[Digory]

The other magic is financial. My bet is that they assume free biomass. Once you assume input cost = $.00, things look easy.

And, to be fair, maybe this thing makes sense after a hurricane. There's lots of "free" biomass laying around in an area of extraordinary transportation costs.

But it's obviously not a solution to the "water problem" in rural, impoverished areas. You'd need to include the price of a renewable forest or palm plantation (for coconut shells), or the huge solar array.