Technical and economic consideration for water desalination by reverse osmosis

In August 2006, light crude oil exceeded US $73 per barrel and it expected to reach US $100 per barrel by the end of this year as a result of regional conflicts.Some experts argue that the world is heading towards a global energy crisis due to a decline in the availability of cheap oil and recommend a decreasing dependency on fossil fuel. This has led to increasing interest in alternate power/fuel research such as, hydrogen fuel, solar energy, and wind energy. To date, only hydroelectricity and nuclear power have been significant alternatives to fossil fuel. On the other hand, fresh water resources are limited, while, the world population has increased rapidly; hence considering seawater desalination is of prime importance. Seawater desalination is energy intensive process, therefore, energy utilization is a vital aspect. There is continued research and development of seawater desalination by reverse osmosis (RO) technique due to its lower energy consumption. Therefore, this study will focus on the effect of preheating feed water reverse osmosis unit by using heat discarded from nuclear power plants to obtain the lowest possible cost per cubic meter of fresh water. (author)