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Wave-Powered Desalination
dptalia writes, "Scientists think they've found a way to harness the energy of waves to desalinate salt water. Currently desalination is an energy-intensive process, but this new design harnesses the renewable energy of waves to produce fresh water. Many countries depend on desalinated water to support their populations, and this invention could lower the cost of water generation." Production versions of the "desalination ducks" would be about 10 meters in diameter and 20 meters long. Each would supply water for more than 20,000 people.
While that is strictly speaking accurate, it is of course not the full story. The vast majority of that water is in parts of the country where it is not able to be used. Perhaps a huge canal down the middle of the country might solve it - but nothing short of that would.
Perhaps you could pull them a few metres underwater during a storm?
It would be more impressive if it didn't require the water to be pre-heated to 100C. I think it's safe to say, pour boiling seawater into just about anything with some condenser tubes setup, and you'll get fresh water out of the condenser. It appears to be insulated with Impossiblium, you know, the stuff that'll allow it to maintain internal temperature for a month while it works, with no heat input. I'm willing to bet, read the fine print in the marketing manuals, and you will find the Mark II version will have double the production if you power it with snake oil too....
10 years, Are you kidding? You can easily build it to last 75 or hundreds of years with proper maintenance. Take the word of a civil engineer. The moving parts may be more difficult, but I doubt it. We've got movable dams that are just about zero maintenance, that have been standing there for almost 40 years now. Of course, If you put multiple installations nearby, it saves the immense cost of laying another pipeline underwater (Probably costs more then the whole facility.) Also, funding for projects like this doesn't work like a bak loan. You simply take a percentage of the profit in eschange for providing funding.