I was just having that "where does the water come from" discussion with someone last night.

Our conclusion was that it's less a question of how far up the technology curve you start and more a question of how big your initial investment is. If you literally start from scratch then your plan has to include a way for a group that can barely keep itself alive to produce enough profit to gradually buy the tractor and CEB press and whatnot. On the other hand, if you pool some resources so that on day one you have a CEB press and tractor and well-drilling rig and stuff like that, then you have a much better chance of actually getting a toe-hold and becoming self-sustaining.

The suggested beginning to a village based on the GVCS would most likely include a long list of materials and tools you should buy from commercial sources before you start. Things like pliers and PVC pipe, for example. It makes a lot more sense for the GVCS to be a smarter way of doing things, not an alternative just for the sake of being contrary. If it's more economical to hire a professional well digger to get you a couple wells on day one then do that. You don't need to insist on doing EVERYTHING yourself.

I'm not sure if it will ever make sense for the GVCS to include a machine for producing plumbing. That stuff is already a commodity. Unless someone comes up with a way to do the whole thing more efficiently then a GVCS alternative would actually be less efficient. Might as well solve the plumbing problem if it arises. No sense going and looking for work that's unnecessary.

Making tubes is surprisingly difficult. They're almost always a flat sheet that's rolled and sealed somehow. Making the seal permanent is not a trivial thing. Then plumbing requires tubes of certain materials for various reasons. Maybe the bioplastic extruder will be able to produce a blend that works well as plumbing. But, if it does then that would just be one more machine you needed at the beginning of construction and its productivity would depend on what area you happened to be building your village. The time lost collecting raw material and processing it into plumbing components might not make up for the savings, in which case you'd be better off just buying your first batch of components commercially.

I dunno. There's a lot of uncertainty in how this idea would actually be applied in the real world. There will probably end up being a wide array of solutions.

Options for water http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Category:Water

Although there is a "Well Drilling Rig" listed as one of the GVCS50, I think that it would be far more ecologically responsible to focus on harvesting rainwater & better water storage, because that can be done effectively anywhere that there is at least 7 inches of rainfall annually (per real-world-experiences of Mike Reynolds of Earthship fame).

This way, we don't encourage folks to further deplete already declining aquifers, and at the same time, they may be better able to slow or stop needless erosion and topsoil losses in places with seasonal flooding/seasonal dry spells.

Im afraid access to water is one of the fundamentals of any community.  The solutions have been the same for as long as humans have been around, you either put your community next to a source of fresh water (ie lake or river) or you get it from the ground (ie a well).  Rainwater can supplement these but you wouldnt want to rely on it as your only source.  Obviously as our ability to pipe water has improved, the distance our communities have got from these sources has increased but the fundamentals remain the same.

Perhaps as a supplement to the global village construction set a database of open source pedal powered machines would be quite useful because of the fact that they are much cheaper and so can be bought and open-sourced much sooner and thus replicated much sooner. They are also likely to be more Capital efficient since they will be used much more frequently than similar heavy duty motorized tools. And for many jobs they will be more convenient because of the lack of need for additional energy sources and the much easier transportation of the machinery.

It should be a lot easier to make this database of tools which are pedal powered because $10,000 should buy a dozen or so of these pedal powered tools including plans. A full tool set for making textiles from sisal leaves or milkweed or dogbane through to the textiles and ropes and twine itself would be pretty cheap and within reach of a tribe or an individual in a developed nation. And pedal powered tools could also be easily modified to run on electric power or hydraulic power, though the reverse is not true. And since the target size of the village is 200 individuals many of these tools are far more suited for a community of that size because there doesn't have to be one ironworker for each set of 200 people for example.

Here is a couple youtube videos about an atmospheric water condenser that has been made for irrigation but could easily be used for drinking water.
Video 1
Video 2

It reminds me of the moisture farms in Star Wars on Tatooine.

Steam can absolutely be used to distill or pasteurize water. Just use the heat (i.e. heat exchangers)! Navy ships use steam heat to distill thousands of gallons of potable water hourly. Also, very little energy is required for pasteurization when heat regeneration is used (use heat to take water to high temperature for pasteurization, then use the hot water to preheat the incoming cool water). Add a sediment filter and perhaps a charcoal filter and water can can be processed from most fresh water sources or shallow wells at high rates and with good quality water had by using this approach.