TL;DR
Devices which condense the air around it and extract humidity as water condensate.What ?
It's a pretty simple concept many of us have previously experienced in real life.. we run a refrigerator or air conditioner in practically any environment and it drains water condensate as a byproduct. Why not be able to do that in the game? Trade a decent amount of electricity for a little amount of water.Obviously make the electricity to water trade off insufficient to keep a steam power plant powered. Perhaps implement a system which establishes varying levels of humidity in areas which increases/decreases humidity extractor output and decreasing humidity too much may have an impact on pollution. Could even make humidity output a thing from certain factory devices/recipes!
There's a company which makes machines that do this in real life: http://aquaer.com/en/
Why ?
Sometimes you don't need a lot of water for a production line and the effort+energy+materials put into getting water there is vast. Having an alternative solution that provides a trade off in a lot of electricity to produce a little water might be more worthwhile.. at least temporarily.And sometimes you just don't have that much water if you set your map up for a true challenge.
One could also solar power such a device and produce water during the day at a rate faster than needed and buffer it into holding tanks in an amount that will last an entire day. OR buffer excess electricity into batteries which power these humidity extractors in the event water supply runs low from a stalled or jammed or late train delivery or failed/insufficient water supply.. trading some previously generated electricity for water to keep the factory running until the water supply train can make it or water supply is restarted/increased.
a) simple to implement (already implemented mods existing, which generate water out of nothing) and surely not come into vanilla game.
