Nuclear Production of Hydrogen, Fourth Information Exchange ...

NUCLEAR H 2 PRODUCTION – A UTILITY PERSPECTIVE
the DOE’s NGNP project that focuses on extending HTGR technology for commercial deployment as a
passively safe, process heat producer that can be co-located with an energy end-user facility. Although a
variety of water-splitting processes have been evaluated for coupling to an advanced HTGR, the leading
candidates currently under consideration include the sulphur-iodine (SI) process, the hybrid sulphur
(HyS) process, and the high-temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE) process. One additional hydrogen
production option using an advanced technology that has received consideration is the coupling of
the HTGR heat source with a steam methane reforming (SMR) facility. While the preliminary economic
projections for this SMR coupled option are somewhat appealing, there several attendant disadvantages
remain. They include consumption of a premium fossil fuel (natural gas), cost fluctuations associated
with natural gas price volatility, and carbon emissions associated with the reformation process.
Assessing the economic viability of hydrogen production using advanced technologies will
require a variety of considerations including evaluation of capital or investments costs, operating and
maintenance costs, technical risks, safety, operability and reliability. Since these advanced technologies
are still in the developmental stage, there is large uncertainty in cost projections and as a consequence
no definitive judgment can be made regarding commercial viability. As the developmental efforts on
HTGR and the advanced water-splitting technologies progress, however, better certainty in assessing
commercial viability will evolve. We also believe, however, that other considerations such as volatility
in fossil fuel pricing, the security of energy supply and the possible enactment of carbon emissions
legislation might well become influential in making the business case for these technologies.
Market outlook
Based on our participation in nuclear production of hydrogen studies, it appears that the best market
potential for nuclear production of hydrogen in the foreseeable future will involve the HTGR
technology coupled with either one of the advanced thermochemical water-splitting processes or
coupling an HTGR to an SMR facility. Over the past several years, Entergy along with NGNP project
personnel have conducted an outreach programme in the industrial sector to assess the potential
market for these advanced technologies. As a result of this outreach effort, a large potential market
for these technologies beyond the traditional nuclear energy applications of electric power generation
has become more apparent. The distinct characteristics and capabilities of HTGR technology appear to
be well suited for industrial application where there is a demand for high temperature process heat.
These potential applications include:
• “upstream” petroleum recovery operations such as enhanced oil recovery, tar sands production
and oil shale recovery;
• “downstream” petrochemical/refinery operations;
• fertiliser production operations;
• industrial chemical facility operations;
• coal-to-liquids (CTL) and coal-to-gas (CTG) conversion processes (inclusive of H 2 production).
We believe that these applications represent a large potential market and should provide the
incentive necessary to pursue development of these advanced technologies to the point where more
definitive judgments regarding their commercial viability can be made. Several independent studies
have been conducted and conservatively estimate the size of these potential markets to be well over
600 modules (assuming ~500 MWth per reactor module). Several specific market areas are described in
the following subsections to better characterise the potential application and markets for the
advanced HTGR and hydrogen production technologies.
Tar sands
The Canadian tar sands deposits in Alberta are the second largest oil reserves in the world after those
of Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that the total recoverable reserves are approximately equivalent to
200 billion barrels of oil, an order of magnitude larger than the oil reserves of the United States. Tar
sands are mixtures of bitumen (a heavy, viscous oil), sand, water and clay. The bitumen is a solid at
room temperature. With surface mining operations, the mixture is heated in large tanks until the
sand and clay settle and the oil floats on the hot water to the top of the tank. There are also in situ oil
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