August 20,
2008: Since there have been armies, the
largest single cause of casualties has been bad water. Not the enemy, but water
borne diseases. Modern armies devote a lot of transport to moving clean water,
and purification equipment. This is expensive, and the troops don't always get
clean water, drink the local stuff, and get sick.
A British
inventor has created a portable (1.4 pounds) water purification device (the
"Lifesaver") that can holds 25 ounces of purified water, and can
produce over two quarts a minute. The Lifesaver looks like a thermos bottle,
and is manually operated like a pump. A set of filters can produce over 4,000
quarts of pure water, free of all known impurities.
The
Lifesaver costs $229, and was issued to British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
American troops have bought Lifesavers with their own money. That's because
they find the Lifesaver more effective than water purification pills (which
produce water that tastes awful), or earlier portable purification devices.
