My Theory On Reviving Deserts, page 1

The nation's economic well-being depends on the enormous quantities of oil moved safely, efficiently and at low cost by oil pipelines each day. This national infrastructure represents a $31 billion investment in a 200,000 mile long network of technology that is essential to American interests.

The proposed water pipelines would be a fraction of the oil pipeline network in relation to size and cost. The fact that there is already a interstate oil pipeline infrastructure in place shows that the transportation of water to needy areas from coastal distribution centers is indeed possible.

As a matter of fact, all the oil brought into this country comes from super barges directly unloading into distribution centers and pipelines. The source of the water will come straight from the OCEAN! Therefore we know from these facts that delivering vast volumes of water VIA pipelines will not be a problem at all.

As far as powering the pump stations, well oil pipelines obviously use some form of energy for that. My idea dictates that we can use the harsh open undeveloped space of a desert to build fields of solar collector panels stretching for miles tapping the unclouded sky and sucking up the unforgiving sun should be adequate to not only power the pumping stations, but may very well also be able to redirect extra energy to local power grids as a surplus and to ease local energy prices or even for the desalination plants themselves.

The only issue now comes at the source. We need to advance our desalination plants. Here are some articles I found relating to the subject.

Of the more than 7,500 desalination plants in operation worldwide, 60% are located in the Middle East. The world's largest plant in Saudi Arabia produces 128 MGD of desalted water. In contrast, 12% of the world's capacity is produced in the Americas, with most of the plants located in the Caribbean and Florida. To date, only a limited number of desalination plants have been built along the California coast, primarily because the cost of desalination is generally higher than the costs of other water supply alternatives available in California (e.g., water transfers and groundwater pumping). However, as drought conditions occur and concern over water availability increases, desalination projects are being proposed at numerous locations in the state.

Desalination Technologies
Desalination is a process that removes dissolved minerals (including but not limited to salt) from seawater, brackish water, or treated wastewater. A number of technologies have been developed for desalination, including reverse osmosis (RO), distillation, electro dialysis, and vacuum freezing. Two of these technologies, RO and distillation, are being considered by municipalities, water districts, and private companies for development of seawater desalination in California. These methods are described below.

Source

Obviously Saudi Arabia has decided it is worthwhile to invest in desalination plants, as should any government which must operate in a desert environment.

Everything I have proposed is already functioning technology in use today. Now we must find a way to integrate the various systems so they may work together for our needs. As far as I have read, the only issue is supplying energy to the desalination plants. IF we invest in trying to design plants to use less energy and produce greater output we can have a wonderful thing going for us. We must also at the same time continue humanities' efforts at developing our solar technology further in order to utilize the free energy of our sun.