A fresh way to take the salt out of seawater

Looks like it works on paper. If it requires heat from the sun, then solar power would be available to take care of the 1 kWh of electricity needed.

Cool, let's set up a whole water farm in the deserts out West. It would help those areas that are about to have a serious crisis.

A few decades back they hurried to build a nuclear power plant here in IL. But they forgot to find a place to put the waste. Now they have a very expensive non-operational power plant. oops!!

So before these get built..... What do you do with all that salt??

cool, so when does this whole salt water drinkable thing start?

We don't need more water so much as fewer people.

I more than excited to see the NEW GEN. of JOBS:)
There green, they benefit the work force, and honestly its a small branch
of the change this generation BETTER EXPECT TO SEE.

GOOD JOB eHHH!

I wonder if this could be used to sterilize, or filter, otherwise contaminated water... acid rain, water from polluted stream, etc. They said the result is "pure and fresh".
All one would then require is to add salt to the contaminated water.

I want a pocket-sized one for hiking trips ;^)
..oh, and a jug-sized one for car camping.

I'm not very educated on the Ecological system of the Earth, so if someone is help me out. If we start massively desalinizing the Oceans couldn't this create some sort of environmental problem? Maybe the death of certain creatures, change in weather patterns, etc.? Because once this technology is cheap and easy to create i'm sure they'd massively employ it to help the nations of the Middle-East and Africa with their lack of water.

Report on desalination is currently featured here:
http://current.com/groups/water-is-life/

There are problems inherant in desalination. But above all it is a failure of our collective moral will to conserve, and any organization or company overtly pushing it in the U.S. now like DOW is, is only in it for profit.

Takin' out the flavor from my water, ey? From my dead cold hands!

I'm happy to know how to separate the salt out of water, and help feed drought starved nations with it, but we need to educate everyone, including ourselves, on the effects of what one human consumes within their lifetime. How many gallons of water, how many plastic containers will they use, etc. Then stop having children for a while. We have too many people on our planet!

Last i checked, this was neither innovative or revolutionary.
Solar has been known about for god knows how long.

This is why when i see silly things like "WATER SHORTAGE", it just makes me realize more than half the population are complete and utter tools.
There is no water shortage, but there is a shortage of Common Sense.

Sorry to be so blunt about it, but it is really annoying seeing this nonsense every other week.
I drew a diagram of a solar boiler in school when i was 12. (yes, i did and i can even fetch the jotter with the drawing on it since i just found it the other week there when cleaning)
Not to boast, but come on, it is right there in front of your face, sun = hot, water evaporates in heat, shiny things reflect, bham, solar boiler.
And since water turns to a gas quite easily at less than 100C in small amounts, even easier.

edit: damn it, that's what happens when i refresh the page and forget to copy everything.

Mixing liquids has been around for a long time, and while this idea uses newer advances in tech than we had back in the "stupid ages", it still boils down to the sun heating up mixtures of liquids to get a reaction to happen.

I'll certainly give them credit for coming up with the configuration, but it is pointlessly more complicated than it needs to be.
We aren't trying to get 100% clean water, and even trying to get 100% clean water is a stupid thing, even the water out your own tap isn't 100% clean.
Mirrors (shiny metal), metal tubes, lower gradient for water to fall down pipe and a simple sterling engine can create a very efficient process for the needs of creating clean water.

If you want people to have less kids, then you got to get them out of poverty, you need to educate them; especially about the evils of religions that want them to PROCREATE, PROCREATE, PROCREATE.

The sun is the engine for all fresh water... it evaporates water from the sea and takes it over land. In arid lands, it just takes it in another direction on the jet streams. This is so brilliant and so simple I can't believe it's new technology.

Woohoo! The water crisis in Africa is now plausible to fix! If only we could do something about greedy warlords and corrupt politicians ruining the show.

Lots of informative data on here!!

Solar thermal power plants near any salty body of water can use the waste heat generated to create hot water and then distill it in greenhouses, doubling the utility of the greenhouses and increasing the efficiency of the solar power plants.