While we take it for granted that we can turn on the tap and get water whenever we want, imagine if you lived in the Sahara Desert. And never mind your own personal water needs, imagine if you had entire fields full of crops you had to hydrate.

That is the aim of the Sahara Forest Project, an ambitious undertaking to bring fresh water to one of the more barren places on Earth. The project utilizes two technologies: The Seawater Greenhouse, and concentrated Solar Power. As reported in Inhabitat,

A Seawater Greenhouse converts sea water into fresh water using nothing more than the sun’s rays. It does this by running air through a structure whose walls are infused with cold sea water. As air enters it is immediately cooled, humidified, and then condensed into fresh water by sunlight.

Concentrated solar power is a technology that utilizes thousands of mirrors to focus sunlight upon a water boiler, heating it to over 1,000 degrees fahrenheit. This generates steam, which in turn drives a turbine to produce energy.

The Sahara Forest Project also has the ability to provide for agricultural growth and development in inhospitable arid regions. Fresh water produced by the Seawater Greenhouses can be used to grow crops such as jathropha, which can easily be turned into biofuel.

Needless to say, if the technology works it will have implications that stretch far beyond the Sahara.

The Sahara Forest Project was started by entrepreneurs Charlie Paton, Michael Pawlyn and Bill Watts. More information is available here.