Cool article, thanks for posting. It confirms some more of what I've been trying to say for a while now too. The problem can't be solved by making a business of it, because it's business doing the damage. Specifically business for profit.
My own research is also extensive, self funded, done using formal Model Based Systems Engineering tools and methodology, since coming across what I see is an existential global energy problem, during seemingly unrelated VR / UAV PhD candidate work.
To me now, its all about energy, this is the key to seeing the full systemic isssue.
It still doesn't seem to be much accepted by mainstream science, which still tries to treat the climate problem as something unrelated to energy and business, because science itself is funded by... business.
Anyhow the base strategy for analysing all as an energy problem, is to draw up firstly a stakeholder model. It doesn't need to be complex, it can be just the main stakeholders of Earth, Humanity, Nature, the Sun, etc - all of the main players.
Then populate the main concerns of all players. Again it doesn't need to be complex, just what are the base drivers of Each, what is their ideal outcome, and what things are existential.
Then trace out the energy flows to and from Each player, separating energy flows into positive and negative, to show where they add and subtract from one another, and get it all into an auditable, numerical system in terms of kWhrs.
This done, we start to see Earth as a kind of battery, trickle charged by the sun. We discharge it, by taking energy put into it from the sun, back out again in all forms of energy extraction, with the most controversial result being that this is the real source of heat energy which is applied to the thermal mass of the planet.
It doesn't really have much to do with greenhouse gases - the atmosphere is adiabatic, so its really difficult to argue its real effect on temperature, certainly not in any numerical way.
Anyhow, to include water in the energy flow might be more trouble than needed, to just realise that the effect on water is an incidental effect of our way of business - all for profit, the effect on water is collateral damage, given we don't use water much in the scheme of energy transfer, as stands.
But something I think you might be interested in confirming or refuting, is the effect on water, of what looks to me like the system energy system solution dictated by the stakeholder analysis of the energy problem, which appears to be being forced on us by nature - domestic and community based solar hydrogen - it does involve water, and would have a profound effect on it, one way or another.
It sounds like too much of a simple solution to be the real antidote to the incredibly complex global energy problem, but this is the beauty of nature, I hope you agree, it forces the simplest of solutions.
Instinctively, I think the effect on water would be positive, just because of The Energy Polarity Multiplier framework (My book!), which explains why use of mathematically positive energy always has positive results for life, all of life, whereas use of the opposite always has negative.
But we should confirm, one way or another with respect to water. And to be honest, if the effect on water was unustainable, I would be inclined to accept there is no solution to the global energy problem, because for sure we have to have water security for survival.
But as said, I have faith that we will find the results very good.
Essentially it would be filtrating and circulating water, but there would be an amount more or less permanently removed from the environment, because there would be a build up of stored hydrogen.
But working to counter the effects of some water being removed from circulation, is the reduction of temperature, as a direct result of the creation of hydrogen.
Every kg of hydrogen created from solar by electrolysis is about 39kWhrs removed from the heat energy of the sun (I say about, but its an exact amount, set by the chemistry of hydrogen), regardless of efficiency. A typical 2.4kW electrolyser running 24 hrs produces over 1kg per 24hrs.
This is the opposite of taking oil, for example, which was not heat, until we did some heating by extracting it, then some more heating by refining it, and then finally of course, burning it.
If you trace these effects through, it becomes apparent we can do no wrong, in terms of heating, by using the energy of the sun, even after we burned the hydrogen again, but we can't avoid doing harm by taking anything from the planet, and using it as energy, not even food.
Then notice there is food from hydrogen (See "Solein"), and hydrogen has the tested capability of powering aeroplanes (Unlike lithium - don't believe the lithium for aerospace hype, it'll never really fly) we start to see a solution.
The final, most controversial result is to do with money.
We can't use it for profit any more, because we need to use it to monetise solar, and it isn't physically possible to make profit from solar energy, because at its heart, profit is basically an energy con, money being energy always physically, money is abstracted energy. I noticed you used the concept of water abstraction, so hopefully you get what I mean by money abstracting energy.
More energy is transported by money than by any other means, and we normally don't notice, because underlying it all is the basic con of energy, which we have to ignore, to carry on doing it, playing our parts as energy slaves... say no more, it gets very complex.
Sorry if this all comes across as a little jumbled, I am not the best writer, its difficult to even scratch the surface in a response like this, but I hope it whets your appetite. It would be cool to see your thoughts about the effects of a solar hydrogen economy / ecology on water.
