The goal is to use the abundant sunlight and/or coastal winds to desalinate readily available seawater to produce fresh water for irrigation and to support human population. This would then allow for a variety of agricultural efforts, including orchards, field crops, and other organic farming.
One idea for solar distillation involves collecting solar power in heat form via solar trough collectors, and then using that heat to boil fresh water and super-heat the steam, which would then be forced through seawater. This would help to reduce the boiler-scale buildup on equipment. The seawater would only be reduced by 70% or so, at which point the salt should remain in solution. The brine would then be transferred to another vessel where the final evaporation could occur, leaving sea salt as a result of the process and a possible commercial output.
The steam from the boiling process could then be passed through a steam turbine to produce power. After that, it would be delivered to a cooling chamber to effect condensation so that the resulting fresh water could be collected. An idea I had for the condensation process would be to use the remaining heat from the boiling process to power ammonia coolers. This would allow for a continuous usage of the heat in descending fashion from super-heating steam to boiling water to boiling ammonia for the cooling process.
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