Thank you so much for the clarification. It’s been a question of mine for 20+ years. The most important part of your answer, to me, is that it can be done. I’m guessing the reason that it isn’t has more to do with nuclear energy fear than engineering. I’d imagine Arizona, California, and the Colorado river would greatly appreciate a couple of nuclear powered desalination/power generation plants on the Texas gulf coast piping in as much fresh water as they can make west to the desert, where people apparently could never have foreseen a water shortage…..in the desert.

You seem to be someone to ask this question. Is it possible that the boiler feed water is filtered sea water? I know in Saudi Arabia they use oil fired power plants to also desalinate and generate electricity but I’ve always wondered if there was technical reason why this was never done with a nuclear plant. From my limited work in coal fired power plant that the boiler feed water is on a loop and economized ,and to use the water that was desalinated by the steam generation for public consumption would make it a 100% make up system which would lead to a much heavier filtering/chemical treatment process and there would have to be engineered process to clear the debris from the bottom of the boiler system but it seems like this would be a great solution to some water problems in arid/desert places that are close to an ocean like Texas maybe. It’s an answer I’ve been looking for for years and nobody has ever given me an answer.