Our first two items under And Another Thing are actually sort of "And Another Thing-good news hybrids."The first takes us to Lima, Peru, which you probably don't know, at least I didn't know, is set on a desert. In fact, it's the world's second largest capitol that is set on a desert. It gets only about 1/2" of rain per year. Peru as a whole gets about 2" a year. So getting fresh, pure water is a constant problem.
The billboard in the picture is an answer. It was designed by folks at Peru's University of Technology and Engineering and it takes advantage of the fact that the local humidity is about 98%. It uses reverse osmosis to literally suck the water out of the air. It gathers it, stores it, and delivers it at a standpipe at the bottom of the structure.
In its first three months of operation it has produced nearly 9500 liters - that's about 2500 gallons - of clean water. That's enough, the university says, to meet the monthly water needs of hundreds of families.Some folks are now hoping even to have one such structure in every village.
It could hardly have come at a better time: Residents of Peru depend on yearly melt from Andean glaciers for fresh water - and due to global warming, those glaciers have shrunk between 30 and 50 percent since the 1970s.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/billboard-lima-peru-water-crisis_n_2901882.html
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