Atoms for Thirst

One of the most promising prospects for creating a major new industry lies in the sea. If U.S. scientists can develop a practical, economic way to desalt sea water, they will not only ease such regional problems as drought, but will generate demand for many kinds of machines and human skills. While more than 200 desalting plants are already operating around the world, including nine in the U.S., they have yet to surmount one vexing problem: cost. The desalting plants have been unable to produce fresh water for much less than $1 per 1,000 gal., which may be economical in a parched country such as Kuwait, but can scarcely compete against the average 350 per 1,000 gal. that U.S. communities pay for water.

Last week the state of New York and the American Machine & Foundry Co. announced a joint project that, by their estimate, would reduce the cost of desalted water by two-thirds, thus making it economical. More than that, the project would marry the already established growth industry of atomic energy with the potentially great one of desalinization.

Power & Isotopes. A.M.F. and New York signed a letter of intent, under which the state's Atomic & Space Development Authority will put up $125,000 for the company to draw complete specifications for the free world's first nuclear-powered desalinization plant.* If the Atomic Energy Commission approves the reactor design as expected, New York will later scrape up $4,100,000. Building is to begin next April at Riverhead, N.Y., on the northeast shore of Long Island, and in 1968 the plant should start turning out fresh water.

In theory, the plant will be able to sell its water for 35-c- per 1,000 gal. because it will produce two valuable byproducts, electricity and radioactive isotopes. It will turn out 1,000,000 gal. per day--enough for the average needs of 10,000 rural-area people--as well as 2,500 kw. of electricity per hour and up to 500,000 curies of cobalt-60 isotopes per year, which together could be sold for $500,000 annually. Though the 35-c- price for the desalted water will be above the 30-c- that Riverhead now pays for regular water, it will be lower than the price paid by most surrounding communities. Says A.M.F. Chairman Carter Burgess, 48: "We have confidence in the economic viability of small nuclear plants capable of many applications."

The process to be used at Riverhead is called "multistage flash distillation." Water from Long Island Sound will be pumped into the plant, where it will be heated by an open-pool reactor. It will then pass through a series of large chambers, each with different pressure levels; the heat and the changes in pressure will cause the water to form steam and separate from the brine; the steam will then be condensed and piped out as pure, distilled drinking water.

Big. For all its potential in a rural community, the Riverhead plant and other small ones offer just a drop in the bucket to thirsty cities such as New York, which daily consumes 1.25 billion gal. The governments of the U.S. and Israel are now jointly studying the possibility of building nuclear desalinization plants with daily outputs of 100 million gal. For the Los Angeles region, Bechtel Corp. has recently completed the first stage of a study calling for a two-reactor nuclear plant that theoretically, by 1972, could turn out 150 million gal. per day, at a cost of 220 to 300 per 1,000 gal.

Federal experts reckon that water shortages will become acute in large areas of the U.S. West within the next 20 years. Though desalinization is only a partial answer to the problem of a nation whose water demand is expected to almost double by 1980, it is a challenge that has aroused businessmen, scientists and the Government. Many companies are working on new ideas in the field, including Westinghouse Electric, Colt Industries and Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton. The Interior Department's Office of Saline Water optimistically predicts that, in 35 years, between 7% and 10% of the nation's fresh water will come from the sea.

* The Soviets have boasted that they can build one too, but it is not known whether they are doing so.

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