SPECIAL REPORT | THE HYDROGEN OPPORTUNITY
Hydrogen and the Nuclear opportunity
Hydrogen could offer nuclear operators a price hedge and new revenue streams. The USA is investing in the option
AT THE NINE MILE POINT nuclear plant in New York State, USA, a ‘first of a kind’ project is under way. In a project supported by both the US Department of Energy and plant operator Constellation, the power plant is using an electrolyser to split water into hydrogen and oxygen to meet the plant’s hydrogen needs, feeding the resulting product into the station’s existing hydrogen storage system and supporting infrastructure. Constellation has received a $5.8mn Department of
Energy (DOE) grant to explore the potential benefits of onsite hydrogen production, in partnership with Nel Hydrogen, Argonne National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The clean Hydrogen Generation System operating at Nine Mile Point is rated at 1.25MW and produces 560kg of hydrogen per day, more than enough to meet the plant’s operational hydrogen use. It will also help set the stage for possible large-scale deployments at other clean energy centres in Constellation’s fleet that would couple clean
hydrogen production with storage and other on-site uses. It might seem obvious that a nuclear power plant, with
its huge generating capacity, would be able to use self- generated power to produce hydrogen to meet its needs. In fact, up to now hydrogen has been delivered to Nine Mile Point – as to other nuclear reactors – by truck. The hydrogen has most likely been produced, like most industrial hydrogen, by steam methane reforming of natural gas. In fact, 95 five per cent of hydrogen in the USA is currently supplied from fossil fuels. But hydrogen has several important decarbonising roles
to play. It is fundamental to decarbonising industries that have
to apply very high temperatures in their processes (such as making steel or concrete) and currently achieve those temperatures by burning fossil fuels (usually natural gas). Hydrogen is also a potential direct replacement for fossil fuels in other so-called ‘hard to decarbonise’, areas such as transport (particularly heavy goods vehicles).
Above: Steel production using the direct reduction method is a key application for hydrogen 14 | June 2023 |
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