Even if the California drought were to end today, we still face the harsh reality that our society is severely unprepared to deal with a long-term water shortage.
Traditional desalination is accomplished using giant filters, which is extremely expensive, or by boiling the water using fossil fuels for heat, which is also costly and bad for the environment. Nuclear desalination uses a small nuclear reactor, similar in size to those on submarines, to quickly boil enormous quantities of seawater. This method is clean, efficient and sustainable..
What makes nuclear desalination so appealing is the potential to drive costs well below traditional desalination and the remarkable progress in modern reactor designs.