Date:15/04/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/04/15/stories/2006041504100100.htm

Back On radar: Tapping atomic energy for potable water

Anil Sasi

DAE drafting action plan

Desalination process
Nuclear desalination is defined to be the production of potable water from seawater in a facility where a small or medium-sized nuclear reactor is used for producing energy, either electrical or thermal, for carrying out the desalination process.

Anil Sasi

New Delhi , April 14

The Indo-US nuclear deal seems to have given a fresh impetus to the use of atomic energy in a host of civilian sectors, including tackling the growing drinking water shortage. The Government has launched an atomic energy-based `action plan' to solve the future drinking water problem by converting seawater into potable water.

Government officials involved in the exercise said the `action plan' was being drafted by the Department of Atomic Energy, which forms part of the Prime Minister's Office. They said the move was aimed at commercially implementing the nuclear desalination technology across coastal sites, based on which demonstration projects have already been set up in the country.

Nuclear desalination

Nuclear desalination is defined to be the production of potable water from seawater in a facility where a small or medium-sized nuclear reactor is used for producing energy, either electrical or thermal, for carrying out the desalination process. The facility can either be dedicated solely to the production of potable water, or may be used for the generation of electricity and the production of potable water, in which case only a portion of the total energy produced by the reactor is used for water production.

While the major desalination technology in use worldwide is the multi-stage flash (MSF) distillation process using steam, the relatively newer technology of reverse osmosis (RO) driven by electric pumps is increasingly gaining popularity. MSF gives purer water than under the RO technology but the process is far more energy-intensive and therefore the water produced though the MSF process is more expensive.

Research initiatives

India has been actively engaged in desalination research since the 1970s and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is in the process of setting up its second desalination demonstration plant attached to twin 170 MWe (mega watt electrical) nuclear power reactors at the Madras Atomic Power Station, Kalpakkam. BARC has already commissioned a 1,800-cubic-metres per day nuclear desalination demonstration project at Kalpakkam based on the reverse osmosis technology.

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency is fostering research and collaboration on the issue, and more than 20 countries are involved.