Environment & Energy | Monday 13 April, 2015 4:25 pm |

Desalination facilities integrated with Russian-designed large capacity nuclear power plants constitute a new product of the Russian nuclear industry. It was announced at the 2nd meeting of the Rusatom Overseas Expert Council on Desalination. Special attention was paid to the business model of such desalination facilities as well as medical and biological assessment of the quality of desalinated water.

Dzhomart Aliev, Rusatom Overseas CEO: “According to our estimates, a desalination facility at a large capacity nuclear power plant with VVER pressurized water reactors has a significant potential in foreign markets. It can be confirmed by the fact that on February 10, in Cairo, Egyptian and Russian parties signed the Project Development Agreement on development of design for a nuclear power plant with desalination complex, as well as by high level of interest shown by our potential customers. Such desalination facilities can produce up to 170,000 m3 of fresh water per day from one nuclear power unit. We pay great attention to expansion of the product range, including desalination facilities integrated with small modular reactor plants and floating nuclear power plants.”

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According to the existing statistics about two billion people in the world suffer from lack of fresh water. At the same time, major population growth rate in the coming decades is expected in the regions that are already affected by shortages of fresh water – Latin America, Africa, Middle East and South East Asia.

In 2000, the United Nations established its eight Millennium Development Goals one of which is to ensure environmental sustainability. This goal includes reduction of the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water as one of its targets. Desalination technologies can also be used to produce water for agricultural and industrial needs. International cooperation on water issues in the world is implemented in the framework of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Water Council.

State Nuclear Energy Corporation ROSATOM focuses on the technologies of multiple effect distillation (MED technologies) which copy natural processes of evaporation and condensation of sea water. Just like other desalination technologies, MED technologies require significant amount of energy, and stable operation of desalination facilities depends on security of energy supply.

The unique nuclear desalination facility that allows to desalinate water in industrial-scale volumes is located in the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan, on the Caspian sea. The facility operated on the basis of three-circuit reactor BN-350 and produced up to 120 thousand cubic meters of fresh water per day. In accordance with the Russian construction rules and standards, average daily consumption of water in the cities is about 120 liters per person.

Water desalination facilities can be also combined with floating nuclear power plants in order to supply remote regions with pure potable water. The first NPP of such kind, “Akademik Lomonosov”, is now under construction in Russia. It is a new energy source created on the basis of the extensive Russian nuclear-powered shipbuilding experience, which comprises the successful operation of 260 ship reactors within 7000 reactor-years. With two 35 MW(e) capacity reactors, it is aimed at provision of stable and secure energy supply to industry, infrastructure and resident sector in remote areas.
It is important to mention that water supplies are one of the major Saudi government concerns. And with energy demand growing by about 8% annually, a population of about 26 million and no natural sources of fresh water, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East's actually has a shortage in domestic electricity generation. Hence, Saudi Arabia officially started looking into nuclear power in 2006 including other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).