1.4. A team of scientific engineers has designed a new method of generating electricity and of desalinating water. It’s a desert wind tower—a hollow cylinder 3,300 feet high. Sea water is pumped into the top of the tower, where it evaporates rapidly. As the air in the tower is cooled by the evaporation, it falls faster and faster (much like the downdraft of a chimney) and by the time it reaches the bottom of the tower, it is going hundreds of miles per hour—fast enough to turn turbines. The cost of electricity from this process is predicted to be 2 cents per kilowatt hour—one-fourth the cost of generating electricity by oil. The evaporated water could also be condensed and used as fresh water since the salt will have been removed. (LO17W-1)

a. If this concept proves feasible, what would likely happen to the value of desert land near an ocean?

b. What effect would it have on the price of oil?

c. If you were a major oil-producing country, would you encourage development of this new technology? Why or why not?