by Navendu Yajnik

Created on: March 26, 2009

The current level of population of the world, exacebated with the rate at which the population is increasing, is bringing enormous pressure to bear on the natural resources of the earth. Nothing new here, numerous people before this have said it umpteen times. The clean, safe drinking water is just one such natural resource that is becoming scarcer by the day. The difference is that unlike other resources, water is aplenty on earth. The only problem is that 95% of the water found on earth is not fit for human consumption. All animals (and vegetation) have always relied on natural forces to make some part of this water clean and safe. Those sylvan forests with gurgling streams flowing endlessly are not much to be seen these days. How about taking this process in our hands and producing clean water to meet our needs? Well, it can be done, and the technology to do so is not at cutting edge. This technology has been around for many years. It is just that water scarcity never got the attention of those who could decide on such matters so this technology never was refined and made more economical. As a result, what we have today is an expensive, energy-consuming Reverse Osmosis technology, or slow and inefficient solar distillation process.

Nevertheless, these methods can be deployed at a micro level to provide reasonably clean potable water to village populations, especially those close to sea, so that the communities can be self sufficient in their water needs. Local governments should provide support in terms of necessary capital so that simple equipment can be installed and operated by village community level users to produce their own water needs.

The basic principle in this scheme is the same that is found in nature: the water of oceans evaporates, the vapor gets transported elsewhere, and then it condenses and precipitates in the form of rain or snow. The process that occurs in nature is uncontrollable in terms of its intensity and its direction. We cannot say how much evaporation will happen and we cannot predict where and when there will be rainfall.

By duplicating this process in a controlled fashion, we can direct it so that water that condenses from vapor occurs at a place of our choosing, at a time of our choosing and in a quantity we want. Desalination of sea water is a surefire way of obtaining clean potable water much in the manner in which nature gives it to us.

Basic Process: Here is how the natural process of rain making can be replicated. The seawater

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