A Utah company says it may have found a surprising new water source hiding in plain sight: natural-gas exhaust.
If the approach works at scale, it could turn a combustion byproduct that would typically vanish into the air into usable water for agriculture and other needs in a state where every drop matters.
Here's what to know
According to a YouTube video segment by KUTV 2 News Salt Lake City (@KUTV2News), Creekstone Energy has a system called GIGAWATER that is intended to recover water created when natural gas is burned.
According to Creekstone Energy CEO Ray Conley, the system pulls water out at the end of an underground cooling process. Hot exhaust is sent below ground around specially placed rocks, the moisture condenses into a collection pan, and the water is then pumped out.
The idea starts with a basic combustion byproduct: water vapor. Rather than letting that moisture drift into the atmosphere, Creekstone says it may be possible to collect it and put it to use.
Creekstone is working with University of Utah researchers to evaluate whether the recovered water could be used for farming and other purposes.
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More background
More available water could ease pressure on traditional supplies used by farms, businesses, and industrial sites. That could affect food production, local economies, and household costs if water stress contributes to rising prices.
More resilient water supplies can also indirectly support public health by helping communities and growers maintain reliable access during hotter, drier periods.
But major questions remain. Researchers will need to determine how much water can actually be recovered, how clean it is after collection, and whether the system makes financial sense compared with other water-saving tools.
What's being done?
The main focus is on testing and validation.
The effort centers on Creekstone's underground cooling design, while University of Utah researchers help determine whether the collected water is suitable for practical uses such as agriculture.
As Conley said, "What we did was figure out how do you, instead of having it float off into the air, how do you capture that water?"
Where can I learn more?
Creekstone's concept is part of a larger effort to get more use out of industrial byproducts instead of letting them go to waste. Other projects are approaching that goal in different ways, from catching pollution at smokestacks to reusing unwanted emissions and helping growers use less water.
• At Purdue University, engineers patented a process to stop air pollution at its source.
• Across multiple industries, innovators are repurposing harmful pollutants for good instead of wasting them.
• In India, an entrepreneur built a water-saving planter that boosts irrigation efficiency with recycled plastic.
Each of these stories points to the same idea: useful resources often hide in places people once overlooked.
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