Could nuclear desalination facilities solve the problem of water scarcity?

Desalination plants, which remove salt from seawater, could assist in meeting the need for fresh water.

According to the United Nations, there are populations on each continent that lack sufficient water.

Unfortunately, although our globe is surrounded by oceans and seas, only a small percentage of Earth’s water – about 2.5% – is fresh, and by 2030, demand for drinking water is expected to surpass supply by trillions of cubic meters.

However, these plants are among the most expensive methods of producing potable water since they pump massive quantities of water across membranes at high pressure, an incredibly energy-intensive process.

The use of desalination-equipped floating vessels could be a radical option.

Powered by nuclear reactors, these ships might go to drought-stricken islands or coastlines and deliver both clean drinking water and electricity.

Mikal Be, chief executive officer of Core Power, which developed the idea for this type of desalination plant, explains, “You could have them going about intermittently, filling up tanks.”

The US Navy has previously offered desalination services during natural catastrophes using nuclear-powered ships, while Russia already has a floating nuclear power station built to potentially power desalination facilities.

Globally, there are around 20,000 desalination facilities, almost all of which are located on land. The majority are located in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait, with others in the United Kingdom, China, the United States, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia, among others.

However, other experts believe it would be more cost-effective to place this desalination system offshore, where seawater can be piped on board more easily.

Engineers have envisioned floating, nuclear-powered desalination systems for decades.

Core Power intends to employ a vessel like a small container ship, but loaded with containers containing desalination equipment. The nuclear reactor would subsequently be located at the vessel’s core, providing the required massive quantity of power.

Mr. Be adds that the firm’s floating nuclear desalination vessels might have power outputs ranging from five megawatts to around seventy. At five megawatts of nuclear power, it could pump 35,000 cubic meters of fresh water each day, or 14 Olympic swimming pools’ worth.

Desalination technology forces treated seawater across a semipermeable membrane to remove salt from salt water. Osmosis, the flow of liquid molecules across such membranes, eliminates the minerals, leaving only freshwater and a distinct, very salty water known as brine.

There are numerous iterations of this technique, and it has become more effective over time. However, floating desalination systems remain uncommon.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has just received the first of three record-breaking desalination barges. Therefore, can desalination plants float?

Ocean Engineering, which created the Waterfountain system, hopes so.

Kyle Hopkins, chief administrative officer, notes that the company’s numerous designs, ranging from giant ships to buoys, all operate on the same premise.

In contrast, they would all use subsea desalination, a decades-old process, as opposed to nuclear energy.

Mr. Hopkins states that the method was never commercialized since subsea pumps are still required to bring water to the surface. We eliminated the pump.

He fails to clarify beyond the statement that the Waterfountain system as a whole utilizes the increased pressure on the seafloor to transfer water without incurring large energy expenses.

Additionally, he notes that the conduit from the ship to the coast, where the freshwater must finally go, might be elevated so that gravity can further help the water’s flow, so reducing the need for additional electricity.

Mr. Hopkins predicts that the technique might be around 30% more energy-efficient than a conventional onshore desalination facility. The company is currently constructing a scaled-down model of one of its ideas and anticipates establishing its first commercial installation in the Philippines in 2023.

These concepts and Core Power’s design are “promising,” according to Raya Al-Dadah, director of the University of Birmingham’s Sustainable Energy Technology Laboratory. She notes, however, that floating desalination offers both advantages and downsides. There are still obstacles to pumping desalinated water ashore and locating personnel with offshore experience and desalination knowledge.

Ultimately, argues Dr. Al-Dadah, mankind needs greater water supplies, not least because of the projected effects of climate change if the planet warms by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. She warns, “This will have devastating effects on water.”

Smaller, floating desalination systems, according to Amy Childress of the University of Southern California, could help lessen the environmental impact of the technology. The highly salty water remaining after desalination is harmful to marine life, and modern desalination systems create enormous amounts of it – more brine than freshwater.

Mr. Hopkins asserts that the anticipated result of the Water fountain technology will not be sufficiently salty to be classified as brine.

According to Greg Pierce, co-director of the University of California, Los Angeles Luskin Center for Innovation, the most significant application of floating desalination devices may be in disaster relief.

Currently, “we’re flying and trucking in bottled water… it’s the most inefficient thing imaginable,” he argues, referring to the conventional approach to disaster assistance. If floating desalination can solve this problem, I am all for it.

Dr. Pierce asks, however, if it can be made sufficiently cost-effective in other contexts and emphasizes that there are other methods for assuring clean water supplies. Dr. Pierce predicts that greater water conservation techniques in California might conserve 30 to 40 percent of the state’s current water use.

Communities will likely also implement water recycling and rainfall treatment programs. However, if this does not adequate, desalination, regardless of the cost, becomes unavoidable in certain regions of the planet, he adds.

The design of Core Power is currently just a design. However, Mr. Be anticipates that the company will have a functioning commercial system within a decade. He emphasizes that there will be a necessity.