Nuclear power answer to fresh water shortage

By 2025, an estimated 3.5 billion people will live in areas facing severe water shortages -- and providing them potable water would be a challenge that may be best met by nuclear-powered desalination.

This was one of the solutions presented at the recent Trombay Symposium on Desalination and Water Reuse here.

This and other solutions discussed at the symposium have been published in a special issue of the International Journal of Nuclear Desalination.

Climate change and desertification are already taking their toll on fresh water supplies. And in India, the rising population as well as rapid agricultural and industrial expansion will soon make water a rare and expensive commodity.

Calling for a holistic approach to cope with freshwater needs, Pradip Tewari of the Desalination Division at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) said: "The contribution of seawater and brackish water desalination would play an important role in augmenting the freshwater needs of the country.

"Desalination is an energy-intensive process. Over the long term, desalination with fossil energy sources would not be compatible with sustainable development," said Meenakshi Jain of Environmental Services and Positive Climate Care, a Jaipur-based company.

Jain emphasised a sustainable, non-polluting solution to water shortages. "Nuclear energy seawater desalination has a tremendous potential for the production of freshwater," she added.

Physicist S.S. Verma mooted the development of a floating nuclear power plant (FNPP) as a means to produce electrical energy with minimal environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Such plants could be sited off areas with dense coastal populations and could not only provide cheap electricity but be used to power a desalination plant, he said.

"Companies are already in the process of developing a special desalination platform for attachment to FNPPs helping the reactor to desalinate seawater," Verma said.

A. Raha, also of BARC's desalination division, said desalination technology utilising low-pressure steam from a nuclear power plant has been developed to produce high-purity water directly from seawater.

BARC recently commissioned a 50 tonnes per day low-temperature desalination plant, he said.

B.M. Misra, a former head of BARC, pointed out that India already has plans for the rapid expansion of its nuclear power industry and suggested the incorporation of large-scale desalination plants into those plans.

"The development of advanced reactors providing heat for hydrogen production and large amount of waste heat will catalyse the large-scale seawater desalination for economic production of fresh water," he said.

(IANS)

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