Reply To: Competition from the Thorium reactor

[Brian H]

A pilot project using low grade heat and small amounts of electricity to desalinate water has been set up here in Vancouver, BC, and it seems to me to mesh perfectly with FF requirements.
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14743791
and
http://www.saltworkstech.com/technology.php

In simple terms, it uses heat or sunlight to concentrate some seawater, then ionic gradients to run a kind of double loop of Cl and Na ions in opposite directions to seawater separately pumped to the process chamber. The resulting process requires 1 kwh per 1,000 liters of purified water (mainly for pumping, etc.) So a 5MW FF generator would be able to provide the energy to purify 24×5,000×1,000 120 million liters of water a day, or about 40 million USG, at a cost of around $300 plus any expense for (passive?) heat transfer/transport into the process.
Not tea bags!