Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, together with other stakeholders, participated in a technical talk titled ‘power engineering: strengthening the South African power pool and developing water security in South Africa’. Organised by the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE), the talk, held in July, was held in the framework of the Nuclear Section, recently launched by SAIEE in a partnership with Rosatom.
Rosatom used the opportunity to highlight the comprehensive solutions and various water treatment technologies that they provide.
“South Africa is approaching physical water scarcity by 2025, and its socioeconomic development has been directly hampered by the recent drought. The country is expected to face a water deficit of 17% by 2030 based on the current usage trends, and this shortage will only be worsened by climate change,” says Dr Hlamulo Makelane, research fellow at the Nelson Mandela University.
The latest Rosatom developments in water treatment include mobile water treatment and desalination units, which were introduced into South Africa at the Africa Energy Indaba Forum in March this year. The mobile water treatment solution is a fully containerised system that is mounted to the back of a standard one-ton pickup truck.
The units require very little set up and can be operational within six minutes. They can be deployed along rivers, dams or even the ocean. Clean water can then be distributed at the site of treatment or can be transported by tanker and distributed to nearby residents. They can fulfil an intermediate solution for urban and rural areas that don’t currently have access to clean water or are experiencing water disruptions due to failed infrastructure.
“The key challenge of water scarcity in Africa is access to adequate water resources. A lot of energy is required for desalination of sea water, as well as for operation of the large pumping stations to move fresh water from rivers to consumers. Rosatom has unique experience in the field of nuclear desalination, as well as the high-tech production base and the rich experience in creating world-class engineering facilities,” says Ryan Collyer, acting CEO of Rosatom Central and Southern Africa. “Our aim is to give people access to clean water to improve living standards in Africa or elsewhere in the world.”
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), only nuclear reactors are capable of delivering the copious quantities of energy required for large-scale desalination projects in the future. The existing Rosatom offer encompasses desalination facilities that employ multi effect distillation technology and are integrated into a nuclear power plant. Such installations use steam that has already been used for electricity production.
The simultaneous production of electricity and desalinated water at a nuclear power plant (NPP) is effective on account of a number of advantages, including relatively low costs, sustainability (the use of a small amount of chemicals for the desalination process) as well as economies of scale. The NPP produces large amounts of heat and steam, which is why a desalination facility integrated into a nuclear power plant is capable of ensuring supplies to areas with a population of up to one-million people.
A facility of this kind, with a capacity of 10.2-thousand m3 per day, was commissioned at the Kudankulam NPP in India, which was constructed by Rosatom. The purpose of the project was to obtain the water necessary for cooling during NPP operation, as well as to supply drinking water to population centres located nearby.
