Metro Active: Tech to the Rescue
Clean-tech innovators break out a new batch of world-saving, fortune-making ventures
by Diane Solomon - 9.24.08
West Coast Green, which was launched as a kind of trade show for sustainable practices around the idea of "the built environment," this year expands to include the ever-bigger, still-blossoming world of green technology. A centerpiece of this year's show (relocated from San Francisco to San Jose—the new Capital of Clean-Tech) is an exhibition called the Innovation Pipeline, which showcases cutting-edge green products. Or, in some cases, products that will be cutting edge when they get out of development.
The products on view in the Innovation Pipeline represent the freshest advances in the area of sustainable technology, and range from updates of hippie-era "alternative technologies" to brand-new, highly charismatic high-tech wonders, to just-plain-awesome little gizmos.
While the chief value proposition of these devices is no doubt their planet-saving aspect, we appreciated them mainly for their sheer coolness.
Alchemical Reaction
This one sounds miraculous. Florida-based Island Sky's Skywater 14 and Skywater 300 products make clean drinking water from air.
The company has patented a process for transforming atmospheric humidity into drinking water. The Skywater 14 looks like an ordinary water cooler that's missing the 5-gallon bottle on top. And the delivery person. No need for either: It can produce up to 14 gallons of drinking water per day out of thin air. (Literally!)
The company says it costs as little as 16 cents per gallon to pay for the electricity that makes the magic, which works out to 4 cents per liter.
Under optimum conditions, a Skywater 300 unit can extract up to 300 gallons per day. It weighs 900 pounds, is about the same size as a refrigerator and is slated for release in 2009.
Ron Coletta says because over a billion people don't have access to clean drinking water, at least 14,000 people die each day. If his machines perform as advertised, they could be married to wind or solar technology and provide water where it's scarce or unavailable.