Economic evaluation of nuclear power and desalination complexes. Annex 8. Russian Federation

This study summarizes our extensive investigations aiming to realize three objectives: 1) Search for technical solutions to enhance technical and economical performances, commercial attractiveness and competitive strength of the floating nuclear desalination complexes (FNDC) based on nuclear reactors such as KLT-40S, RITM-200 and on-shore systems based on the GT-MHR, all coupled to distillation and reverse osmosis desalination plants; 2) Adaptation and update of IAEA program DEEP-3 and Russian program TEO-INVEST to evaluate economic efficiency of above nuclear desalination systems; 3) Determination of innovative trends that lead to further safety enhancing and reduction of nuclear desalination costs; solution of non-proliferation issues. The cost of desalinated water produced by fossil-fuel desalination complexes was also evaluated, and the competitiveness of KLT-40S and RITM-200 Floating Power Units was determined by comparison with the costs of fossil-fuel analogs. Both the nuclear options lead to lower power and desalination cost as compared by the fossil fuelled based systems under the following conditions: 1) If fuel oil prices are higher than 90 to 120 $/t (for fuel oil cogeneration plant, specific capital costs equal 650-1300 $/kW in prices as of 2006); 2) If coal costs prices are higher than 60 to 80 $/t (for coal cogeneration plant, specific capital costs equal to 1000 to 1400 $/kW, in prices as of 2006). (author)