There, in a shaded courtyard, we each sample a cup of water that flows from a drinking fountain.
There sit two Friesen’s devices, called Source Hydropanels.
Friesen believes installations like this one could soon be providing clean, quality drinking water to homes, schools and businesses across the United States and beyond – and why not, to rural villages, desert towns or urban slums in the developing world.
“Water stress is a human condition,” says Friesen, who is founder and CEO of Zero Mass Water, the Arizona-based startup that makes Source.
But Friesen, a materials scientist and professor of engineering at Arizona State University, has already installed the Source in eight countries, including Ecuador, Jordan, Mexico and the Philippines.
“With us, you get to hold the result of that solar energy in a cup,” he says.
In 2007, he founded Fluidic Energy, which develops battery technology.
“He’s going to get water out of the air.
He’s done it Arizona.
“There is an awful lot of far from pure water being drunk in the United States,” says Battle, whose Berkeley house Freisen took me for the demonstration of Source.