I appreciate that you dug this up. That’s actually sort of cool little project.
The problem with the old condensation technique (other then the fact that it is naturally inefficient) is that depending on where you are and air currents you can’t always depend on a great output when humidity drops. This solves that problem as the ocean is constantly evaporating. But that also means that this is just a project that can’t go much further, as you can’t really scale it for global use. There is a finite amount of humidity in the air, and absorbing it from one place just reduces it in another. You would be better off just floating giant rain collectors into the ocean… at least then you’re only stealing water that would have became salinated anyway.