Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) -- If you listen to inventor Dean Kamen, the biggest health problem facing the world today is not AIDS, obesity or malnutrition. It's a shortage of water.

Water is the most abundant resource on the planet, yet less than one percent of the Earth's freshwater supply is readily available to drink, according to the World Health Organization. Lack of accessible or clean drinking water, exacerbated by drought, is crippling communities in many developing countries.

"In your lifetime, my lifetime, we will see water be a really scarce, valuable commodity," Kamen says.

Those are scary words from the man whose creations include the Segway personal motorized scooter and the Luke (as in Skywalker) prosthetic arm. But the forward-thinking inventor and his team at DEKA Research in Manchester, New Hampshire, aren't sitting around waiting for the world's wells to dry up.

They've been working on an invention they say can tap into 97 percent of the world's undrinkable water.

It's called the Slingshot, and it's a portable, low energy machine that is designed to purify water in remote villages where there's not a Wal-Mart in sight. The device takes its name from a well-known story.

"We believe the world needs a slingshot to take care of its Goliath of a problem in water," Kamen says. "So we decided to build a small machine and give it to the little Davids."

Perhaps you've heard about the Slingshot, which Kamen has been working on for more than 10 years. Over that time it has turned dirty river water, ocean water and even raw sewage into pure drinking water. Kamen says it can turn anything that looks wet, or has water in it, into the "stuff of life."

The magic behind the Slingshot is a "vapor compression distiller" that stands between what looks like two empty fish tanks connected by a couple of hoses. One tank contains the contaminated liquid, the other is for the newly clean water. Watch Kamen demonstrate the Slingshot �

The Slingshot boils, distills and vaporizes the polluted source, in turn delivering nothing but clean water to the other side. And it does it all on less electricity than it takes to run a hair dryer.

In summer 2006, Kamen delivered two Slingshots to the small community of Lerida in Honduras. They were used for a month and Kamen says everything ran as planned.

"The machine worked very well down there, taking virtually any water that the people from that village brought to us," he says. "All the water that we got from the machine was absolutely pure water."

But there's a problem. Kamen says each Slingshot costs his company several hundred thousand dollars to build. He's looking to partner with companies and organizations to distribute Slingshots around the world, but says a little more engineering work needs to be done in order to lower the production costs.

Kamen says the company would like to get the price down to about $2,000 per machine.

"The biggest challenge right now between this being a dream and a reality is getting committed people that really care about the state of the world's health to get involved," Kamen says.

The world's population is quickly approaching 7 billion, making access to clean water that much more important. According to the World Health Organization and UNICEF, more than 3.5 million people die every year from water-related diseases and almost 900 million don't have access to a safe water supply.

Kamen says people in developing regions of the world need the Slingshot as soon as possible. He also thinks the problem with polluted water will spread beyond small villages.

He says one Slingshot machine can supply about 250 gallons of water a day, which is enough for 100 people. That's a lot of Davids.

"It is literally like turning lead into gold," he says. "But I believe it's more important, because you can't drink lead or gold."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/11/k...hot/index.html

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

I don't see how those two inventions have anything to do with those words being scary or lending them any credibility at all. Oh wait, wasn't the segway supposed to change the world and how cities were designed and built? lol

But it does sound like a decent invention worth promoting, would be nice if he got it down even cheaper than their target though, and it hardly sounds like some type of technological breakthrough.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/surv/sstill.htm

this seems much more practical requiring no electricity

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Thanks, that is very interesting!

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Wow, he's perfected alchemy... :sarcasm:

Next he needs to work on his command of the English language!

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

His Segway is a flop. I assume his next project will follow suit.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Seems like a Berkey and about 20 spare filters would be a cheaper solution, and it wouldnt require the solar cells or other electricity to run them...

"A small hairdryer" is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1300 - 1700 watts... Thats a pretty large piece of solar hardware if you're trying to place this out in the middle of nowhere.


I do agree though, a way to cheaply clean or desalinize water will be a global game changer. Imaging being able to introduce irrigation farming to most of Africa and even the middle east...

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Whether one uses a Kamen device or wood-fired distiller, in the end a lot of energy has to be imputed to make a comparitively small volume of water. This is fine for drinking water. But as for fresh water to feed crops, it is impractical. Yes, drinkable clean water will be in increasingly small supply in the future, and become a very valuable resource. Just look at California today, and that is the future facing many parts of the world.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Life Straw anyone?

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Good point about the berkey's, it will be interesting to see what happens with the product. I wish them the best in there development of it.

theberkeyguy

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

If I remember in a oil refinery process, the different fuels get collected from different levels of the stack.

What would happen if you had water that was contaminated with some kind of solvent like turpentine or gasoline? Wouldn't the distillation process vaporize these chemicals too and then deposit it in the clean side?

Or is this only for cleansing pond scum with say heavy metals, bacteria, and viruses?

I guess there still has to be a filter for these type of pollutants.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

The problem with trying to help most third-world countries is that what they need most is not a water filter--it's boring, intangible complicated things like a secular democratic government, property rights and rule of law.

The problem even more difficult because in many locales, even the afflicted people themselves don't understand that.


-end-

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Brilliant! A couple hundred thousand dollar "still" to supply 100 people. What a moron.
Lets help these poor people by getting them dependent on overpriced western technology. They usually have some resources the first world needs that can service the debt.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

I love my berkey but it will not remove salt from water. A solar distiller is good for turning ocean water into clean water. And you are left with sea salt afterward. If i had to recycle my own urine i would use a distiller over the berkey. I think i'm going to watch "waterworld" again.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

And have the Multi national Corps loosen their deathgrip on the Throats of the Third World???


Tell em Tyler

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Replace the words "health problem facing" with "self promoter in".

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

The radiator is black so it seems you could combine that system with solar panels and kill 2 birds with one stone.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

These cost like 2-4 dollars to make and used by Millions in the Third world.........but they are not allowed in the USA for "safety reasons"

I wonder who blocked there acceptance???


http://www.vestergaard-frandsen.com/lifestraw.htm

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

The Segway...and the hype preceding it...was epic fail.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

http://goldismoney.info/forums/attac...1&d=1252954093

That has got to be one of the stupidest pics...EVER.

I thank you for it!

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Not to be outdone.........:ok::ok::ok::ok::ok::ok:

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Rube Goldberg had nothing on Dean Kamen vis-a-vis the segway.

My theory is that he subconsciously stole the idea from the roadrunner cartoon:

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Comon guys n gals...

Name one invention that really made it without government intervention/help?

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

omg thats f-ing rediculous! I hope thats how they come to my house to take my guns hahaha its like the british fighting the indians!

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

How many "remote villages" have electric power. How many have enough to spare to run around a thousand watts into this device?

Sounds to me like a solar still would make more sense. Just my 2c.
http://www.epsea.org/stills.html

R.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

i remember when he was about to release that thing, I was living in seattle at the time and he was calling it the I.T. meeting with bill gates and jeff bezos claiming it would change the world forever and all this crap, then he comes out with that pile of crap. what an anus.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

It's TACTICAL!!

All the police HAVE to have them. They're even in the tactical color, black.

Can they charge a tazer while they're riding it?

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Most remote villages have a fairly hefty generator (4 or 5 kW) to power things. My friend is a doctor a very remote village in Namibia, and although they only fire the generator once it is needed, it is needed often. He does all the "doctoring" from minor infections to amputations. But the leading killer - foul water. If this machine can produce pure, parasite and disease free water using hairdryer power, they would get one. They were given the generators through charitable donations, they make their own fuel, pure water to drink would cut down the amount of deaths and drugs needed, and result in massively increased survival rates.

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Segways in...remote....villages....

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

This just keeps getting better!

Re: Segway inventor takes aim at thirst with Slingshot
 

Who mentioned Segways? We are talking about a water purifier?