Nuclear Production of Hydrogen, Fourth Information Exchange ...

PRESENT STATUS OF HTGR AND HYDROGEN PRODUCTION DEVELOPMENT IN JAEA
Present status of HTGR and hydrogen production development in JAEA
Masuro Ogawa, Ryutaro Hino, Yoshiyuki Inagaki,
Kazuhiko Kunitomi, Kaoru Onuki, Hiroaki Takegami
Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Japan
Abstract
The high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), which is graphite-moderated and helium-cooled, is
particularly attractive due to its unique capability of producing high temperature helium gas in
addition to its fully inherent and passive safety characteristics. The HTGR-based production of
hydrogen, the energy carrier for an emerging hydrogen economy, is expected to be among the most
promising applications to solve the current environmental issues of CO 2 emission. With this
understanding the development studies of HTGR cogeneration system including hydrogen production
have been carried out in Japan. This paper presents the 2100 vision of JAEA on future perspective of
energy supply, especially on HTGR utilisation in the field of iron manufacturing, chemical industries,
oil refineries, etc. In addition, this paper presents the present status of the HTTR Project including
research and development activities of HTGR reactor technology, hydrogen production technology with
the thermochemical water-splitting IS process, and the commercial HTGR plant design.
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