Technology: Diesels in the Desert

Although the oceans lap at their shores, more than 18,000 miles of the world's coastlines are virtually uninhabited because of the lack of available fresh water. Visionaries have long dreamed of using sea water to make these deserts bloom, but University of Arizona Scientist Carl Hodges is actually doing something about it. And not by means of futuristic and costly nuclear-powered desalination plants, but by efficient use of simple diesel-electric engines like those that now provide power to remote communities all over the world. A pilot project on Mexico's Gulf of California...

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