The role of nuclear desalination in meeting the potable water needs in water scarce areas in the next decades

Recent statistics show that currently 2.3 billion people live in water stressed areas and among them 1.7 billion live in water scarce areas. The situation is going to worsen further in the coming years. Better water conservation, water management, pollution control and water reclamation are all part of the solution to projected water stress. So too are new sources of fresh water, including seawater desalination. Desalination technologies have been now well established and the contracted capacity of the desalination plants worldwide is about 32.4 million m3/d. Interest in nuclear desalination is driven by the expanding global demand for fresh water, by concern about GHG emissions and pollutions from fossil fuels and in developments in small and medium sized reactors that might be more suitable than large power reactors. Among various utilization of nuclear energy for non-electrical products, using it for production of fresh water from seawater (nuclear desalination) has been drawing broad interest in IAEA Member States. IAEA has an active programme for supporting the activities on demonstration of nuclear seawater desalination in the Member States. These include optimisation of the coupling of nuclear reactors with desalination systems, economic research and assessment of nuclear desalination projects, development of software for the economic evaluation of nuclear desalination plants as well as fossil fuel based plants (DEEP). It also provides training to interested Member States in the above areas. It cooperates with various international organizations involved in promoting seawater desalination. The recent developments in nuclear desalination and its future role are discussed in this paper.

It is now well recognised that nuclear desalination will be a viable option for sustainable water security in the coming years in many parts of the world suffering from water scarcity/stress. The activities on nuclear desalination in the Member States are now shifting from feasibility studies to setting of experimental facilities and demonstration projects. International collaboration between interested Member States is also taking place in the development of plans for setting up of nuclear power-desalination plants at suitable sites. The experiences gained from these studies will be useful in deployment of large size desalination plants in future for safe and economic production of fresh water using nuclear energy. Economic research aiming towards further water cost reduction is desirable for large-scale adoption of nuclear desalination.