You know the whole water into wine thing? Well, I hate to bring it up but what else comes to mind when the Army announces that their diesel-powered Humvees are going to be outfitted with technology that can return water from diesel exhaust? Just filter the exhaust through some “proprietary carbon filters” and put the results into a handy container in the Humvee and add a spigot. Pretty darn amazing idea, if you ask me, and apparently just one of the innovative things that happens when the chips are down in a desert and water is considered a truly precious commodity, yet diesel fuel is all around. Or as someone in logistics might put it “if you carry fuel, you already have your water”. Well, unless you run out of “proprietary” filters. But I digress…

once you taste the water, you realize the potential.

Great marketing slogan, because before I tasted the water I just thought it would be a convenient place to dump toxic waste from warships and munitions. To be frank, the risk equation being used here to justify the research is simple. The more complicated the supply logistics the more vulnerable the soldiers, so the brass are looking for ways to shore-up a water supply chain. Cleaning domestic superfund base sites? Civilians are vulnerable mostly, so no pressing need for the military to invest in new technology there…remember, the groundwork for the Internet was started by a project funded by the US military to help maintain the command structure during war.

Now, let’s say the situation with risk is different — contaminated water is all around, AND diesel refineries are nowhere to be found. Enter engines designed for bio-fuels? Hmm, maybe the next war, although the use of bio-diesel is known to lower the risk of damage from IEDs since it is less combustible. It also might make the water taste more like yesterday’s freedom fries.

In the meantime fuels like bio-diesel remain non-combat experiments and the ability to recycle the exhaust sounds like a cool use (pun intended) of energy tech that I hope makes it to the civilian world soon.