Yaghi envisions a two-pronged product line. Industrial-scale water generators running on electricity would be capable of producing thousands of liters per day at one end, while units running on passive systems could operate in remote locations without electricity, simply using energy from the sun and ambient temperature. In theory, these units could someday replace desalination and even entire municipal water supplies. The next round of field tests is scheduled for early 2026 in the Mojave Desert – one of the hottest, driest places on Earth.
“This is my dream,” Yaghi says. “To give people freedom of water, so that they are not dependent on any other party for their life.”
Both Yaghi and Watergen’s Chernyavsky say they are considering more decentralized versions that could operate outside municipal utility systems. Home appliances, such as rooftop solar panels and batteries, can allow homes to generate their own water from the grid.
However, it may be difficult to bring prices down without economies of scale. “You have to produce, you have to refrigerate, you have to filter – everything in one place,” Chernyavsky says. “So narrowing it down is very, very challenging.”
As difficult as it may be, Yaghi’s childhood gave him a special appreciation for the freedom of going off the grid, the basic necessity of water, free from the whims of a system that dictates when and how people can get it.
“This is really my dream,” he says. “To give people freedom, water freedom, so that they are not dependent on any other party for their livelihood or life.”
At the end of one of our conversations, I asked Yaghi what he would tell a younger version of himself if he could. “Jordan is one of the worst countries in terms of the impact of water stress,” he said. “I would say, ‘Continue to be hard-working and attentive. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, as long as you’re passionate.'”
I pressed him to say something more specific: “What do you think he would have said when you told him about this technique?”
Yaghi smiled and said: “I think young Omar will think that you are putting him through this, that it is all imaginary and you are trying to take something from him.” In other words, this reality would be beyond young Omar’s dreams.
Alexander C. Kauffman is a journalist who has covered energy, climate change, pollution, trade and geopolitics for more than a decade.
