The example is the Telluride though? That’s the whole point. Of course any sane person would pick a cheaper car. For that matter why would you ever buy a brand new car?

I definitely agree, but I went with the option which would have the lowest monthly payment. On the other end local rates have a 36 month loan at 6.75%, but that’s $1,800 per month.

I just Googled and the 2024 Telluride has an MSRP of ~$55,000 in my area, used 2023 models are about ~$45,000.

Looking at an auto loan calculator, that’s between $700 and $900 per month with a 96 month 9% auto loan.

Point is, if you can afford the car you’re probably not worrying about the subscription except on principle. If you can afford the car and have principle concerns you’d probably buy a different car.

Hey, I’m not saying this technology doesn’t have a use, and maybe if it’s stupidly expensive it will be heavily subsidized. The point I’m making is that it “likely” isn’t the solution to world wide water scarcity.

Another user commented that desalination is a grift, it’s not, the market forces just aren’t there yet to push its large scale implementation world wide. However, the idea that an upcoming technology may theoretically scale up and be the same economic scale is historically unlikely.

Historically the trajectory of this sort of technology is that it will define technology for the next 20 years (Nobel Peace Prize or more), or it will be bought up and buried by a big corporation (goodwill isn’t typically good for capitalism), or it won’t scale up as predicted and will be a major nothing burger.

It’s complicated, typically US rates aren’t a flat $/gallon. Most have flat fixed costs (meter fee, availability fees, etc) and then the actual volumetric rate charge is tacked on top of that. In my city the rate is additionally tiered, so the more water you use the more those later gallons cost. Most residential users fall into Tier 1 though, up to 4 CCF (Centicubic Foot or 748 gallons) per month, which is billed at $1.89 per CCF or $0.002526 per gallon.

So it’s hard to use the rates alone as there are additionally fixed rate costs (around $10 a month) and other usage is billed differently (commercial and industrial have higher flat rates as well as higher flat volumetric rate). The result is that commercial and industrial users pay higher rates than residential.

Luckily, my city also publishes raw statistics which indicates that, all things averaged together, the water costs around $0.04 per gallon.

But furthers the point I’m making. If your water costs more than mine then the potential price of this machine is even higher and the base price is already expensive as is. If this was truly a cheap and affordable alternative for people’s in need then it likely would have made that price point a major point of the article.

Just because it’s cheaper than an alternative doesn’t make it affordable.

EDIT: Also the article says

“the team estimates that the overall cost of running the system would be cheaper than what it costs to produce tap water in the United States.”

Great point, sorry for the error!

While this is a cool development I would recommend tempering expectations. The cost of tap water is exceptionally cheap and the claims made here likely take these estimates to the extremes. The economics of scale likely don’t match up.

For example, tap water in my city costs ~$0.04 per gallon, at 5 liters per hour, 0.264 gallons per liter, 24 hours per day, for 5 years is $2,312. So saying they can make it for less than the cost of tap water doesn’t mean it’s affordable.

EDIT: Forgot to convert from liters to gallons

Watching Sorted Food (London based food channel on YouTube) it does seem that some Brits enjoy both or one over the other. The majority seem to drink just tea, the next group enjoys both but for different events, and the smallest group is coffee only.

For the middle group it’s people who have coffee in the morning and tea at noon/afternoon.

They’re outraged because she was arrested, not because she was there.

That’s probably the best description of the situation anyone could make. Israel is in a tough spot where they are custodians of a state that from ~1930 till ~2015 has had the stated goal of destroying Israel. It’s only in very recent years that Palestinian sentiment has even toyed with coexisting. Outside of the situation the neighboring states still hold that sentiment and have tried to destroy Israel multiple times since ~1940. It also doesn’t help that the pseudo-government of Palestine are current and former terrorists.

All that said Israel’s government is very authoritarian and has not handled the custodianship adequately and the people of Israel seem to simply be ignoring the situation.