Friend of TFN, David H., sent in an article from Discovery News regarding possible real-life applications of moisture farming. Excerpt below:


"It's kind of a far out concept, the idea that water is valuable enough that people will go into the desert and farm it using big giant contraptions (called 'vaporators' in the Star Wars universe, pictured left) that condense moisture out of the atmosphere. Correction: it WAS far out until climate change, pollution and an explosion of human population made water scarcity one of the biggest looming issues of the next century.

Now a group of German researchers have brought the odd invention into the realm of reality. An saline rich solution comes into contact with the desert air (which can hold a lot of water, even if there is no rain or surface water to speak of). The salty liquid is a sponge for mositure, which gets trapped in solution and then flows into a vacuum chamber. There energy collected from solar panels elsewhere on the device heats the solution and the water bubbles off as steam before it cools and condenses as pure water."


Click here for the full article.


Thanks David!