Hmmn... I once saw a TV documentary about fuel cells. It basically is a fusion reactor for hydrogen and oxygen. It is purported to be cheaper since the ingredients can be readily drawn from seawater. Of course, it's clean since its bi-product is just plain water.

Now, I've been thinking, we expend energy to desalinize seawater, right? How about we expend energy to completely break down seawater into hydrogen and oxygen, in other words, fuel cells? Then, we use up the energy from these fuel cells? I dunno, cars, household appliances and stuff. Lastly, instead of just releasing the "waste" water back into the environment, what if we collected it and subject it to the usual purification techniques? (perhaps to a lesser degree, we could probably just filter it to render it potable)

Of course, I know we'd still end up expending massive amounts of energy but the point is that we still get some energy back. For desalinization, we'd throw away energy and all we get is a glass of water. Fuel cells, on the other hand, means we'd throw away energy, get some back and also get a glass of water.

What do you guys think?