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An Overview of Nuclear Desalination History and Challenges Mohamed M. Megahed Nuclear Power Plants Authority, 4 El-Nasr Ave., P.O. Box 8191, Nasr City, Cairo 11371, Egypt From the early days of the nuclear power and desalination technologies, it was realized that the power of the atom could be utilized to overcome two of the challenges to the development of mankind, namely sustainable supply of electricity and water. Comparison between development of demand for both nuclear and desalination technologies - shown on Figure 1 - reveals general similarity in the trends. Peak demands for both technologies occurred after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War that increased oil prices and thus forced industrialized countries to rely on nuclear energy as a reliable alternative source. High oil prices increased the financial resources of the oil exporting countries in the Middle East, and thus provided them with the means to acquire alternative source of potable water to augment their acute shortage of fresh water resources. In the 1960s, the IAEA surveyed the feasibility of using nuclear reactors for seawater desalination, and has since published a number of reports on the technical and economic aspects of the subject and sponsored an international conference on nuclear desalination in 1968. The assessments performed for these and other studies indicated that nuclear desalination would be technically feasible and economically competitive with fossil and renewable energy in a range of situations. There are a number of nuclear reactors that have been or are being considered for nuclear desalination, as shown in Table 1. However, coupling of nuclear reactor and desalination processes involves a number of issues that have to be addressed. These include safety of the nuclear plant and prevention of radioactive contamination of product water, assurance of potable water supply during reactor shutdown, as well as economic and financing issues. The objectives of this paper is to present the status of nuclear desalination and its prospects for implementation, through comprehensive review of historical development, recent studies and R&D activities, as well as the main issues confronting nuclear desalination and approaches to address them. Table 1: Summary of nuclear desalination projects Reactor type Location Desalination process Desalination process LFMR Kazakhstan (Aktau) MED, MSF In service till 1999 PWRs Japan (Ohi, Takahama, Ikata, Genkai) MED, MSF, RO In service with operating experience of over 100 reactor-years   Rep. of Korea, Argentina, etc MED, RO Under design:   Russia MED, RO Under design (floating unit) BWR Japan (Kashiwazaki) MSF Desalination unit decommissioned PHWR India (Kalpakkam) MSF/RO Under Construction   Canada RO (preheat) Under design NHR Morocco (Tan-Tan) MED In preparation   China MED Under design HTGR South Africa, France, The Netherlands MED, MSF Interested in application