For many parts of the world, trying to get fresh water is a difficult task. And few places is this more of a problem than in China, where competition for water in one of the world’s driest countries is aggravated by its population pressure of 1.3 billion people coupled with its surging economy. Fortunately, there appears to be a technological solution through the process of desalinization. Through a new plan issued by China’s Finance Ministry, desalination plants are being constructed to produce 250 million gallons of water per day by the year 2010, thus supplying as much as 24 percent of the water used in many coastal cities. Time will tell whether China’s desalinization techno-fix will be worth its salt.