[jrumbut]

If you've ever been to the beach, you can smell the salt air and rotting seaweed and hear the birds.

It's all gonna get on the glass (from above and below), and eventually the salt left behind is going to build up. The salt left behind is very hard on any structure or machinery used to move it which makes repairing the large glass enclosure a pain. All this for a slow trickle of water is generally not worth it.

[gaiagraphia]

The Saudis were fucking around with the idea of solar domes at one point. Haven't heard anything about it for a while though (probably due to maths, lol). A shame, I've always been fascinated by Egypt and the empty expanses of nothingness. On long bus journeys around the country, the imagination can run wild.

https://www.solarwaterplc.com/featured-news/whats-inside-thi...

[fakedang]

The issue with that idea is very simple - creating those inlets into the desert would risk soil erosion - in the desert. If your objective was to desalinate water, you're much better off using conventional desalination (there's still way more room to work around here first, like better and sustainable membranes, etc.) and offsetting your emissions by locking carbon away in mangrove reserves, which are native to those desert coasts.