Nuclear Production of Hydrogen, Fourth Information Exchange ...

SUSTAINABLE ELECTRICITY SUPPLY IN THE WORLD BY 2050 FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH AND AUTOMOTIVE FUEL
automotive fuels. The interpretation of appropriate technology by the renewable and the nuclear
energy communities has been in continuous conflict in relation to large-scale production of electricity
and alternative transportation fuels (Kruger, 2008).
Transportation with reduction in use of petroleum-based fuels will require a large additional
demand for electric energy. Renewable and nuclear energy are the only resources available for
large-scale replacement of fossil fuels. A useful parameter for evaluating the appropriate technologies
for these resources is their specific energy, generally defined as the amount of energy available per
unit mass (e.g. in units of Btu/lb or kJ/kg). Figure 2 (adapted from Kruger, 2006) shows the historical
progression of increasing specific energy of resources that have been adapted world wide. Solar energy
(in the form of photovoltaic electricity) has the largest specific energy of the earth’s natural resources;
hydrogen has the largest specific energy of the chemical combustion resources; and uranium has a
specific energy from nuclear fission about one million times greater. The only other nuclear energy
resource with higher specific energy foreseeable at this time is the thermonuclear fusion of the
heavier isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium) which would duplicate the energy of the sun on
earth. With the rapid increase in the cost of petroleum-based fuels and the growing development of
fuel-cell, plug-in electric hybrid, and all-electric battery vehicles, it seems apparent that planning for
the future increase in electric energy demand for both recharging of battery electric vehicles and
production of hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles will become more urgent.
Figure 2: Specific energy of major fuels
Electricity demand for hydrogen fuel
The electric energy requirement for a future world hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle fleet that could replace
the conventional vehicle fleet by 2050 has been estimated (Kruger, 2001, 2005). The parameters of the
hydrogen vehicle fleet (HFleet) electric energy demand model, the extrapolated input values for 2010
(the date when industrial production is likely to start), and the historical mean annual growth rates
are summarised in Table 2 together with current forecast values.
For the current estimate, several changes in the input data for the model have been made.
Although all of the selected values have large uncertainty and can be changed as additional data
become available, the bases for the selected values for the model include:
1) The growth rate for the vehicle fleet limited to 1.0%/a, about 10% more than the UN forecast
for population growth rate from 2000 to 2050 of 0.90%/a.
2) Mean annual travel distance for the fleet held constant at 12.285 VKT/vehicle, the weighted
fleet average estimated for 2010.
3) Fleet fuel economy increasing linearly from 40 to 80 km/kg H 2 as a result of technical
development of fuel-cell vehicles.
4) The growth rate for electricity generation (at the 2010 values) limited to 1.35%/a, about
1.5 times the UN forecast population growth rate of 0.90%/a.
NUCLEAR PRODUCTION OF HYDROGEN – © OECD/NEA 2010 319