Solar stills are great as distilleries. but again look at the word. We are making the water potable. This assumes a SUPPLY of water to distill. As a device for collecting that water, they are woefull failures. Doug discusses their antecedents . It was a development for military survival. Trouble is, it was never really tested in the real world before being promoted.As I said, if somebody writes euphorically about the gallon of mountain spring water gathered while crossing the Sonora desert: they're either liars or ate peyote instead of prickly pear fruit by mistake.<br><br>