What's the fucking hold up?!
I get it, energy to run the processes is taxing, marine biologists are worried about marine life and ecosystem. Why can't they develop another method that is NOT energy taxing already.
HURRY THE FUCK UP BITCHES!
Some of you may not know this but unlike climate change alarmist hype, there is a real problem in fresh water sources shrinking at uncomfortable rates. It's no wonder so many private entities have bought large sources in the past 2 decades. Nestle owns the great lakes, the Bush family owns some in Latin America, China is buying all over among other resources.
Another problem that would conflate with that is forecasted extreme weather that is already occuring do to solar minimum and it's effects on earths patterns, weather and otherwise. We just had a blizzard in the midwest of US and it caused more crop shortage adding to that which we've already suffered. This might continue and worsen up some estimates I've heard from various sources.
https://electroverse.net/nasa-predicts-next-solar-cycle-will-be-lowest-in-200-years-dalton-minimum-levels-the-implications/

Focusing on the water situation, why is the field of desalination so stagnant? This is the only good candidate for a viable system so far that I've seen but I only heard about it recently on a non mainstream outlet. Let's hope it works out as it has numerous positives including creating electricity.
https://www.watertechonline.com/new-desalination-process-can-generate-electricity/