Discussion on:

Pepsi's chip factories run on potato water

I think you need to define what you mean by "run on potato water". In my mind this means they are converting the water to energy.

If all they're doing is extracting the water and using it to scrub the potatos and flush toilets, while commendable it's not actually running the plant.

All the water vapor previously was getting spewed into the atmosphere anyhow, it wasn't actually disappearing.

Now if they are extrcting the water breaking it down to hydrogen and oxygen and then running it through fuel cells and using the electricity to power the plant THAT would be most impressive.

So while the repurposing is a step in the right direction I fell your headline is misleading as it doesn't seem that the plant is actually "running" on extracted water. Maybe that's the next step.

I thought they were using either the electrolytic properties (like the
potato clock) which aren't very strong, or running through some
enzyme catalysts or something to then burn or convert directly to
electricity. It was a little misleading, but still cool!

I agree. The title is very misleading. I guess that's the only way to get people to read your article.

RUNNING usually means that you are making things happen, move, produce, etc by the use of something. Electricity is the primary force in any factory.

This is recovering something and in this case it takes energy to condense the steam back to water, purify it and then use it again. Right now they are trading more electricty for reducing/eliminating something that is becoming scarce.

The next step would be to eliminate the extra grid requirements to recove the water. Combine the two and you would have an article worthy of the title.