Proceedings of ICAPP 12

Chicago, USA, June 24-28, 2012

Paper 12039


Preliminary design studies on a nuclear seawater desalination system

Andhika Feri Wibisono, Yong Hun Jung, Jinyoung Choi, Ho Sik Kim, Jeong Ik Lee, Yong Hoon Jeong, Hee Cheon NO
KAIST
Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-701, Republic of Korea
Tel: 82-42-350-3829, Fax: 82-42-350-3810,
Email: feri.wibisono@kaist.ac.kr, moonrivery@kaist.ac.kr, cjy0215@kaist.ac.kr, hskim25@kaist.ac.kr, :
jeongiklee@kaist.ac.kr, jeongyh@kaist.ac.kr, hcno@kaist.ac.kr


Abstract Seawater desalination is one of the most promising technologies to provide fresh water
especially in the arid region. The most used technology in seawater desalination are thermal
desalination (MSF and MED) and membrane desalination (RO). Some developments have been
done in the area of coupling the desalination plant with a nuclear reactor to reduce the cost of
energy required in thermal desalination. The coupling a nuclear reactor to a desalination plant
can be done either by using the co-generation or by using dedicated heat from a nuclear system.
The comparison of the co-generation nuclear reactor with desalination plant, dedicated nuclear
heat system, and fossil fueled system will be discussed in this paper using economical assessment
with IAEA DEEP software. A newly designed nuclear system dedicated for the seawater
desalination will also be suggested by KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology) research team and described in detail within this paper. The suggested reactor system
is using gas cooled type reactor and in this preliminary study the scope of design will be limited to
comparison of two cases in different operating temperature ranges.


I. INTRODUCTION

As world population grows, water crisis becomes a big
threat globally. Among many water shortage areas, arid
regions including Middle east and Northern Africa (MENA)
need plenty of fresh water for human society and industry,
and these areas have to rely on industrial scale desalination
for the supply. Multi-Stage Flashing (MSF), Multi-Effect
Distillation (MED) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) are mostly
used processes for desalination. Most of these processes
require thermal energy (heat) and electricity to some extent.
Thermal energy currently originates mostly from fossil
fuels. Nowadays the unstable nature of fossil fuel is
regarded as a common sense. To reduce this risk, cheaper
and cost-stable energy resource is needed. Among some
candidates, nuclear energy can be considered as promising
energy source for large scale desalination. Some
researchers have done coupling studies between
desalination plant and nuclear power plant previously and
there were even some demonstration. There are some
options for this coupling, such as co-generation of
electricity-desalination plant and desalination heat only
(dedicated) nuclear plant. The difference between the co-
generation and the dedicated heat is that in co-generation
design option, a nuclear reactor produces both electricity
and heat while in dedicated heat design option, nuclear
reactor is focused on producing only heat required for the
thermal desalination plant.
Since the cost will be the one of major motivations for
choosing a desalination option from others, the cost of each
desalination option has to be estimated carefully. Also,
since the cost is highly dependent on the geographical
location, our discussion in this paper has to be limited to
certain location. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has a
strong potential to develop nuclear desalination system due
to several reasons. First, the UAE is planning to construct
the largest desalination plants near Dubai. Second, recently
the UAE has signed a contract with Korean Consortium to
build four nuclear power plants in the country. Third, as it
will be apparent in the following section, the UAE need for
fresh water is growing very rapidly and like electricity the
UAE cannot solely rely on fossil fuel anymore. Therefore,
the comparison of nuclear and fossil fueled desalination
system will be analyzed in this paper based on the UAE
condition to perform accurate assessment. To design a
dedicated nuclear system for thermal desalination some
types of reactor should be considered. One type of reactor
that has good potential to supply process heat for thermal
desalination is a gas cooled nuclear reactor. The gas cooled
reactor operating at lower temperature (below 750) is a
proven technology while the very high temperature reactor
is considered as the next generation nuclear power plant.
The desalination process by MED doesn't require process
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Paper 12039

heat at very high temperature so it can be done with the
existing gas cooled reactor system. Therefore, coupling of
a gas cooled reactor with MED will be studied to find the
optimum operating condition and coupling scheme
especially to fulfill the UAE demand of desalinated water.


II. CURRENT STATUS AND PREDICTION OF UAE
DESALINATION

The United Arab Emirates(UAE), having almost one
million people and 60 thousand dollars of GDP, is one of
the biggest countries doing desalination in the world
(almost 835 MIGD at 2013)
1)
. The water resource demand
is growing due to the expansion of agriculture and industry.
This water demand reaches 1200MIGD at 2030
2)
, as shown
in Fig. 1. After 2014, water demand overtakes water supply
from pre-existing desalination plant. So, there should be an
enlargement of desalination capacity to deal with the water
demand. Current UAEs desalination is mostly depended
on cogeneration including MSF, MED or electricity based
desalination process, RO. Especially in Abu Dhabi, MSF
takes the highest portion of desalination options.
Those types of desalination method cost around
0.5~0.8 dollars per m
3 3)
. This cost can be obtained from
plant construction cost, O&M cost, fuel cost and interest.
For fossil fuel plant, the fuel cost is the most influencing
factor for the unit cost of desalinated water. Therefore,
predicting water cost following fuel price fluctuation is
needed to effectively handle the water demand and supply.
When estimating annual fuel cost to produce water by
cogeneration plant using MSF, fuel cost reached 2 B$/year
for Natural Gas (NG) price of 3$/GJ, and for 15$/GJ, the
highest natural gas price during the past five decades, total
desalination cost reaches up to over 9 B$/year within
UAE
4)
. This trend is shown in Fig. 2. The gap between two
lines tells the cost instability of water desalination due to
fuel price fluctuation. Therefore, as stated above, due to
fossil power plants high dependency on the fuel price,
instability of fuel price can be a burden. Therefore, stable
energy source for desalination is necessary to reduce the
pressure on the increasing water production.


III. ECONOMIC EVALUATION

IAEA Desalination Economic Evaluation Program
(DEEP) has been used worldwide for the economic
evaluation of various combinations of energy and
desalination plants
5)
. User can specify various parameters
or the user can use default values as well, which are
generally acceptable. In the DEEP code, final water
production cost is estimated in two stages as presented in
Fig. 3. First, the DEEP code evaluates levelized energy
cost in $/kWh using economic models and parameters for
an energy plant. The levelized energy cost is presented in
cost breakdown which is decomposed into annualized
capital, O&M and fuel cost components of the energy plant.
The DEEP code then evaluates levelized water cost in $/m
3

using economic models and parameters for a desalination
plant. The levelized water cost is also presented in cost
breakdown which is decomposed into annualized capital,
O&M and energy cost components of the desalination
plant. The energy cost component means cost of heat or
electricity required for desalination. Electricity can be
provided either from on-site energy plant, such as in the
case of heat, and/or from grid. The heat and on-site
electricity cost are calculated based on the levelized energy
cost of the energy plant which was estimated in the first
stage. When calculating heat cost, the missing revenue due
to the lost electricity generation is considered. The cost of
grid electricity is calculated based on the related parameter,
purchased electricity cos C
pe
, specified by user.

Fig. 1. Water demand forecast of UAE.
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Paper 12039



Fig. 2. Annual fuel cost estimation following water
demand and NG price.


Fig. 3. Two-step water cost estimation of DEEP code.
In this study, economic aspects of dedicated nuclear
heat only desalination system were investigated using the
DEEP code. First, we evaluated final water costs of various
cases including the dedicated nuclear heat only
desalination system and then compared them by specifying
values of selected major parameters while maintaining all
other parameters to the default values provided by the
DEEP code.

III.A. Selected DEEP Parameters

As the first step, cases were categorized by
combinations of various desalination technologies (MSF
and MED with or without TVC, RO), energy sources
(nuclear and natural gas), power conversion systems (heat
only and steam cycle) and natural gas prices. Here we set
the MED-TVC/Nuclear/Heat-only case as a reference case,
which represents the dedicated nuclear heat only
desalination system. MED-TVC was selected as a
reference thermal desalination method since it shows the
highest level of performance and economy among the
existing thermal desalination methods. Almost all of the
electricity in the UAE depends on natural gas
6)
. In lights of
such energy situation in the UAE, natural gas was chosen
as a representative fossil fuel to compare with the nuclear
energy options including the reference case. And we set the
power plant employing steam Rankine cycle as a co-
generation plant model to compare with the energy plants
which only provide heat such as the reference case. An
intermediate loop was included for all nuclear cases from
the view point of nuclear safety which, in turn, acts as a
cost penalty.
Although the DEEP code provides the default values
for the most of parameters which are standard data applied
widely in the field
7)
, we specified fixed values or ranges of
values of some selected parameters to reflect the
uniqueness of nuclear heat only desalination plants and
current status of the UAE. Default and specified values of
selected parameters are summarized in Table I.

TABLE I
Default and Specified Values of Selected DEEP Parameters
Parameters
Default values
Applied cases
Specified values
Total desalination plant
capacity W
drc

100,000 m
3
/d
All cases
330,000 m
3
/d
Average annual cooling
water temperature T
sw

25
All cases
30
Total dissolved solids TDS
35,000 ppm
All cases
45,000 ppm
Construction duration of
energy plant L
e

40 months
Ref. case
12-36 months
Operational availability of
energy plant A
pp

90 %
Ref. case
92 %
Specific construction cost
(EPC) of energy plant C
e

400 $/kWth
Ref. case 320 - 400
$/kWth
Specific O&M cost of
energy plant C
eom

2.0 $/MWthh
Ref. case 1.6 - 2.0
$/MWthh
Specific fuel cost of energy
plant C
sf

-
Nuclear cases
2.56 $/MWthh
-
Natural gas
L (Min. price)
cases
10.24 $/MWthh
(3 $/MMBTU)
-
Natural gas
H (Max. price)
cases
34.12 $/MWthh
(10 $/MMBTU)
Purchased electricity cost
C
pe

-
All cases
0.01 - 0.05
$/kWeh
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Paper 12039

Total desalination plant capacity W
drc
of 330,000 m
3
/d
is required for a million people city, which is the target of
this study. This is based on the daily water usage of 1/3
m
3
/day for each person. The total desalination plant
capacity W
drc
determines the minimum required base
energy plant capacity, the lost energy, and the construction
and O&M cost of the desalination plant. Average annual
seawater condition of Arabian Gulf Sea, which is at
average annual seawater temperature T
sw
of 30
o
C and
average annual seawater salinity TDS of 45,000 ppm, was
adopted on the basis of the DuPont World Map for
Desalination
8)
.
The specific fuel cost C
sf
is the fossil fuel cost or
nuclear fuel cycle cost in $/MWeh for electricity
generating plants or in $/MWthh for heat only plants. The
specific fuel cost C
sf
is equal to the fuel price based on the
heating value C
sf
divided by the net thermal efficiency of
the energy plant. For the nuclear energy plants, based on
45,000 MWd/t of burn-up and 2768.4 $/kg-U of specific
uranium cost including all the preprocessing cost, C
sf

values for the nuclear energy plants are calculated as 2.56
$/MWthh
9)
. Therefore, C
sf
values are 8.27 $/MWeh for a
nuclear power plant employing steam Rankine cycle and
2.85 $/MWthh for a nuclear heat only plant. Based on the
natural gas spot price history at Henry Hub Gulf Coast for
the past 14 years, it is reasonable to set the C
sf
values for
natural gas at 10.24 $/MWthh (3 $/MMBTU) minimum to
34.12 $/MWthh (10 $/MMBTU) maximum
10)
. C
sf
values
are, then, from the minimum of 25.59 to the maximum of
85.30 $/MWeh for a natural gas power plant employing
steam Rankine cycle, and from the minimum of 11.37 to
the maximum of 37.91 $/MWthh for a natural gas heat
only plant.
The purchased electricity cost C
pe
is the relevant cost
in $/kWeh for electricity supply to the heat only plant and
for backup electricity source of RO and thermal
desalination plants. At the end of year 2010, both Dubai
and Abu Dhabi introduced a dynamic tariff structure on the
electricity price that also included slightly raised prices but
still retained a large subsidy. Electricity price of Abu Dhabi
ranges from 0.01 to 0.05 $/kWeh
11)
. In this study, therefore,
the purchased electricity cost C
pe
was set between 0.01 to
0.05 $/kWeh for all cases.
The DEEP code provides default values of
construction duration L
e
, specific construction cost C
e
and
specific O&M cost C
eom
for the nuclear heat only plant as
well as the nuclear power plant employing steam Rankine
cycle. The default values of these parameters for a nuclear
power plant employing steam Rankine cycle are 60 months,
4,000 $/kWe and 8.8 $/MWeh, respectively. On the other
hand, default values of these parameters for a nuclear heat
only plant are 40 months, 400 $/kWth and 2.0 $/MWthh,
respectively. These values are far less than those for the
typical nuclear power plants employing steam Rankine
cycle due to the absence of electricity generation part. We
expect that these values can be less than the current default
values since the reference system will be based on low
pressure low temperature operation. A low pressure low
temperature nuclear system gains economy not only from
the construction point of view but also from the operation
and maintenance point of view. The fact that the reference
system will be constructed in small modular reactor design
concept also provides the ground on that expectation.
Therefore, values of these parameters for the nuclear heat
only plant were set between 12 to 36 months, 320 to 400
$/kWth and 1.6 to 2.0 $/MWthh in the order mentioned
above.
For the operational availability A
pp
, the DEEP code
provides the same default values of 90 % with no
distinction between a nuclear heat only plant and a nuclear
power plant employing steam Rankine cycle. The
operational availability for the heat only plants is expected
to increase due to the absence of electricity generation part
which is the major reason for causing unplanned outages,
and due to the low pressure low temperature operation, as
mentioned above. There have been 140 cases of unplanned
outages for 10 years of Korean nuclear power plants
operation. Among them, unplanned outages, caused by the
secondary system, account for about 60 % of all the cases
of unplanned outages
12)
. In light of these facts, the
operational availability A
pp
of 92 % was adopted for
nuclear heat only plants.

III.B. Water Cost Comparison

Water production cost breakdowns of the nuclear heat
only reference case under various conditions are presented
in Fig. 4. As shown in the Fig. 4., heat cost decreases as the
major energy plant parameters, such as the construction
duration L
e
, specific construction cost C
e
and specific
O&M cost C
eom
, decrease. However, these parameters have
no effect on the purchased electricity cost. This is because
the energy plant of the reference system is a nuclear heat
only plant which provides only heat to the desalination
plant. Purchased electricity cost decreases as the purchased
electricity cost parameter C
pe
decreases. It is obvious that
capital and O&M costs show no difference since they are
adopting the same desalination technology, MED-TVC,
under the same conditions.
Water production cost breakdowns of some important
cases are shown in Fig. 5. The result of the nuclear heat
only reference case included here is at the construction
duration L
e
of 24 months, specific construction cost C
e
of
360 $/kWth, specific O&M cost C
eom
of 1.8 $/MWthh, and
purchased electricity cost C
pe
of 0.03 $/kWeh.

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Paper 12039


Fig. 4. Water production cost breakdown of nuclear
heat only reference case by varying parameters such as
specific construction cost C
e
, specific O&M cost C
eom
,
construction duration L
e
and purchased electricity cost C
pe
.

Fig. 5. Water production cost breakdown of some
important cases. (NC, NG-L, and NG-L stand for nuclear,
natural gas at minimum price, and natural gas at maximum
price, respectively).
When comparing the nuclear heat only reference case
to the natural gas cases, natural gas price plays the most
important role for determining whether the nuclear heat
only reference case is more cost competitive. As you can
find in Fig. 6., the nuclear heat only reference case
becomes more cost competitive than the cases using
natural gas energy if the natural gas price is maintained
above 4.83 $/MMBTU. In terms of the natural gas price
history, this value was real and can be real in the future.

Fig. 6. Water production cost comparison between
nuclear heat only reference case and natural gas cases.
As shown in Fig. 7., there may exist a crossing point
where water cost of the nuclear heat only reference case
becomes even lower than that of the nuclear co-generation
cases. Based on the purchased electricity cost C
pe
of 0.01
$/kWeh which is the minimum in the current UAE
situation, the reference system can produce water at almost
the same cost as the MED-TVC plant with nuclear power
plant employing steam Rankine cycle does when the
construction duration L
e
is 12 months, and the specific
construction cost C
e
and specific O&M cost C
eom
decrease
to 90 % of default values. Although even at the situation
where these parameters decrease up to 80 % of default
values, the water cost of the nuclear heat only reference
system is still higher than that of the RO plant with nuclear
power plant employing steam Rankine cycle for electricity
generation. However, the situation can be changed if we
consider the cost needed to transport produced fresh water
from the system to the end-users. If we can design
enhanced nuclear safety features for the nuclear heat only
case enabling to construct and operate the system near big
cities, this can result in reduction of the water transport
cost. The DEEP code provides models and parameters to
estimate the water transport cost, as well. We estimated the
water transport cost simply by varying values for one
parameter, pipeline system length kms, which is the most
influential parameter among related parameters, while
keeping all other related parameters to the default values. If
we assume that the transport pipeline length of the
reference system and typical nuclear desalination system is
10 km and 50 km each, then the water transport cost is
estimated as 0.01 $/m
3
and 0.03 $/m
3
, respectively.
Transport length saving of 40 km results in the water cost
reduction of about 0.02 $/m
3
. When considering the water
transport cost saving of 0.02 $/m
3
, the water cost of the
reference system becomes comparable to that of the RO
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plant with nuclear power plant employing steam Rankine
cycle. This is a conservative assumption in respect that
Braka, which has been selected as a site for the UAEs first
four nuclear power plants, is located in the Western Region
of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, approximately 300 km from
Abu Dhabi and 53 km from the nearest city of Ruwais. If
we assume ideally direct 300 km length of the transport
pipeline installed from the nuclear desalination system at
Braka site to Abu Dhabi, then the water transport cost
reaches up to 0.16 $/m
3
.

Fig. 7. Water cost comparison between nuclear heat
only reference case and nuclear co-generation cases at
purchased electricity cost C
pe
of 0.01 $/kW(e)h.
In conclusion, from the view point of economics, we
found that the dedicated nuclear heat only desalination
system based on the UAE local condition can be more
cost-competitive than other desalination systems under
certain conditions. We found how much the economic gap
between each option exists and varies as the major
parameters change. The dedicated nuclear heat only
desalination system in the UAE region may not only be the
most economically feasible option, but also the best option
in consideration of safety and operational advantages,
which were not converted into economic values in this
study.

IV. GAS COOLED REACTOR FOR SEAWATER
DESALINATION

To supply the water needs of the UAE with nuclear
seawater desalination, KAIST research team is studying
the possibilities of coupling a nuclear reactor with MED
desalination plant. The gas cooled reactor is considered as
an option since it has some advantages over the water or
liquid metal system. By using gas as a coolant, the reactor
operation will always be maintained in the pure single
phase operation even during an accident that causes the
reactor temperature to increase. Noble gas, such as helium,
is also known as an inert for chemical reaction and is quite
transparent to neutron so we can be less concerned about
the radioactive leak when there is a leak in the system.
Another advantage is the impossibility of total coolant loss,
whenever the loss of coolant accident happened, the
system will be depressurized until the pressure is equal
with the surrounding pressure
13)
.

IV.A. Previous Studies

Some previous studies have been done regarding the
coupling of a gas cooled reactor with a seawater
desalination plant. The considered reactors are the helium
cooled Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) and also
helium cooled Gas Turbine Modular Helium Reactor
(GTMHR)
14)
. Both PBMR and GTMHR main functions
are to produce electricity and they used the waste heat from
the cycle for the desalination process. Both of the reactors
are a graphite moderated helium cooled reactor which
operate at high temperature (around 850
o
C to 900
o
C) and
produce waste heat around 100
o
C. This temperature is
sufficient enough for MED desalination plant. MED
desalination plant usually operates at maximum top brine
temperatures below 80
o
C to reduce the risk of scaling on
the equipment during operation. Principle of the coupling
of a GT-MHR to MED process is shown in Fig. 8
15)
. The
technical document of IAEA on Optimization of the
coupling of nuclear reactors and desalination systems
stated the amount of water produced by utilizing waste
heat from GT-MHR with MED is only about 43,500
m
3
/day
16)
. Another study is done by Mabrouk Methnani
17)
,
2006. He compared the cost of nuclear desalination system
using HTGR with fossil fuel combined cycle system by
using the DEEP code. The result shows that the nuclear
desalination option with HTGR for both RO and MED
process are lower than the fossil fuel desalination system.
Compared to the previous study of waste heat
utilization of gas cooled reactor for seawater desalination,
KAIST research team decided to study the possibility for
designing a dedicated gas cooled reactor for thermal
desalination system. Though it's called dedicated heat
system but the reactor will still produce electricity since
the operating temperature of gas cooled reactor is too high
for direct use to MED. The electricity produced by this
designed reactor doesn't have to be very high and will be
used to supply the electricity needed by the desalination
plant only. By doing so, the reactor operating temperature
and pressure can be reduced. The operating temperature
can be reduced since a desalination system doesn't require
high temperature process heat and the operating pressure
can be reduced because the main purpose of the system is

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Paper 12039


Fig. 8. Principle of the coupling of GT-MHR to MED process, utilizing the waste heat. (Dardour et al.
15)
).
not to produce electricity but supply heat for the
desalination process. Therefore, the system doesn't need to
use high pressure turbine for the cycle. However, there are
some aspects that will give lower limit of the operating
condition below which the system operation is impossible.
The main aspect that influences the system pressure is the
heat transfer capability of the gas coolant. Gas becomes
better heat transfer media as the operating pressure goes up.
The main aspect that influences the system temperature is
the Wigner effect from the graphite moderator. Wigner
effect occurs in graphite irradiated below 300
o
C and
becomes a problem for reactor operation below 150
o
C.
The first prototype of gas cooled reactor (Magnox) had
found a way to deal with the Wigner effect which was by
doing annealing process on the refueling period. All
Magnox reactors were operated at inlet temperature above
150
o
C
18)
. Therefore, it is better to consider that 150
o
C is
the lower limit of the operating temperature for graphite
moderated reactor.

IV.B. Coolant Selection and Reactor Core Thermal Power

Based on the operational experience there are two
gasses suitable for the gas cooled reactor which are CO
2

and helium. Helium is preferable as a coolant since CO
2

can disintegrate and react with graphite structure at high
temperature. CO
2
can also cause oxidation of structural
materials at certain temperatures (350
o
C - 450
o
C for
steel)
13)
. Helium is a good choice since it will not become
radioactive when it is irradiated and it also has good heat
transfer properties and good chemical properties.
From the previous study it can be seen that by utilizing
waste heat from 600 MWth reactor core we can produce
about 43500 m
3
/day fresh water via thermal desalination.
The dedicated heat gas cooled reactor should minimize the
reactor core thermal power while increasing water
production capacity. It is a feasible idea since the main
function of the reactor is for process heat and not
electricity production. From the previous section, the
amount of desalinated water needed for a city with one
million of population in UAE will require about 300,000
m
3
of fresh water per day. The thermal power needed to
produce this amount of water by MED is calculated to be
about 850 to 900 MWth. This amount of power can be
supplied by 3 to 4 gas cooled reactors with each reactor
having thermal power of 300 MWth. Therefore, for the
preliminary study the reactor system is specified to
produce thermal power of 300 MWth.

IV.C. Heat and Electricity Production

For the primary side design, there are 2 options
available for the heat and power cycle. The first option is
using helium direct Brayton cycle and the other option is
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Paper 12039

using helium indirect cycle with either helium Brayton
cycle or steam Rankine cycle. The first option is preferable
from the economical point of view since it can reduce the
amount of component needed by the system. To optimize
the usage of reactor thermal power for the process heat, the
system needs to have a recuperator.
Two cases are made for the preliminary design
calculation. The first case uses Magnox Calder Hall
19)

operating temperature and the second case with a higher
temperature. The pressure of 6 to 6.5 MPa is set as the
compressor outlet pressure. The reactor core pressure drop
is estimated to be 125 kPa using the GTMHR core as the
reference
20)
.
To define mathematical equation for designing the
primary system, some data will be needed such as turbine
efficiency, compressor efficiency, recuperator effectiveness,
heat exchanger pressure drop, and pressure drop along the
pipeline. This data can be found from Brayton cycle
assessment
21)
which are shown in Table II.

TABLE II
Brayton Cycle Parameter
Variable Value

rec
95%

T
93%

C
89%

As the pressure drop value in heat exchanger, 0.1 bar
or 100 kPa is a reasonable value for gas
22)
. The pressure
drop along the pipeline is negligible in the preliminary
design.

Reactor:
The mass of helium coolant needed can be obtained by

Q

= m
Hc
(B
out
-B
In
) (1)
m
Hc
=
Q

(H
out
-H
n
)
(2)

The enthalpy data for a given temperature and pressure can
be found from NIST property database
23)
.

Turbine:
To find the turbine outlet operating condition, first we
have to assume isentropic process in the turbine.

T
1,IscntropIc
= T
out
[
P
1
P
out

1-
1

(3)

where turbine outlet pressure (P
1
) can be calculated after
estimating turbine pressure ratio. The actual turbine outlet
temperature (T
1
) can be calculated by

TT,IscntropIc
= T
out
- T
1,IscntropIc
(4)

TT
=
T

T1,IscntropIc
(5)
T
1
= T
out
-
T1
(6)

Recuperator:
Heat transfer equation in recuperator can be formed as

Q

1-2
= Q

In-4
(7)
m
Hc
(B
1
-B
2
) = m
Hc
(B
In
-B
4
) (8)

rcc
=
H
1
-H
2
H
1
-H
4
=
H
n
-H
4
H
1
-H
4
(9)

Intermediate Heat Exchanger
The heat that can be extracted from the primary side to
secondary side is then

Q

hcat
= m
Hc
(B
2
-B
3
) (10)

Compressor
The mathematical equation in compressor side is
similar with turbine which is

T
3,IscntropIc
= T
4
[
P
3
P
4

1-
1

(11)

TC,IscntropIc
= T
4
-T
3,IscntropIc
(12)

TC
=
C

TC,IscntropIc
(13)
T
3
= T
4
-
TC
(14)

Electricity Production
To calculate how much electricity is produced, the
turbine power, compressor power, and generator efficiency
is necessary. The other factors that needed for calculating
how much the electricity is produced are mechanical losses
(1%), parasitic losses (2%), and switchyard losses
(0.5%)
24)
. Therefore,

P =
98-(1+2+0.5)
100
(Q

T
-Q

C
) (15)

The operating condition of each case is shown in Table
III while the heat and electricity production is shown in
Table IV. The condition of every stream in Case I and Case
II are shown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 respectively.
TABLE III
Operating Parameter for 2 Design Cases
Parameter Case I Case II
Reactor inlet temperature (
o
C) 167 287.3
Reactor outlet temperature (
o
C) 345 490
Helium mass flow (kg/s) 324.9 285.3
Turbine pressure ratio 1.6 1.6
Max Pressure (MPa) 6 6.5
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Proceedings of ICAPP 12
Chicago, USA, June 24-28, 2012
Paper 12039

TABLE IV
Heat and Electricity Production
Parameter Case I Case II
Heat to secondary side (MWth) 265.84 240.64
Electricity produced (MWe) 31.26 56.11



Fig. 9. Block diagram of primary system design for
case I.

Fig. 10. Block diagram of primary system design for
case II.
Table IV shows that case I provides more heat to the
secondary system but case II produce more electricity.
From the system main purpose point of view, case I
provides a better system than case II. However, there is
another aspect, which should be considered, for choosing
the operating condition: the Wigner effect. As it was stated
before, the Wigner effect should be concerned of when the
graphite moderated nuclear reactor is operated below 300
o
C. Since case I reactor inlet temperature is 167
o
C, the
amount of energy stored in the graphite due to the Wigner
effect should be carefully estimated. In this sense, case II is
a better system in terms of operation since the Wigner
effect is less worrisome.

IV.D. Secondary Side Design & Coupling Scheme

For the secondary side design, water system is the best
option to connect the primary system with desalination
system. Open loop system using seawater and closed loop
system using cooling water are the two most commonly
adopted systems for connecting a nuclear reactor with a
seawater desalination system. An open loop system using
seawater has a risk of radiation leak from the primary
system and also has a scaling problem that could occur in
high temperature. Therefore, from the safety point of view,
closed loop system using cooling water is preferable. The
next step for the secondary side design is designing the
secondary side operating condition. MED top brine
temperature is usually up to 70
o
C. The operating condition
of the intermediate loop should be arranged to make it
possible for seawater feed temperature to reach the
appropriate condition.
The other part of the design that should be considered
for the intermediate loop is whether to use a steam
generator to change the water phase from liquid to steam
and send it to MED plant or using a flash tank and send the
vapor portion to MED plant. By using the steam generator,
the amount of water needed by system will be smaller
compare to using the flash tank but the steam temperature
will be much higher. By using the flash tank, steam
temperature will be lower but the vacuum system is needed.
Besides that, higher amount of water also means larger
pipeline size. Further economical analysis is needed for
accurate comparison.
Coupling of the nuclear reactor with a MED
desalination plant is usually done with one nuclear reactor
coupled to several MED plants. The capacity of a MED
unit that has been demonstrated in the market is about
20,000 m
3
/day
25)
. From the DEEP code calculation, the
thermal power required for providing 20,000 m
3
/day is
around 50 MWth. Based on this data, the heat provide by
the KAIST designed system will be sufficient for 4 MED
plants. As to provide 300,000 m
3
/day desalinated water, 4
reactors will be needed which will result in maximum
capacity of 320,000 m
3
/day.

V. SUMMARY

In this paper, we studied the potential of developing
nuclear desalination system with thermal desalination
method for the UAE. Based on the economical analysis
using the UAE local condition, the nuclear desalination
plant is economically favored over the fossil fuel (natural
gas) desalination plant. The reason is because fossil fuel
desalination system depends on natural gas price which is
unstable parameter while nuclear energy offers a stable and
fairly low fuel price which results in stable and low water
production cost. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
nuclear desalination system has a high chance to be
developed in the UAE.
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Proceedings of ICAPP 12
Chicago, USA, June 24-28, 2012
Paper 12039

A dedicated nuclear system for desalination which
focused on supplying process heat for a MED system is
being studied by KAIST research team. One type of reactor
under consideration is helium cooled graphite moderated
reactor. The low operating pressure of the reactor is
preferable to ensure the safety of the proposed reactor
system. Operating at lower temperature can produce more
heat and less electricity than operating at higher
temperature. However, the high temperature operating case
is a better option if we consider the graphite Wigner effect.
To provide 300,000 m
3
/day desalinated water, the best
coupling scheme would be 4 reactors with each reactor
coupled to 4 MED plants with 20,000 m
3
/day capacity.
The further works for developing helium cooled
graphite moderated nuclear reactor which is dedicated for
the fresh water production only are: optimizing the
operating condition which can result in higher performance
of the system, selecting the operating condition for
intermediate loop , and designing the fuel assembly and
safety system for the proposed nuclear reactor.
.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work is supported by KUSTAR-KAIST
Research Project Proposal on "Development of Highly
Passive Small Modular Reactor System for Large Scale
Seawater Desalination".
NOMENCLATURE

H enthalpy (kJ/kg)
m mass flow (kg/s)
P pressure (MPa)
Q heat flow (kW)
T temperature (
o
C)

Greek symbols
effectiveness
efficiency

T
temperature difference

Subscripts
C compressor
T turbine
in reactor inlet
out reactor outlet
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