Approaches to decrease environmental impacts of seawater desalination

Sea water desalination is seen to be the most important source of potable w ater for the population on islands and coastal regions These are also the r egions which will suffer from the environmental impact of increased carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, carbon dioxide free energy from nuclear power plants should be used for sea water desalination. Both industries, sea wat er desalination and nuclear power plants, have achieved independently a ver y high level of operating economics and safety. An example for the technolo gical progress in this area is the new concept developed by Salzgitter Anla genbau in Germany for a power/water (reverse osmosis) co-generation design with the lowest possible prime energy consumption. As demonstrated in the p aper, the energy needed can be taken from the waste heat of the advanced pa ssive nuclear power plant AP 600. The combined plant configuration is able to doublicate the effective use of nuclear heat produced in the AP 600, whi ch leads to a reduction of water and electricity costs Details of safety an d economic features of the proposed combined plant are outlined Environment al impacts related to Kyoto and Buenos Aires climate conferences are discus sed.