water from thin air: california couple\'s h2o-making device wins us$1.5m xprize

LOS ANGELES —
It started with humility: David Hertz, who knows that you can really make your own water with thin air under the right conditions, put a small device on the roof of his office and start offering a bottle of water for free for anyone who wants it.
Soon he and his wife, Laura Doss
Hertz thinks bigger.
So much so that the couple won $1 this week. 5-
Water rich million bonuses.
They won by developing a system that uses containers, chips and other debris to produce up to 528 gallons (2,000 litres)
The water cost per day is no more than 2 cents per quart (1 litre).
The XPrize competition, created by a group of philanthropist, entrepreneurs and others, has received over $0. 14 billion in bonuses over the years, known as bold, futuristic ideas designed to protect and improve the planet.
The first XPrize of $10 million is from Microsoft.
In 2004, Paul Allen, the founder of SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed manned space shuttle, and Bert Rutan, the aviation pioneer.
A few years ago, when Hertz learned who could come up with a cheap prize, he decided to produce clean fresh water in an innovative way for a world without enough fresh water.
At that time, his little water
Manufacturing machines make 150 gallons a day, most of which are for homeless people living behind the Hertz Venice beach environment Building Studio and surrounding alleys --
A regional company specializing in the creation of green buildings.
He and his wife, a commercial photographer, and their partner, Richard Groden, created a smaller machine that assembled the Skysource/Skywater Alliance and started working
They decided to generate the temperature and humidity needed to absorb water from the air and from the wood itself by heating the wood chips, thus creating a small rainstorm in the container.
\"The most attractive thing about containers is that they import more than they export, so there is usually a surplus,\" Hertz said . \" The containers are cheap and easy to move, he added.
If there is no wood chips around for heating, coconut shells, rice, walnut shells, grass crumbs or any other such waste will do a good job.
\"Of course, in areas where you have a lot of biomass, it will be a very simple technique,\" said Matthew Stuber . \", Professor of Chemistry and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut, water system expert, one of the judges of the panel of experts.
He called their water.
Making the machine a \"very cool\" Fusion, incorporating fairly simple technology that can be used to quickly supply water to areas that suffer from natural disasters, drought and even water scarcity in rural areas. Hertz and Doss-
Hertz has just begun to think about how to achieve this goal.
They are one of 98 teams from 27 countries.
Many teams are bigger and more funded, and the couple mortgaged their Malibu residence to keep them in the game.
On one occasion they were told they didn\'t make it to the last round of the fifth round, but there was a team out and they came back.
\"If you say we are the dark horse in the game, we are not even in the game,\" Hertz recalls with a smile . \".
A giant check next to him is in his office while Doss
Hertz was ready to set off for a photo shoot, and a tourist tasted a glass of fresh water they had made.
Now, however, they are in a long, humid transport.
\"There is no limit on how to use it,\" Hertz said of the award . \".
\"But Laura and I have promised to use all this for the development and deployment of these machines to get them to the people who need the most water.