Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2012 as news. Production was due to start “in September” and the project was shortlisted for an award whose outcome is not reported.
Theo Hernando and Ricardo Gil, an agricultural engineer and a building surveyor, will start producing fog water in September. In 2008 the two entrepreneurs designed and patented these prototype fog collectors, which are prism-shaped and made of fibreglass on an aluminium frame. With them they will create the world’s first “water orchard” using three-dimensional collectors.
The prototypes are installed at an altitude of 1,600 metres in Gran Canaria. The idea is to sell the fog water bottled to hotels and gourmet shops, and also to use it to help fight forest fires, since it can be stored up in the hills.
To “make” fog water, all they need is enough altitude, wind and fog. The stronger the wind, the more cubic metres of air pass through the collector, and so the more litres they collect.
According to these entrepreneurs, what makes fog water different and special compared with other mineral waters is that, because it has never touched the ground or rocks, it contains no bicarbonates. That, they say, makes it ideal as a dietary supplement for children and for people with kidney problems.
The collectors are completely eco-friendly: they have no visual impact and take up little space, and the process uses no energy and produces no waste. As a result, this business idea is one of the five projects competing for the Biodiversity Award in the entrepreneurs category.
Featured image: Liu277339840, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
