Nuclear power ‘vital’ to meet Middle East’s water demand.
"The future is not very bright," said Denis Borisov, projects manager at Roland Berger, the global strategy consultancy, speaking at AtomExpo in Moscow yesterday.
"There are many factors for the increase in water demand in the future namely the growth of population, urbanisation and a change in the patterns of consumption."
The UAE already desalinates its water in abundance with 96 per cent of domestic consumption of water coming from one of the 70 desalination plants in the country.
"Seawater desalination is the lifeline for some regions, including the Gulf," said Hamad Alkaabi, UAE ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"Nuclear is a proven technology that provides more than 16 per cent the world’s electricity in over 30 countries.
The option of combining nuclear power with seawater desalination has been proven technically and has the potential for wider commercial use in the near future.
"Considering climate change and economic growth, nuclear power generation is the most environmentally-friendly and safe as it does not have co2 emissions nor exhaust gases," he added.
"We have countries facing chronic water shortage so one way of solving that is providing them with seawater," said Cristina del Piccolo, chief technologist at Veolia Water Technologies in Italy, which has desalination plants in Sharjah, Fujairah and Abu Dhabi.
More than of half of desalination technologies are found in the Middle East, followed by 17 per cent in North America.