POTENTIAL APPLICATION OF SALINE WATER CONVERSION IN AUSTRALIA WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE USE OF NUCLEAR HEAT

A brief survey is given of proposed methods for the production of potable water from saline waters. It is concluded that vapor recompression distillation, electrodialysis, and in some cases solar distillation, represent the most suitable processes for domestic units, capable of outputs of about 50 to 500 gal/day. For large-scale plants, suitable for supplying large communities, distillation methods appear most suitable on the basis of existing technology, although electrodialysis would be applicable to brackish waters with salt contents below 5000 ppm. Freezing methods also show considerable promise. Preliminary design and cost studies are given for multistage flash evaporation plants employing nuclear reactors as the heat source, both without and with concurrent power generation by means of backpressure turbines. It is shown that plants based on the 150 and 275 Mw(e) gas-cooled reactors currently being installed in Britain would produce respectively 44 and 80 million gallons per day of water together with 30 and 63 Mw of surplus power; the larger of these plants would be capable of providing a city of 500,000 population with the whole of its water and about 25% of its installed power capacity. Data are also given for a small plant based on a 50 Mw(th)more » pressurized water reactor employing U.S. enriched fuel. In this case 4,000,000 gallons per day of water would be produced together with 2.6 Mw of surplus power. (auth)« less