I wondered at the fact that they use sea water. Now, granted, the plant was built on the ocean so I assumed that they got water there but I didn't know it wasn't de-salinized.
I mean it's a nuk plant, I'm sure they have enough energy to desalinate the water they need and if there's a life threatening occurrence, they can just use the sea water like in Fukoshima which, according to experts, rendered those plants unusable forever. Then again, I think they had salt water in the reactor containment vessels and the ancient design didn't use heat exchangers so the water that drove the turbines is the same water the was in the reactor. Great job GE. I hope they take more care in their jet engines. They certainly didn't in the washer we bought a few years ago. POS.
The sea water is circulated constantly to cool and condense the turbine exhaust steam so it can be pumped back into the steam generators. Unless there is a tube leak, the saltwater does not come into contact with ultra-pure feedwater.
The salt water cooling system is not a closed loop system that just gets refilled as needed like the reactor coolant loop or the steam cycle. It would be highly impractical to desalinse the entire ocean. If you closed that loop and made it fresh water, then you would still need another open loop cooling system for a heat sink like the ocean (very good sink in the summer) or the air (not very good in warm climates in summer).
As for GE’s Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) vs Westinghouse’s Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR), the PWR is safer and has fewer contaminated systems, but the BWR is more efficient and has fewer components.