The US Army has awarded a nearly $50 million contract for machines that act as giant dehumidifiers and turn air into air drinking water for service personnel who may operate in remote locations where conventional water supplies may be difficult or dangerous.
An announcement posted this month on the Pentagon’s website said that Florida-based Genesis Systems had been chosen to research, develop, test and acquire WaterCube Atmospheric Water Generation systems “to provide scalable on-site drinking water production in austere and contested environments.”
According to the company’s website, the largest water generator, which appears to be housed in a 20-foot-long shipping container, produces about 1,000 gallons of water per day in humid weather.
The cubes can be monitored remotely and are already being used for emergency response. The generators were ready for use in 2024 when Hurricane Milton knocked out local utilities for local hospitals. tech news outlet Wired reported.
Smaller versions, which start at $6,500 according to the company’s website, have a smaller footprint. They can be powered by solar energy, do not require an online connection and are marketed to people who want to make their own water at home or off the grid.
Water is one of the most essential needs of all military forces in combat. During the Global War on Terror, pallets of bottled water were transported by truck or plane to U.S. troops at bases throughout the Middle East, a heavy logistical burden that required manpower, vehicles and fuel to move.
Sometimes the military stores water in large ‘bladders’ or tankers, but this tax approach still relies on established, reliable methods logistics networks. In a complex, large-scale conflict, for which the US military has dramatically transformed itself, a war in which resupply may be vulnerable to attack or even unlikely, delivering fresh water is much more difficult.
Atmospheric water production however, does not completely eliminate the logistical challenge. The large generators require sufficient electricity and maintenance.
Amid a massive effort to reinvent the service for a high-tech, violent future fight, the Army has increasingly been looking for ways to produce more of what troops need closer to the battlefield.
Army investigators said in December that producing drinking water from the air could be an alternative to transporting drinking water by convoy to austere locations, part of the broader push to support troops in contested environments where they may be cut off from the support available to soldiers during the GWOT.
Last year, the Army turned to Genesis and another company, AirJoule, to “explore the use of waste heat, according to a Army press release.
Water generators can also serve as a partial solution concerns about water scarcitya growing problem in arid areas of the world, including western US states such as California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, although the machines work best in humid climates. Some have already been introduced to the market data centerswhich use enormous amounts of water to keep servers cool.
