Today, nuclear reactors produce electricity and are the largest tool to decarbonize the power grid. But soon, they may be producing carbon-free hydrogen that will clean up other industries, including steel, agriculture and even the gasoline-powered car in your driveway.
Four utilities that collectively operate 30 nuclear reactors are now working with the U.S. Department of Energy to hybridize some of their plants into machines for making both electricity and hydrogen. The work is part of the department’s hydrogen production initiative, H2@Scale.
Idaho National Laboratory is working with three companies: FirstEnergy Solutions Corp., which operates nuclear plants in Ohio, Xcel Energy Inc., which runs reactors in Minnesota, and Arizona Public Service Co., which operates the largest nuclear installation in the United States, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona. At the same time, another part of the Energy Department, the Office of Efficiency and Renewable Energy, is helping to fund a project at an Exelon Generation reactor.
Exelon is partnering with Nel Hydrogen to demonstrate that hydrogen production equipment can be operated remotely, and “dynamically,” meaning that its operation can be quickly scaled up or slowed down.
“That could help the whole power grid become more flexible while we maintain and grow clean energy sources,” said Lara Pierpoint, director of technology strategy at Exelon.
This project, if proven successful, could potentially make nuclear plants even more efficient, economic and environmentally friendly.
Some parts of the grid are now flooded with more electricity than they can use when wind and solar farms produce vast amounts at moments when electricity demand is low. The Department of Energy wants to solve this problem and will pay for half of a $7.2 million hydrogen demonstration at an Exelon Generation reactor. If a reactor could divert some of its electricity into hydrogen production, it would be instrumental in helping the grid cope with these overloads. And if the hydrogen is not used for industrial purposes, it could be turned back into carbon-free electricity when needed via a fuel cell or simply being burned.
In fact, producing hydrogen from a carbon-free source like a nuclear reactor could accomplish multiple goals. The hydrogen also can be used to make ammonia, steel or other industrial products. Or it could be used to upgrade heavy crude oil to make gasoline or diesel and even to upgrade plant-based oils so they can be used for motor fuel. If zero-carbon hydrogen replaced natural gas currently used at oil refineries, it could shrink the carbon footprint of the gasoline that runs today’s cars, even before cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells are widespread.
Exelon’s project will establish what regulatory hurdles need to be overcome. And it will make hydrogen in the conventional way, running an electric current through water, and separating the hydrogen and oxygen, a process familiar to generations of high school chemistry students. There are more efficient processes, requiring higher temperatures than today’s reactors achieve. Some of the designs for advanced reactors include plans to use their higher heat levels for splitting up water molecules.
“We have to innovate, broaden our horizons and explore new energy technologies,” said Pierpoint. “It is important to think across the traditional silos as we seek to use more zero-carbon nuclear energy.”
FirstEnergy will also make hydrogen from electricity from one of its reactors and provide it for use by bus fleets and for steelmaking.
Hydrogen production can be more efficient at higher temperatures, and Arizona Public Service will explore using heat from a reactor in addition to electricity. Xcel Energy, a major producer of wind power, will use electricity from a nuclear plant to make hydrogen at hours when wind production is high and would otherwise result in having to reduce the output of a reactor.
All four of these companies are pioneering the use of nuclear energy to produce hydrogen, all without carbon emissions. These innovations make nuclear carbon-free energy even more valuable to our efforts to protect the climate.
