Nuclear desalination activities in China

The construction of a nuclear desalination demonstration plant (SNDP) with production capacity of 160.000m3/d in Shandong Peninsula of China was proposed in 2000. The pre-feasibility of SNDP was completed in 2001 and was reviewed and approved by the central government in 2002 and 2003, respectively. Hao-Xin Investment Co. is the owner and the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University is the engineering contractor. The feasibility study started from 2003 March. The SNDP consists of an NHR-200 coupled to a MED process. The NHR-200 as a nuclear heating reactor with 200 MW capacity is designed with a numbers of advanced features, such as integral arrangement, full natural circulation, self-pressurized, in-vessel CR drive, passive safety systems in order to achieve very high safety margins. Therefore, no off-site emergency actions such as sheltering, evacuation, relocation and decontamination in case of all credible accidents can be achieved. Two desalination processes were considered and compared in the feasibility study based on the requirement by the central government. One is the high temperature VTE-MED process and the other is MED-TVC process. A tower-type arrangement for the VTE-MED is adopted. Two trains of VTE-MED are coupled with NHR-200. Each train consists of 3 towers, in which 7 models of evaporators compose of one effect in parallel and 32 effects of evaporators are vertically arranged and a high GOR of 22 is designed. Four units of MED-TVC process are coupled with NHR-200. Each unit has a desalination capacity of 30,000m3/day and it is consisted of 14 effects of evaporators. The motive steam from the steam generator is supplied through the thermal vapor compressor (steam ejector) and extracts low-pressure steam from the sixth effect of evaporator. Therefore, a GOR of 15 will be achieved. Now, the investment and economic analysis on the two desalination processes are conducted using Chinese official procedure. The feasibility study is expected to be completed in 2005. After assessment of feasibility study it will be decided whether to build the SNDP. An artist view of the SNDP is shown