An inventor wants to put his "WaterMill" on your wall. He claims it will draw water from the air and make it safe to drink. Is this a practical appliance that can save a precious resource and make the world a better place? Wired magazine thinks so.

By Robert Metz

Why are we so jittery that we carry bottled water around with us? There is so much H2O in the air -- even when it isn't raining we ought to be able to tap it.

At the Wired annual showcase of the latest thing-a-ma-jigs the magazine thinks could make this world a friendlier place, the WaterMill stars.

The WaterMill is designed to convert the wall space usually taken up by a dry photo of the rich relative who comes to ruin Thanksgiving into the hanging place for a wet high tech device that looks like a large, half ball.

The ball also sucks -- water. And from the air itself.

WaterMill, uses the electricity of about three light bulbs to condense moisture from the air and purify it into clean, drinking water. The device is from a Canadian firm, Element Four.

Saltfree drinkable water

The company's founder-inventor, Jonathan Ritchey, hopes he has the nation's first mainstream household appliance since the microwave. He wants to turn the ancient mariner's nightmare of undrinkable water, water everywhere into salt-free, germ-free drinkable wasser.

To summarize, WaterMill draws air in and sucks out the moisture which then passes through a pipe to the frig -- for ice cubes to make -- or into the ta -- for water to drink.

You are worried about germs and the like? Step one: filters remove dust and particles in the serious purification process. Step two: the device is cooled to just below the temperature at which dew forms.

Step three: the condensation is passed through a self-sterilizing chamber using microbe-busting ultra-violet light to eradicate any possibility of Legionnaires' disease or other infections.

Can household water demands be met by drawing aqua from the air?

Freedom from water

What has the inventor been drinking? Jonathan Ritchey's confident reply is "Just wait and see. The demand for water is off the chart. People are looking for freedom from water distribution systems that are shaky and increasingly unreliable."

If it should work and encourage the environmentally anxious to distill their own, its a good thing -- if not for the bottlers. Bottled water is called an ecological catastrophe.

In the US alone, 30 billion liters of bottled water are consumed every year at a cost of about $11 billion. You may recall that 1 US gallon is equal to 3.78541178 liters -- give or take a drop.