The Brine in many places is high in lithium, which is used as a resource for EV batteries.

   

Desalinization sounds like a cure all, but it uses massive amounts of energy, which either means more fossil fuels or more nuclear power plants.

Sure, wind and solar can work okay for small installations like the one featured in the video, but to purify billions of litres per week to slake the thirst of major cities, you'd need fields of millions of solar panels and/or wind turbines.

And the cost of these plants is another inhibitor - it cost California a few billion to build just one huge plant in Carlsbad, and it doesn't even meet the needs of all of San Diego, nevermind southern California. To build these in Africa and poorer regions, the West is going to have to step in and spend tens of billions (or China will do it).

Having said that, I'd prefer coastal regions build de-sal plants than strip the interior of water with massive diversion canals like NAWAMPA or GRAND.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Ame ... r_Alliance