Nuclear Production of Hydrogen, Fourth Information Exchange ...

NUCLEAR HYDROGEN PRODUCTION PROGRAMME IN THE UNITED STATES
production of diesel and gasoline utilises a large amount of natural gas for heating the bitumen in the
extraction process as well as for making hydrogen to convert the recovered oil into fuel products. Both
the process heat needed and the hydrogen could be made by a very high temperature reactor system,
and preserve valuable natural gas resources for other uses. Finally, coal to liquids processes which use
Fischer-Tropsch synthesis to produce diesel, jet fuel and gasoline could cut their CO 2 emissions by
half by using nuclear process heat and hydrogen.
Other uses for nuclear hydrogen being considered are utilisation of bulk-stored H 2 and O 2 for peak
power generation; co-electrolysis of CO 2 from biomass and steam to produce CO and H 2 for synthetic,
GHG-neutral, gasoline, diesel and jet fuels; and nuclear production of H 2 for use in fuel-cell-powered
vehicles as well as stationary fuel cells.
Nuclear energy has the potential to play a major role in assuring a secure and environmentally
sound source of hydrogen for a variety of uses. The fundamental challenge is to focus finite research
resources on those processes which have the highest probability of producing hydrogen at costs that
are competitive with gasoline. Both thermochemical and high-temperature electrolysis methods have
the potential to achieve this objective, and the integrated laboratory-scale experiments have
satisfactorily shown promise for larger-scale systems.
36 NUCLEAR PRODUCTION OF HYDROGEN – © OECD/NEA 2010