Mississippi researchers win funding for low-temperature desalination
http://www.desalination.biz/news/news_story.asp?id=8353&title=Mississippi+researchers+win+funding+for+low-temperature+desalination+
Why pump that heat in to the atmosphere with a cooling tower or out in to the ocean?
It could be used to desalinate ocean water by evaporation. But no, they want to use electricity to pump ocean water at high pressure through membranes.
Drought stricken California county looks to nuclear plant desalination plant .
As the article says desalination is energy intensive. Yes the energy available in the waste heat from the power plant is in relatively low concentration but it is never the less huge.
I read of projects in the USSR that used waste heat from Nuclear Power Plants to heat homes in the area.
I understand why the nuclear plant uses Reverse Osmosis, they want high purity water. Drinking water does not need that high purity. They only need feed water for their municipal water plant.