A lot of folks get skeptical when they read about a new technological innovation that's promising to save the world or whatever. I can sympathize with that - it's the goal of every start-up out there to get media attention. They succeed perhaps more often than would be merited. (And if their pitch isn't sensationalist enough, journalists will often put a sensationalist spin on it themselves).
The stuff that gets media attention runs the full gamut from "production-ready" to "works in the lab" to "a nice theory" to "pure crackpottery". (I sometimes wonder whether I shouldn't try to make a buck as a consultant for investors in these things - as scientific merit and investment don't seem to be highly related.)
But I was quite impressed by a story in The Economist on a new idea for desalination, coming from a company named Saltworks Technologies (site). It's not often this kind of 'press-release journalism' has that effect on a jaded chemist (and at least on paper, chemical engineer) such as myself. But this idea seems to be just plain clever. I'll explain why below the fold.