Penguin wroteI was under the impression they used desalinized water for these things. Except the water for drinking.
When I first came in, we would shower and do laundry with saltwater and rinse in fresh because we could only make about 8K gallons per day in the DeSal plants . Now, we make fresh water at sea with modern technology which has put two 10K per day stills onboard most smaller ships (destroyers, cruisers, etc crews less than 200 or so do pretty good.)
Carriers can make about 200,000 gal per day so we really don't have a big problem with fresh water unless one breaks or is down for maintenance, but we also have about 4000 people onboard, plus that same water makes steam to run the 4 catapults to launch planes and "make-up and feed water" for the reactor. Think of a really, REALLY big pot where you boil water and consense the steam into fresh water and pump it into tanks. When the water is used it goes thru a filter and 'purifier' (basically adds back in some chemicals and clorinates it to kill whatever grew in the water while it was in the tank). If it goes to the reactor it goes thru a different process where it is also de-ionized (called DI water) then it too gets anti corrosion chemicals added to it that are reactor friendly. If you drink DI water you'll get sick - it's absolutely devoid of anything but H and O2. Way more pure than the "distilled water" you get at the grocery store - it's nuclear grade!!!
75% of the earth is water, but you can't drink it all, that's why Brother Jack has done so well making the nasty tasting water taste good in formula #7 :idea: =D> The Mexicans just bottle it and call it Ta-kill-ya :shock:
Mudrat :mrgreen:
