Passive Desalination with photovoltaic pumping

[kandrathe]

I often pondered of a quick evaporation system, such as with heating rods, where the coastal cities could just sell the water inland to recoup the costs of their plant. However, I found out that these systems still require pumps and filters, as the evaporated water still has salinated particles in it. Santa Barbara authorities found it would be cheaper to just build a complex filtering system and replace the filters every month and pawn the additional costs to the tax payers.

Possibly dual use... Solar reflected to a tower to melt salt, used to boil salt water to steam. Power turbines with desalinated steam, and collect the condensed, now purified water for drinking. I like the prospect of integrating two systems to provide renewable energy and purified water. Need to consider birds flying into the solar beams... possibly focus in two steps, parabolic mirror to deliver low concentration to the tower, the second lens at the tower wall to focus to a pinpoint.