Economic and Safety Aspects in Nuclear Seawater Desalination

This study is a preliminary economic assessment of the coupling of nuclear reactors and desalination systems. In Algeria, the production of potable water from seawater desalination will reach in 2020 a capacity of 2.5 million m3/day. Consequently, the desalination of seawater will become in the next years an expanding industry. As this virtually unlimited water resource consumes a huge amount of energy, and because the power derives from fossil origin source, a diversification of the energy sources is foreseen for the future. For this purpose, nuclear power and renewable energies are two alternatives that are considered in the government energy policy to increase the electricity production nationwide. In this paper, we present the coupling of nuclear reactors and desalination processes. We are carrying out preliminary economic evaluation and comparison of various energy source options coupled with different seawater desalination processes. The various case studies include the cost and performance models of several types of nuclear and fossil energy sources, the levelized cost of water and power, a breakdown of cost components, energy consumption and net saleable power for each selected option[1]. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of ISWEE'11