Nuclear desalination for the northwest of Mexico

The IMPULSA project of the Engineering Institute of UNAM, it has dedicated from the year 2005 to the study and development of new desalination technologies of seawater with renewable energies. The objective is to form a group of expert engineers and investigators in the desalination topics able to transform their scientific knowledge in engineering solutions, with a high grade of knowledge of the environment and the renewable energies. In the middle of 2007 was took the initiative in the IMPULSA project to study the nuclear desalination topic. It is evident that before the high cost of the hydrocarbons and its high environmental impact, the nuclear generation alternative of energy becomes extremely attractive, mainly for desalination projects of seawater of great size. The Northwest of Mexico is particularly attractive as the appropriate site for one nuclear desalination plant of great size given its shortage of drink water and the quick growth of its population; as well as its level of tourist, agricultural and industrial activity. In this study was revised the state of the art of the nuclear desalination on the world and it is simulated some couplings and operation forms of nuclear reactors and desalination units, from the thermodynamic and economic viewpoint with the purpose of identifying the main peculiarities of this technology. The objective of the study was to characterize several types and sizes of nuclear reactors of the last generation that could be couple to a desalination technology as multi-stage distillation, type flash distillation or inverse osmosis. It is used for this effect the DEEP 3.1 program of the IAEA to simulate the coupling and to carry out an economic preliminary evaluation. Was found cost very competitive of 0.038-0.044 US$/kWh for the electric power production and 0.60 to 0.77 US$/m3 for the drink water produced, without including the water transport cost or the use of carbon certificates. (Author)