In 1960 the chairman of the board of a large U. S. corporation made a
fundamental policy decision for his company: Since the greatest critical
need of man in the next decade would be fresh water, his company would
begin working to produce large volumes of fresh water—including the
development of methods for desalting seawater. His pioneering analysis
proved to be prophetic.
Throughout the world, more people are using more water for more purposes
than ever before. Many areas of the world, including some that are
densely populated, have been parched since the dawn of history. In
others where water was once abundant, not only are natural sources being
depleted faster than they are replaced, but many rivers and lakes have
been so polluted that they can now scarcely be used.
The world’s greatest resource of water is the ocean, but energy is
required to remove the salt from it and make it potable or even useful
for agriculture and industry. The energy produced by nuclear reactors is
considered economical in the large quantities that soon will be
required.
The AEC and the Office of Saline Water of the Department of the
Interior, after a preliminary study, have joined with the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California and the electric utility firms
serving the area, to begin construction of a very large nuclear-power
desalting plant on a man-made island off the California coast. The
plant, when completed in the 1970s, will have an initial water capacity
of 50 million gallons per day and also will generate about 1,800,000
kilowatts of electricity. Additional desalting capacity is planned for
addition later to achieve a total water capacity of 150 million gallons
per day.
[Illustration: _Plans to construct a nuclear desalting plant in
California were announced in August 1966 by (from left) AEC
Commissioner James T. Ramey, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L.
Udall, Mayor Samuel Yorty of Los Angeles, and Joseph Jensen, Board
Chairman of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California._]
Plans for other nuclear-powered desalting projects around the world are
being discussed by the United States government, the International
Atomic Energy Agency and the governments of many other nations. Some of
these also may be in operation during the early 1970s.[17]
[Illustration: _Model of the nuclear power desalting plant to be
built on the coast of Southern California._]
These projects followed extended detailed studies, including one
“milestone” investigation at the AEC’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in
Tennessee, in which the economic feasibility of using very large nuclear
reactors coupled to very large desalting equipment to produce power and
water was determined.
The significance of these studies was recognized by President Johnson in
1964, when he told the Third International Conference on Peaceful Uses
of Atomic Energy: “The time is coming when a single desalting plant
powered by nuclear energy will produce hundreds of millions of gallons
of fresh water—and large amounts of electricity—every day.”
It is obvious that today realization of that goal is much nearer.
The installation of new and larger desalting plants will in itself
require extensive additional oceanographic research. By the nature of
their operation these plants will be discharging considerable volumes of
heated water with a salt content higher than that of the sea. Throughout
the ocean, but particularly in the estuaries, sea life is sensitive to
the concentration of ocean salts and temperature. Studies of the effect
of such discharges will be an essential part of any large-scale
desalination program.