn't trying to sell it to you either. Chances are you'll probably never even see one unless either you're a humanitarian aide worker and/or you live in a third world country. He's trying to promote it as a means of helping people who have difficulty accessing potable water.
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Human waste contains heaps of harmful bacteria.
Poo? Yes. Piss? No.
Your kidneys filter at the molecular level and thus are VERY good at preventing bacteria from entering your bladder...
You should RTFA: The device is for extracting water from feces. That's poo, not piss, and in the context of the article, obviously what I was talking about.
Bill Gates didn't invent it, and he isn't trying to sell it to you either... He's trying to promote it as a means of helping people who have difficulty accessing potable water.
My point was that Bill Gates shouldn't be endorsing it based on the fact that he personally "studied the engineering". He simply isn't qualified to make a call like that. No point selling it to anyone if the water output becomes poisonous over time.
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Gates wasn't trying to convert the "water of life" into something safe to drink. He was merely a test taster.Associating his name to a device like this dovetails into the kind of programs his foundation has been funding in Africa and other countries lacking modern day access to clean water and medicines.
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Do you think that the people around Bill Gates would let him drink that water if it wasn't safe ?
It would not suprise me.
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Fuck you.
Calm down child, you'll have a seizure if you're not careful. TFA doesn't mention reverse osmosis - which is very expensive and slow.
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Recycled (usually called "reclaimed water") water is not the topic [......]
I don't know what you're on, but maybe it's the pharms in recycled water. How is recycled water not the topic? Are you suggesting "Water From Human Waste" isn't recycled?
This is how municipal water works already... (Score:2)
Ever wonder why water treatment plants smell so bad?
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They shouldn't. Modern clean water treatment plants with effective odour control tanks and sludge processing techniques should really have much of a scent.
Even WWTP are reasonable clean smelling these days.
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The chlorine?
Or did you meant sewage treatment plants? Which, however, don't provide potable water to municipal water works already.
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There is a large setup in South East Queensland.
Waste water from the gold coast and Brisbane is fed to two Advanced Water Treatment Plants at Beenleigh and then it is piped to a larger plant at Bundamba before being put into Wivenhoe dam. Wivenhoe is the primary drinking water storage for Brisbane.
That said it was all built in the mid 2000s when it looked like we were going to completely run out of water. They also built a large desal plant at Tugan. None of these systems are currently turned on as it th
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Of course, there was the time the US navy connected the sewage pumps on one of their warships up to the City of Portsmouth's potable water supply but that probably doesn't count.
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The meat from the store didn't used to be cut up so secretly when I was a kid. Sure they kept the carcasses back in the freezer but they'd bring out large parts to custom carve cuts for the shoppers. So you now it's fresh that way. Not too long ago I walked into a small grocery store and you could smell the meat immediately upon walking in which told me it wasn't fresh.
Bear Grylls (Score:5, Funny)
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The sun is going down.
Better make Bill Gates drink my piss
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Now best known for drinking his own piss!
Obligatory Dilbert (Score:5, Funny)
I don't drink water. (Score:3)
(attr: William Claude Dukenfield)
All water is recycled (Score:3)
Re:All water is recycled (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember, that delicious tap water was once pooped in by a dinosaur.
Maybe. But dinosaurs didn't take pharmaceutical drugs.
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A good reverse osmosis system will remove most anything larger than a water molecule... that includes just about any pharmaceutical molecule you'd care to name.
Of course it will. But RO is very expensive and complicated and requires specialised maintenance. It's also not mentioned in TFA (although it could be in the video, i don't know - reading TFA is quite uncool enough on /. - without watching TFV).
Welcome to water treatment.... (Score:5, Informative)
Where do people think their water comes from? Dependent on your location it is either pulled from a dam / river / ocean which has shit, corpses (animal and human), bacteria and all sorts of nasties or it comes from a waste water treatment plant after the solid waste has been removed.
The process is the same, ram the water under pressure against a membrane. Water goes through, other stuff doesn't. The biggest challenge is actually the medication that goes into the waste water system. It generally means that the solid waste that is removed by your treatment plant can't be used directly without additional treatment.
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People are idiots. I remember a story a year or two ago about some drunk guy getting caught peeing in the local reservoir and they had to drain it or something.
Re:Welcome to water treatment.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember that story. From what I remember that water was supposedly on the clean side of the treatment process. What I don't understand is how they stopped birds crapping in it (spoiler - they didn't).
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They probably think it falls out of the sky or something.
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Re:Welcome to water treatment.... (Score:5, Informative)
That isn't quite correct. Membrane style water treatment systems do remove the vast majority of medications. Also commonly referred to as Reverse Osmosis plants the process they use is exceptional at removing everything bar the water itself.
The problems come from where the treatment approach is purely using chlorination to sterilise the water. This obviously removes nothing.
So it's actually the opposite way around from what you have said. Older chlorination style systems don't remove the medication but modern RO plants do. And essentially RO is the way to go if you are building a plant.
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As long as the bird isn't a vector for a parasite such as giardia.
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So what? Giardia is already in what, 70, 80% of US streams? And presumably 100% of rivers. The odds that the bird would add much to a reservoir not already there are pretty slim. And it's not like giardia is *that* terrible - you spend a week or four within sprinting distance of a toilet and then you can stop worrying about it until you drink only processed water for a prolonged period again.
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But I believe the reservoir is on the treated side of the system, not the untreated.
You are right that I don't care that Giardia is in the streams and rivers. I do care if it is in my tap water.
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I didn't want to overly complicate the description. In a modern RO plant the membrane is the primary filtration system. Prior to that they will remove the larger matter using screens, sedimentation tanks and other physical filtration systems. Also the plant you are describing is obviously an older design and if they were to start again they would cut most of those processes out with a modern system.
After the water has passed the membrane, note depending on the contaminant level this may be as low as 60%
I feel I missed a key point.. (Score:3)
Yes, it creates electricity, water, and activated sludge... What heats the sludge? Do they start an oil based fire, and then use off-gassing from the sludge to continue the reaction?
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Activated sludge isn't mentioned in either article. Ash is. Presumably they have filters such that they get a relatively dry sludge, which they can then indeed burn to ash and produce power.
Phrasing (Score:2)
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This is a great development in a field that will likely save billions of lives
Why ? Water treatment plants have existed for many years. The fact that they aren't used in some places of the world can't be fixed by making yet another water treatment plant.
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Of course it can -- make them where they don't exist yet.
But then, what HAS to be fixed first is corrupt governments that take the money for themselves instead of building necessary infrastructure.
A pretty low bar (Score:3)
"The water tasted as good as any I've had out of a bottle,"
That's a pretty low bar, as anyone accustomed to drinking fresh mountain spring water can tell you. I suppose it frequently tastes a better than metropolitan city water though...
Re:A pretty low bar (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose it frequently tastes a better than metropolitan city water though...
Unlikely, since it frequently is metropolitan city water.
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I may be mistaken but I think it's probably water that's from a spring on a mountain. You see ... snow runoff will seep into the sides of mountains, travel a ways through the porous rock and then spring out of the ground at a lower elevation. I know it seems unbelievable, but it's true.
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Not by human waste, especially not if you're drinking from headwaters 30+ miles upriver from the nearest human community. It's rich in minerals, and occasionally contaminated with disease (though not so much as you'd think - water flows through far finer cracks in the rock that even microbes can manage), but there are virtually none of the artificial chemicals that make me feel like I'm drinking diesel locomotive piss, as is so commonly the case in major cities. And none of the chemical perfume flavors ch
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What the fuck is "mountain spring water"?
Ask the those bottled water companies that sell the stuff labelled as such.
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Hydrologic cycle (Score:2)
This has been going on for billions of years.
Bill Gates' opinion... (Score:2)
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Inventor of steaming shit is ok with drinking piss!
kW or kWh? (Score:3)
From BG blog one can conclude that the author belongs to the category of people unclear about the difference between a quantity of energy and a rate of energy production. To his excuse the common poor choice of kWh instead of the SI J (Joule J, 1 kWh = 3.6 MJ) as energy unit is just making energy discussions more confusing.
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From BG blog one can conclude that the author belongs to the category of people unclear about the difference between a quantity of energy and a rate of energy production.
If you're reading the same bit I am, are you sure?
The "waste from 100,000 people" is a rate of input, and "86,000 liters a day" and "250kw of electricity" are rates of output. This is entirely consistent an
RTFA. (Score:5, Informative)
Why would anyone want to turn waste into drinking water and electricity?
Because a shocking number of people, at least 2 billion, use latrines that aren't properly drained. Others simply defecate out in the open. The waste contaminates drinking water for millions of people, with horrific consequences: Diseases caused by poor sanitation kill some 700,000 children every year, and they prevent many more from fully developing mentally and physically.
If we can develop safe, affordable ways to get rid of human waste, we can prevent many of those deaths and help more children grow up healthy.
Western toilets aren't the answer, because they require a massive infrastructure of sewer lines and treatment plants that just isn't feasible in many poor countries.
One idea is to reinvent the toilet, which I've written about before.
Another idea is to reinvent the sewage treatment plant.
Today, in many places without modern sewage systems, truckers take the waste from latrines and dump it into the nearest river or the ocean --- or at a treatment facility that doesn't actually treat the sewage. Either way, it often ends up in the water supply. If they took it to the Omniprocessor instead, it would be burned safely. The machine runs at such a high temperature (1000 degrees Celsius) that there's no nasty smell; in fact it meets all the emissions standards set by the U.S. government.
Before we even started the tour, I had a question: Don't modern sewage plants already incinerate waste? I learned that some just turn the waste into solids that are stored in the desert. Others burn it using diesel or some other fuel that they buy. That means they use a lot of energy, which makes them impractical in most poor countries.
The Omniprocessor solves that problem. Through the ingenious use of a steam engine, it produces more than enough energy to burn the next batch of waste. In other words, it powers itself, with electricity to spare. The next-generation processor, more advanced than the one I saw, will handle waste from 100,000 people, producing up to 86,000 liters of potable water a day and a net 250 kw of electricity.
From Poop To Potable: This Ingenious Machine Turns Feces Into Drinking Water [gatesnotes.com]
Re:RTFA. (Score:4, Interesting)
Because a shocking number of people, at least 2 billion, use latrines that aren't properly drained. Others simply defecate out in the open. The waste contaminates drinking water for millions of people, with horrific consequences: Diseases caused by poor sanitation kill some 700,000 children every year, and they prevent many more from fully developing mentally and physically.
And the ancient Romans figured this out, and solved it.
It does not require the massive infrastructure that starts with Western toilets to solve this problem. It can be done with wood and stone and gravity, assembled using nothing more than muscle power. The fact that 2 billion people (with far more muscle power at their disposal than the ancient Romans ever had) haven't speaks volumes about the 2 billion people.
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And the ancient Romans figured this out, and solved it.
How did all that lead in the plumbing work out for them again?
Re:RTFA. (Score:2)
How did all that lead in the plumbing work out for them again?
Vastly better than dying of cholera, that's for sure. Anyway the Romans knew that lead pipes had problems even if they didn't fully understand why and clay pipes were often preferred.
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Not really. Water supply was a major problem throughout the Roman period and a major limit on the growth of cities.
Presuming you have mountain springs or other sources of water at a higher altitude than your city - many places don't. A steady suppl
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It does not require the massive infrastructure that starts with Western toilets to solve this problem. It can be done with wood and stone and gravity, assembled using nothing more than muscle power.
The essential requirement was a constant flow of fresh water in roughly the same volume as consumed daily by a modern European city.
There were eleven aqueducts supplying water to Rome that --- after serving drinking, bathing, sanitation and other needs --- was flushed through the sewers.
Over time, the Romans expanded the network of sewers that ran through the city and linked most of them, including some drains, to the Cloaca Maxima, which emptied into the Tiber River. Sanitation in ancient Rome [wikipedia.org]
Is it nec
Why is this shocking to anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did anyone really think Bill Gates would have the opinion "We can never drink water molecules that used to have poop next to them. That's just gross."
People can be skeptical whether a particular water purification process is adequate, but anyone who thinks water can't be purified is just an idiot and probably also homophobic (i.e. the category of people who are compelled to irrationality regarding things that seem gross to them).
Say what you want about Bill Gates, but he doesn't seem like the type to be idiotically irrational.
Fodder and Mudder (Score:2)
With that, Gates opened himself up for Windows jokes wider than goatse
Economics? (Score:2)
Who cares if you can distill clean drinking water from human excrement? What matters is, is it economical?
Um, Yeah (Score:2)
Maybe not enough (Score:2)
Bill Gates Endorses Water From Human Waste
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Bill endorsing it is a start. If perhaps the pope could also bless it, that might make it potable.
Dissipointed in the quality of the comments I see. (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess I expect more intellegence from slashdot readers, it used to be that way any way.
Comments about "Gates selling shit" and "its faked" do nothing except show that you are ignorant and childish. What comes out of that unit is both distilled and then filtered (probably some sort of reverse osmosis filter that could do an ok job of cleaning the water on its own.) Since it is distilled there is no bacteria in it unless it it has been recontaminated further down the line.
The whole point of this is that there are plenty of places in the world with not much in the line of clean drinkable water. People live in those places. Poor people living in poor countries that can't afford (or chose not to) provide clean drinking water to thier people. Those peoples health and well being would be greatly improved by having safe clean water available. Their lifestyle and economic well being would be greatly improved if that water was available somewhere close to where they live.
Here is a solution that will take something that is found in abundance everywhere humans and their animals live and turn it in to something that is needed and desired enough that a person may be able to make a living running the thing. It is a solution that a small company (or village) could afford, as opposed to something costing tens of millions of dollars.
Here is a link to the web site of a small town in the US that just spent $21 million on a treatment plant plus another 30 million on sewage lines:
https://www.gocolumbiamo.com/P... [gocolumbiamo.com]
How many little third world villages do you suppose can raise $51 million?
Way to go Mr Gates!
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1) Gates is involved. Gates is a proven corporate rogue who, while a significant section of the World's population admire him (generally those more ignorant of his history, some even thinking he invented computers), he only generates dislike and cynicism among those concerned about his history of cheating and extortion. They see his "green" and "humanitarian" activities merely as an attempt to repair his bad reputation
Human waste (Score:2)
nature does it too (Score:2)
Growing up in SE lower Michigan, most of the municipal water was provided by the Detroit metro water supply, which for years was considered one of the best (quality) water systems in the country. (perhaps not so anymore, based on some recent news articles) The water is collected from the middle of Lake Huron, north of Port Huron. There are thousands of cottages along the lakeshore, with many of them having septic systems which empty into the lake. However, sunlight is good at sterilizing water (eventuall
In other news (Score:2)
In other news:
Windows 10 gets released this week.
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Until your local carpet python gets in there and dies like happened to me. Never noticed a difference in the taste but god did I gag when I found its rotting body....
The main plants in SEQ never got turned on. One of the things that makes me angry. If those plants had been turned on then we could have lowered the level in wivenhoe to 50% and we would never have had the 2010 floods.
Same as the Toowoomba plant. They built a full recycling system there and the politicians chickened out and put turning it o