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TheThalweg t1_j1p3rpv wrote

Holy cow this is actually huge, the average North American city deals with about an 18% loss of treated fresh water. These non revenue water losses stops upgrades from happening and could help water scarce cities have a chance to bridge climate change.

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filosoful OP t1_j1p3ixy wrote

Around three billion litres of water are lost through leaks across hundreds of thousands of miles of water pipe in England and Wales daily, says water industry economic regulator Ofwat

Scientists have now developed miniature robots to patrol the pipe network, check for faults and prevent leaks.

They say maintaining the network will be "impossible" without robotics.

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pinkfootthegoose t1_j1pptee wrote

we already have pipeline pigs for this sort of thing and liners for smaller pipes. I don't see what innovation is occurring.

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devandroid99 t1_j1qfa1x wrote

They can spend even less money on upgrading the existing network and do nothing but reactive maintenance.

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wagner56 t1_j1pf9xf wrote

metal/ceramic filled eposies are stringer that the original pipe material - have been available for decdes

robots can be made now with sufficient communications and sensors and actuators to do patching work

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Devour_The_Galaxy t1_j1r1cb9 wrote

And then Data is gonna argue that they are sentient

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Hellishfish t1_j1sm5oa wrote

I’m going to start a new company that produces the robotics necessary to patrol water pipes in order to find and fix faulty water pipe drones.

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FuturologyBot t1_j1p5x97 wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/filosoful:

Around three billion litres of water are lost through leaks across hundreds of thousands of miles of water pipe in England and Wales daily, says water industry economic regulator Ofwat

Scientists have now developed miniature robots to patrol the pipe network, check for faults and prevent leaks.

They say maintaining the network will be "impossible" without robotics.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/zvguac/water_pipe_robots_could_stop_billions_of_litres/j1p3ixy/

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[deleted] t1_j1prcdp wrote

[deleted]

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nocondo4me t1_j1q55jo wrote

How do you deal with freezing

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ac9116 t1_j1qblul wrote

Keep the water flowing quickly or heating systems in exposed cold areas. I would assume evaporation is a bigger problem.

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