198 Int. J. Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, Vol. 4, No. 3, 2019 Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Coupling pressurised water reactor to large scale SWRO desalination plants: an economic assessment Ghada A. Al Bazedi, Mohamed H. Sorour, Shadia R. Tewfik*, Abdelghani M.G. Abulnour and Heba A. Hani Chemical Engineering and Pilot Plant Department, National Research Centre, El-Bohouth Street, Dokki, P.O. Box 12622, Giza, Egypt Email: bazedi@yahoo.com Email: mhsorour12@yahoo.com Email: shadiatewfik@yahoo.com Email: dr_agaboelnour@yahoo.com Email: hi_heba2@yahoo.com *Corresponding author Abstract: Water management via rational use, reuse practices and water desalination is the key element for mitigation of water shortage. This paper addresses small-scale nuclear systems as a cost-effective energy alternative for large-scale desalination plants. An empirical cost model has been derived and validated based on reported cost indicators and selected cases. The capital cost of 150,000 m 3 /d seawater desalination plant coupled to small nuclear reactors has been estimated to be between 3 and 11 M$/MWe, respectively. In addition, specific cost of nuclear desalination-steam cycle system SWRO (conventional pre-treatment), ranges between 0.046–0.064 $/kWh and 0.62–0.667 $/m 3 for energy and water, respectively. Cost indicators of different desalination systems show that product water cost ranges between 0.62 and 0.779 $/m 3 when applying nuclear power as an energy source for RO, RO/MED, MED while when applying oil/gas as an energy source the product water cost ranges between 1.12 and 1.89 $/m 3 . Keywords: nuclear desalination; reverse osmosis; SMRs; PWR; cost function. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Al Bazedi, G.A., Sorour, M.H., Tewfik, S.R., Abulnour, A.M.G. and Hani, H.A. (2019) ‘Coupling pressurised water reactor to large scale SWRO desalination plants: an economic assessment’, Int. J. Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp.198–211. Biographical notes: Ghada A. Al Bazedi is an Associate Research Professor at the Engineering Research Division of the National Research Centre, Egypt. She has a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering from Cairo University, 2012. Her PhD was about modelling, simulation and optimisation of large scale reverse osmosis desalination plants. She is interested in membrane science, environmental engineering as well as separation technology. She participated in several relevant research projects as Co-PI or team member. She has several publications in desalination and waste management and is a member of different engineering societies.