Water From the Air and Power From Trash.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Q&A - Jim Mason of All Power Labs - Interview

Jim Mason was first profiled in Reason in 2008 when his early attempts at homemade power generation ran afoul of regulators in his hometown of Berkeley, California. He fought through and created a business, All Power Labs, which turns trash into fuel.

In October, Mason and his crew were a core part of the Skysource/Skywater Alliance team that won a $1.5 million Water Abundance XPrize. Their gasification-powered prototype, called the WEDEW Watertainer, heats wood chips in a low-oxygen environment to generate gas that can be used to power an engine, providing the energy to extract at least 2,000 liters of water per day from the atmosphere at a cost of less than 2 cents per liter. This technology has the ability to produce cheap, drinkable water in areas far from modern plumbing or places where disaster has cut off normal water supplies--and to do it with a negative carbon footprint. Senior Editor Brian Doherty talked with Mason about the project in November.

Q: How was your gasification tech key to winning this XPrize dedicated to solving water supply problems?

A: Atmospheric water generation usually requires [cooling air] below the dew point, and then water vapor condenses out as drinkable water. This is energy intensive. [For the prize] they needed something on-demand--you turn it on and it makes power all day [without the battery arrays that solar would require]. Gasification fit, because with biodiesel, the cost of fuel is too high for the 2-cent-per-liter cost target, whereas using biomass residue from forest and agriculture is [close to] free.

A huge hassle with gasification is often drying water [out of the fuel biomass]. But water vapor is exactly what the Watertainer needs. A limitation of atmospheric water generation machines is they only work well in hot, tropical environments, in high humidity. The Watertainer creates an artificial atmosphere from this [extra water from the biomass] which widens the places where such machines can be efficient outside the tropical band.

The solid byproduct of gasification is biochar, and the type we make is essentially what's used for charcoal filters, so beyond making water, we're making material for final filtration of water.

Q: Does XPrize require a plan to take your water generation tech to...