> Environmentalists have long said desalination harms ocean life, costs too much money and energy, and the plant would soon be made obsolete by water recycling.

Well if that's true then awesome, let's get busy recycling water and "soon" we won't need to desalinate!

I actually wonder (yes, I'm not an expert) whether at some point drinking water will be valuable enough that you could profitably build a desalination plant in international waters and then deliver the water in tanks to the thirsty citizens who can pay for it. If you bottled at the source, maybe it wouldn't be more expensive than importing from France or Fiji?