Spanish engineers extract drinking water from thin air

This machine extracts drinking water from thin air

Location: Carrión de los Céspedes, Spain

It uses electricity to cool air until it condenses into water

82-year-old Enrique Veiga invented the machine

during a harsh drought in southern Spain in the 1990s

(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) AQUAER WATER CONDENSER INVENTOR AND ENGINEER ENRIQUE VEIGA, SAYING: "What our machine does is to replicate the cycle of water. It uses the air in the environment, our machine's main feature is that it can work in the desert, with temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius and above with a relative humidity of 10%, 15%."

A small machine can produce 50-75 litres a day

The bigger versions can produce up to 5,000 litres a day

(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) AQUAER WATER CONDENSER INVENTOR AND ENGINEER ENRIQUE VEIGA, SAYING:"Our goal is to help, our goal is to reach those refugee camps where there is no water to drink and give those people the chance to drink. Our aspiration is not only to produce an effective working machine but to make it useful and above all make it useful to those people that we see in documentaries walking kilometers and kilometers to get water and dig wells."