A comparative economic study of nuclear hydrogen production, storage, and transportation

Abstract

The cost of hydrogen production from environmentally friendly energy resources is a primary barrier to fully realizing a hydrogen economy. Therefore, a detailed analysis of hydrogen production costs from various sustainable routes is required. This paper presents a comparative economic study of hydrogen production using several nuclear reactors integrated with electrolysis hydrogen production methods. The Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Program (HEEP) software is used for comparing hydrogen production using different technologies. The HEEP tool was developed by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and offers comprehensive data for the different nuclear power plants, hydrogen production processes, and various storage and transportation options. The current study utilizes HEEP capabilities to evaluate the cost of nuclear hydrogen production and compare it with non-nuclear sources. Furthermore, it considers the cost of hydrogen storage and transportation options. The reactors considered are Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APWR) and High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) to power low- and high-temperature electrolyzers. In addition, the costs of hydrogen produced using electricity from grid, solar, and wind are evaluated and compared with that of nuclear plants. It is found that the cost of hydrogen production and storage using Compressed Gas (CG) from an APWR plant is 8.2 $/kg for a plant capacity of 360 MWe; the cost is reduced to 6.06 $/kg when the capacity increased to 1117 MWe. It is also found that HTGR integrated with HTSE can produce hydrogen at 3.51 $/kg, which is slightly lower than the case of using the grid electricity, which costs 3.55 $/kg.