True. I have a lot of Middle Eastern students, though, and they have a LOT of desalinization plants.
They also have a lot of oil to burn in electrical generation plants to run the desalination plants.
My son is a Chemical Engineer; he says the desalination of water on an industrial scale is not cheap. The average cost to produce 1 acre-foot of desalinated water from seawater is projected to range from approximately $800 to about $1,400.