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Advances in nuclear hydrogen production: Results


from an IAEA international collaborative research
project

R.S. El-Emam, I. Khamis*


International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna International Centre, P. O. Box 100, A-1400, Vienna, Austria

article info abstract

Article history: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had successfully concluded a Coordinated
Received 20 December 2017 Research Project (CRP) on the techno-economic aspects of nuclear hydrogen production
Received in revised form with the participation of eleven countries including leading countries on nuclear hydrogen
22 March 2018 production such as Japan, USA, China, India, Republic of Korea and Canada. The activities
Accepted 2 April 2018 carried out through this four-years CRP paved the way for addressing several development
Available online xxx key issues related to nuclear hydrogen production. The main focus was on assessing
various technological and economic aspects of potential nuclear hydrogen production
Keywords: options. The CRP has resulted in finalizing four detailed case studies on different systems
Nuclear energy for nuclear hydrogen production. These case studies were used to perform benchmark
IAEA analysis for the IAEA Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Programme (HEEP), developed by the
HEEP IAEA to support Member States considering the use of nuclear energy for hydrogen pro-
Techno-economics duction. This paper highlights some activities, results, and status of international collab-
orative efforts on nuclear hydrogen production conducted in the Member States (MSs)
participated to the CRP. The paper also presents the results of country-specific case studies
considering different nuclear reactors and hydrogen technologies.
© 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris within the United Nations


Introduction Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) e
where it was highlighted that one of the future challenges will
In support of its Member States, the IAEA has an active pro- be the sustainable production of clean zero-carbon energy, to
gram on nuclear hydrogen production where several activities minimize world dependency on fossil fuels.
are being carried out including meetings and technical pub- Hydrogen is believed to be one of the future alternatives as
lications for information exchange on the present status and a clean energy carrier. It plays an important role in several
future challenges of the development of nuclear hydrogen industries, e.g., oil sands, ammonia, petroleum products, and
production, and on the techno-economic aspects of related may others. Also, hydrogen, as a transportation fuel, has a
technologies. Such activities are close in their objectives to promising potential to significantly reduce urban pollution
what the world has witnessed in December 2015 of the his- and GHG emissions. The concept of ‘Hydrogen Economy’ is a
toric agreement of all 195 nations e during the 21st fast-growing reality in many nations. However, almost 95% of

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: I.Khamis@iaea.org (I. Khamis).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2018.04.012
0360-3199/© 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: El-Emam RS, Khamis I, Advances in nuclear hydrogen production: Results from an IAEA international
collaborative research project, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2018.04.012
2 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y x x x ( 2 0 1 8 ) 1 e9

the currently produced hydrogen is from fossil fuels. Thus, an along with other generic case studies. This enriched the most
efficient, clean, and economically feasible large-scale tangible outcome of the CRP where a new updated version of
hydrogen production is an urgent requirement for current HEEP was released with several case studies added to its li-
and future demands. Several nations have been actively brary. The Validation of HEEP, through benchmarking and
exploring the options of nuclear hydrogen as a non-carbon- comparisons with similar available tools, was fully achieved.
based alternative to address some of the energy issues fac- Analyses of the prepared generic and technology-based cases
ing the world. were conducted by the participating CSIs. The achieved re-
This paper highlights some insights of the activities carried sults showed good agreement with the results from other
out by Member States participated in an IAEA coordinated available tools. Comparisons of HEEP results with the ones
research Project (CRP) on the techno-economic aspects of obtained by H2A and GEN4-ECONS, as well as in-house codes
nuclear hydrogen production, and presents some of the major developed by Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and Pakistan
achieved results including main conclusion and recommen- Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), were performed.
dations made at the end of the CRP. This CRP offered a successful platform for information
exchange and research collaboration on nuclear hydrogen
production among the participating Member States. The in-
IAEA Coordinated Research Project on nuclear formation gained and the lessons learned in the legacy of
hydrogen production national projects of the German Prototype Nuclear Process
(PNP) heat reactor including development of nuclear steam
IAEA CRPs are intended to provide a scientific forum for methane reforming, and the American Nuclear Hydrogen
Member States to tackle a scientific problem. The aim of CRPs Initiative (NHI) for investigating a range of thermochemical,
is to create a fertile ground for bringing together scientists and electrolytic and hybrid cycles for hydrogen production, were
experts from developed and developing countries to meet and extremely useful add to the CRP. The period of the CRP also
discuss on well-defined areas of research and to exchange witnessed some of the most exciting progresses being made in
knowledge, experiences, and ideas for the mutual benefits of the participating Member States. China was building a proto-
the participating Member States. As part of the IAEA nuclear type HTGR plant, and shared the practical design parameters
hydrogen production project, a CRP titled ‘Examining the and cost elements. Also, built an engineering test loop for
Techno-Economics of Nuclear Hydrogen Production and autonomous high temperature thermochemical production of
Benchmark Analysis of the IAEA HEEP Software’ was launched hydrogen production system and exchanged the knowledge
in 2012 and was active for four consecutive years. This CRP has on its design data and cost estimates of commercial systems.
been planned based on extensive feedback from many par-
ticipants to several technical meetings on the subject of nu-
clear hydrogen production. The CRP sought to: establish a Results from the CRP
platform for coordinated efforts and information exchange
between Member States, assess various hydrogen production In this section, some of the main activities, outcomes, and
options and technologies with several scenarios, and evaluate results of the CRP are highlighted and discussed. A detailed
technical and economic potential of hydrogen production information on the work conducted through the four years of
using nuclear power. The IAEA has previously developed the the CRP can be found in Ref. [1].
Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Programme (HEEP) software
for analyzing the techno-economics of various scenarios for Insights on the status of nuclear hydrogen production
nuclear hydrogen production. Through the CRP, bench-
marking of HEEP was performed, and comparative assess- Argentina
ment against other available codes was conducted. 11 The currently conducted nuclear hydrogen project is focused
researchers and experts have participated in the four annual on chlorine cycles for hydrogen production, which are one of
meetings held during this CRP, representing 11 Member the leading long-term methods including: vanadium-chlorine
States: Algeria, Argentina, Canada, China, Germany, India, cycles, rare earth-chlorine cycles and mixed chlorine cycles. A
Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, Rep. of Korea, and USA. lot of studies have been performed in the past considering
Among the main successfully achieved outcomes of the these methods, but the kinetics and mechanisms of reactions
CRP are assessing of various hydrogen production technolo- are not completely understood yet. In the framework of the
gies and examining the aspects of nuclear hydrogen produc- CRP, a screening analysis of thermochemical water-splitting
tion. This was achieved through the identification of the cycles based on metallic chlorides for nuclear hydrogen pro-
nuclear power plants with potential to provide energy for duction was carried out as an initial step of performing proof-
hydrogen production, such as supercritical water cooled of-concept experiments. The majority of proposed thermo-
reactor (SCWR), pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) or pris- chemical water-splitting cycles require heat supply at tem-
matic gas cooled reactor; and the promising hydrogen pro- peratures above 800  C. Alternative metallic chlorides-based
duction technologies, such as sulphur-iodine (SeI) cycle, cycles are being investigated with the aim to reduce the pro-
copper-chlorine (CueCl) cycle, hybrid sulphur (HyS) cycle, cess temperature to the range of 500e700  C. Such lower
steam methane reforming and high temperature electrolysis. operating temperatures would result in reduction of material
Four of the CRP's Chief Scientific Investigators (CSI): Canada, and maintenance cost. This can also facilitate the use of low-
China, Germany and Japan, prepared four technology-based grade waste heat efficiently, thereby improving the cycle and
cases of nuclear hydrogen production to be included in HEEP, overall power plant efficiency. Theoretical and experimental

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i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y x x x ( 2 0 1 8 ) 1 e9 3

The results in Fig. 3 show the maximum estimated effi-


ciency of different chlorine based thermochemical cycles. The
maximum estimated energy efficiencies of these cycles were
reported as follows: 23% and 27% for CoeCl cycle, 26% and 27%
for VeCl (Knoche-3-step) cycle, 69% and 72% for VeCl (De
Beni-4-step) cycle, and 24% and 28% for FeeCl cycle, for low
heating value and high heating value estimation, respectively.

Canada
The envisaged Canadian Gen IV SCWR has great potential for
multi-output integrated energy systems, including hydrogen
production. It is designed to produce high-pressure steam at
around 650  C and 25 MPa. The steam at this condition is also
very desirable in many petrochemical operations (e.g., tradi-
tional oil and oil sand exploitation, and bitumen upgrading)
and other industrial applications. The Clean Energy Research
Laboratory (CERL) at the University of Ontario Institute of
Technology (UOIT), in Oshawa, Ontario, is one of the leading
research centres for hydrogen production in Canada. In
collaboration with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)
and other universities and institutes, UOIT-led team is
Fig. 1 e Thermochemical reactor test set up.
developing the world's first integrated copper-chlorine (Cue
Cl) cycle for nuclear hydrogen production. Fig. 4 shows the
investigations on the performance of several thermochemical conceptual coupling of the Canadian SCWR and CueCl plant
cycles, including the iron-chlorine (FeeCl) cycle, were per- for petrochemical operations. Continuous research is in
formed to elucidate the reaction pathway and the kinetics of progress towards investigating a large-scale project on the
the overall cycle. The objective of the research was to improve development and commercialization of this cycle.
energy and hydrogen yield as a step for up scaling of the
experimental facility. FeeCl cycle was selected among several China
other alternatives considering the availability and abundance Since 1970s, High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR)
of reagent materials, chemical viability, cycle simplicity, and technology has been undergoing development in China. The
the thermodynamic feasibility. The research was conducted 10 MWth test reactor (HTR-10) with spherical fuel elements
on the Mark-15 FeeCl cycle which was proposed at the Aachen was constructed in 2000 and is currently in operation. The
University in Germany, in 1970 [2]. Research proved that the first commercial pebble-bed modular high-temperature gas-
cycle highest temperature can be reduced to operate in the cooled reactor (HTR-PM) power plant is currently being
range of 525e950  C [3], which makes it a promising cycle for constructed. Photographs of the construction site and
integration with nuclear energy. Fig. 1 shows the experi- simulator/digital control room are shown in Fig. 5. Activities
mental test system for the thermochemical reactions. Fig. 2 of R&D on nuclear hydrogen, as part of the HTR-PM project
shows a schematic of the considered thermochemical cycle. objectives, have been initiated in the Institute of Nuclear and
Cobalt-chlorine (CoeCl) and vanadium-chlorine-Knoche-3- New Energy Technology (INET), Tsinghua University. INET
step and De Beni-4-step (VeCl), along with FeeCl, are re- developed SeI and HTSE systems for hydrogen production
ported to be to be the most interesting ones. (see Fig. 6). The construction and testing of the SeI facility

Fig. 2 e Schematic of nuclear based Mark-15 FeeCl thermochemical cycle (modified from Ref. [4]).

Please cite this article in press as: El-Emam RS, Khamis I, Advances in nuclear hydrogen production: Results from an IAEA international
collaborative research project, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2018.04.012
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oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) stack of 10 cells was developed.


The material aspects, reactor engineering and scale up of the
facility will be the focus of the R&D of SeI process, while the
investigation on the stack with high power will be empha-
sized for HTSE technology.

Japan
JAEA has developed and currently is operating the 30 MWth
HTTR, which achieved the initial criticality in 1998. Various
technology demonstration tests including 950oC-coolant and
full-power operations have been performed. The technologies
verified on the HTTR are applied to designing the commercial
reactor GTHTR300C for hydrogen cogeneration based on the
SeI thermochemical process [7]. The basic design including
cost estimation has been concluded for the GTHTR300C. A
Fig. 3 e Maximum expected energy efficiency of several
model test plant for the GTHTR300C is being developed for
chlorine family thermochemical cycles calculated based on
operation with the HTTR in order to validate the performance
lower and higher heating values.
for licensing. This will provide for the first nuclear hydrogen
production based on the SeI process.
The JAEA succeeded in a week-long continuous closed loop
were achieved end of 2013. The closed-cycle experiment of operation of SeI process for hydrogen production in 2004 (see
the SeI facility was successfully carried out with the rate of Fig. 8). Through the last decade, research activities focused on
60NL/h of hydrogen production. Fig. 7 shows the hydrogen heat- and corrosion-resistant materials, equipment designs,
production rate of the recent experiments of 60 hours of and acquisition of multi-phase fluid and databases of chemi-
operation of the SeI unit. The desired planned outcome of cal reactions required for developing practical systems. These
the R&D of the Chinese nuclear hydrogen program is to efforts culminate to the construction of a 200 L/h plant using
attain a successful coupling of the hydrogen facility to the the candidate industrial materials identified for commercial
test reactor, HTR-10, which is planned to be achieved by plant.
2020. Meanwhile, a lab-scale facility equipped with solid

Fig. 4 e Layout of the coupled trigeneration SCW-CANDU and CueCl for power, heat and hydrogen production (adopted from
Ref. [5]).

Fig. 5 e The construction side of the Chinese HTR-PM (left), and the simulator control room (right) (Courtesy of INET).

Please cite this article in press as: El-Emam RS, Khamis I, Advances in nuclear hydrogen production: Results from an IAEA international
collaborative research project, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2018.04.012
i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y x x x ( 2 0 1 8 ) 1 e9 5

Fig. 6 e The integrated lab-scale SeI cycle facility (left), and the HTSE facility (right) developed at INET (Courtesy of INET).

USA
Within this CRP, it was pointed out that nuclear hydrogen
production activities in USA have focused on three methods:
SeI cycle, HyS cycle, and high temperature electrolysis using
solid oxide electrolyzer. Small scale test facilities have been
built and each of these processes are demonstrated through
extensive modeling and simulations as well as experimentally
at General Atomics, Sandia National Lab, Savanna River Na-
tional Lab, Idaho national lab and various academic in-
stitutions including Purdue University.
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) had an initial
assessment plan for HTGR coupled to SeI plant [8]. Based on
the GT-HTGR cost estimates of Brown et al. [9], a cost of HTGR
Fig. 7 e Hydrogen production from the SeI facility (curves process heat for hydrogen plant was estimated. The gas tur-
are regenerated from Zhang et al. [6]). bine power conversion unit was replaced by primary and
secondary heat transfer loops between the reactor and the

Fig. 8 e Status of the SeI development program for nuclear hydrogen generation in Japan.

Please cite this article in press as: El-Emam RS, Khamis I, Advances in nuclear hydrogen production: Results from an IAEA international
collaborative research project, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2018.04.012
6 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y x x x ( 2 0 1 8 ) 1 e9

Fig. 9 e DOE NHI SeI cycle (modified from Ref. [11]).

hydrogen plant. Final cost of produced hydrogen from 1440 Benchmarking of HEEP
MWth SeI plant of 768 Mtonne/day capacity coupled to HTGR
of same heat capacity with core temperature of 1000  C was Through the period of the CRP, several generic detailed case
estimated as in 2004 as 2.07 $/kg. studies with different nuclear power plants and hydrogen
The US Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Hydrogen generation plants were considered using HEEP and in
Initiative (NHI) has also considered the investigation of SeI comparative assessment with the results of other available
thermochemical cycle for nuclear hydrogen production tools including G4-ECONS and H2A. In these case studies, the
through the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP). The H2A chronological and financial parameters were varied to inves-
Hydrogen Analysis Program of the DOE's Office of Energy tigate the effect of these parameters on the results. Several
Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) was utilized to parametric studies have been conducted to test the credibility
assess the economic aspects of the process [10]. A hydrogen and reliability of HEEP. In addition, other comparative case
plant with the capacity of approximately 160,000 s m3/h was studies were conducted using in-house codes of PAEC of
considered as a reference system. Depending on the Pakistan, and JAEA of Japan, which confirmed the accuracy of
hydrogen process, the HTGR nuclear units are applied in HEEP results. Some of the results of these comparative case
integer numbers to provide the required heat at the respec- studies can be found in Ref. [12]. In addition, several generic
tive high temperature of the hydrogen process. A condensing cases using HEEP can be found in the literature [13e16].
steam turbine generator system was considered for con-
verting the additional available heat into electric power Case studies for large-scale nuclear hydrogen production
which was partially provided to the hydrogen production
facility, and the rest is fed to the grid. A generic nuclear heat Four technology-based cases have been developed for techno-
supply system (NHSS) was considered to provide a nominal economic investigation of nuclear hydrogen production. The
550 MWth of thermal heat and deliver helium at temperature concepts of the four cases are based on the technologies
of 910  C. This heat is transferred through the process shown in Table 1. This table includes the main technical and
coupling heat exchanger(s) before helium returns to NHSS in cost elements of the technologies considered for each case. All
the temperature range of 275e350  C. The process plant is cases differ significantly in technical aspects. In addition, the
coupled with three NHSSs, as shown in Fig 9, and is proposed chronological parameters related to the considered technol-
to produce 4.4 kg/s of hydrogen. It is considered that oxygen ogies are provided in Table 2. In the following subsections, a
is commercially sold as a by-product. The nuclear heat is brief description of the formulated cases is provided.
completely directed to the hydrogen plant with no electricity
generation. This resulted in a consumption of 330 MWe of Case I
grid electricity at cost of 75 $/MWh. Nuclear heat was This case is based on the CANDU reactor of Canada. Current
considered to be of 30 $ per MWthh. Real escalation, over and CANDU6 and EC6 design produce nuclear heat at temperature
above any inflation, was taken into account and was set to 1% around 300  C. As one of the hydrogen production method
per year over the plant life time. The levelized selling price of considered for development in Canada, CueCl hybrid ther-
hydrogen for the reference case was estimated as 10.7 $/kg mochemical cycle, first developed in 1970s, is considered for
[11]. The production cost strongly depends on the capital cost this case. It is a medium temperature cycle operating around
and cost of nuclear heat. However, the imported electricity to 550  C. The upgrading of nuclear heat has to be performed to
drive the hydrogen plant significantly affects the estimated increase the temperature to the range of operating tempera-
product cost as well [11]. ture of this cycle. It was proposed in the literature to integrate

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i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y x x x ( 2 0 1 8 ) 1 e9 7

Table 1 e Technical and cost parameters of the technology-based case studies.


Case CASE I CASE II CASE III CASE IV
EC6 HTR-PM HTR-Modul GTHTR300C
Nuclear power plant
Reactor technology APWR HTGR HTGR VHTR
Number of units 4 2 2 1
Thermal rating/unit (MWth) 2084 250 170 600
Heat output/unit (MWth) 159.58a 250 117 170
Electricity output/unit (MWe) 629.88 0 21.3 204
Capacity factor (%) 90 90 90 90
Availability factor (%) 100 100 100 100
Initial fuel loading (kg/unit) 87,552 2940 2396 7090
Annual fuel reloading (kg/unit) 126,000 1014 767 1773
Capital cost (CC) (M $/unit) 2243.77 250 599 547
Power Plant Capital cost (% of CC) 12.2 0 10 21
Fuel cost ($/kg) 137.2 4800 11,000 12,962
O&M cost (% of CC) 4.21 3.81 4.0 3.98
Decommissioning cost (% of CC) 14.75 4 10 0.52
Hydrogen production plant
Hydrogen technology CueCl SeI SMR SeI
Number of units 1 2 2 1
Heat input/unit (MWth) 638.36 250 117 170
Electricity input/unit (MWe) 273.25 20.0 21.3 25.4
Hydrogen rate/unit (kg/s) 4.25 0.68 1.74 0.77
Capacity factor (%) 90 90 90 90
Availability factor (%) 100 100 100 100
Capital cost (M $/unit) 400.23 100 203 143
Energy consumption cost (M $) 0 10.5 0 0
O&M cost (% of CC) 7.0 5.46 5.0 þ 22 (CH4) 4.26
Decommissioning cost (% of CC) 10 5 10 0

Reference year is 2014.


a
Upgraded heat.

heat pump with similar systems for heat upgrade, as well as Case II
utilizing internal heat recovery from the CueCl cycle inte- This case was formulated in accordance with the compre-
grated with the nuclear plant [17,18]. In this case, four EC6 hensive investigation on nuclear hydrogen production at the
units are connected to a CueCl plant for hydrogen production, INET of China as part of the R&D objectives of China's project
to generate 4.25 kg/s of hydrogen. Each nuclear unit is inte- on pebble-bed modular HTGR; the HTR-PM. The reactor is
grated with a chemical heat pump, producing 159.58 MWth of designed to generate 210 MWe using two units of 250 MWth.
upgraded heat at 800e1000  C along with the generated elec- The temperature of helium (the coolant) exiting the reactor
tric power. The produced power is partially utilized in the (around 750  C) has the potential to provide the required heat
hydrogen plant (small fraction), and the remaining is directed to the hydrogen plant. The Capital cost for each unit of the
to the grid. The cost of the considered heat pump was esti- nuclear reactors is estimated as 250 M$. No electricity pro-
mated as 12.2% of the total capital cost of the nuclear reactor duction is considered for this case. The generated nuclear heat
[18]. is completely consumed through two units of SeI hydrogen
generation plant. The fraction of electric power required for
the hydrogen plant, 20 MWe, is considered to be fed from the
grid in this case.
Table 2 e Chronological parameters of the technology-
based cases.
Case CASE I CASE II CASE III CASE IV
EC6 HTR-PM HTR- GTHTR300C
Modul
Table 3 e Economic parameters considered for HEEP.
Construction period (y) 6 3 3 4
Economic parameter HEEP default
Operation period (y) 30 40 40 40
Cooling before 0 2 2 2 Real discount rate (%) 5
decommissioning (y) Inflation rate (%) 1
Decommissioning 50 10 10 10 Equity ratio (%) 70
period (y) Borrowed capital ratio (%) 30
Refurbishment (y) 0 0 1 1 Capital market interest rate (%) 10
Spent fuel cooling (y) 7 2 2 2 Tax rate (%) 10
Waste cooling (y) 0 10 10 10 Depreciation period (a) 20

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8 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y x x x ( 2 0 1 8 ) 1 e9

Table 4 e LHGC for the technology-based case studies using HEEP.


Case CASE I CASE II CASE III CASE IV
Nuclear plant NP Capital cost (equity) ($/kg) 0.67 0.65 0.61 0.35
NP Capital cost (debt) ($/kg) 0.47 0.48 0.45 0.30
NP O&M þ refurbishment ($/kg) 0.47 0.49 0.49 0.34
NP Decommissioning ($/kg) 0.53 0.03 0.08 0.00
NP Fuel ($/kg) 0.10 0.29 0.20 0.48
Total ($/kg) 2.24 1.94 1.83 1.47
hydrogen plant H2 Capital cost (equity) ($/kg) 0.18 0.26 0.21 0.34
H2 Capital cost (debt) ($/kg) 0.12 0.19 0.15 0.25
H2 O&M þ refurbishment ($/kg) 0.23 0.43 0.62 0.31
H2 Decommissioning ($/kg) 0.09 0.01 0.02 0.00
Total ($/kg) 0.62 0.89 1.00 0.90
Total LHGC from production ($/kg) 2.86 2.83 2.83 2.37

Case III
This case is based on the HTR-Modul pebble bed reactor
designed by the former German company SIEME-
NISNTERATOM [19]. Based on a process heat variant of the
HTR-Modul reactor, a thermal power of 170 MW is to be pro-
vided at helium outlet temperature of 950  C. The heat is to be
directed to a steam methane reforming process for hydrogen
production. A 5 MPa reduction of system pressure was applied
as compromise between the desired high pressure (favorable
for operation and in case of accident in the nuclear reactor)
and a low pressure (favorable to enhance the conversion rate
for higher hydrogen production rate through the chemical
process in the secondary and tertiary circuit). The heat of
helium was provided to the steam reformer at quality of 950  C
down to 700  C, and then to the steam generator between
700  C and 250  C. Considering electric efficiency of 40%,
thermal power of 117 MW is to be consumed for the steam Fig. 10 e Range of estimated hydrogen cost for country-
methane reforming for hydrogen production. specific financial parameters.

Case IV
This reference of this case is based on the JAEA GTHTR300C
reactor, which is already designed for cogeneration, and it is to shown in Table 4. In the presented cases, neither storage nor
be connected to SeI thermochemical plant for hydrogen pro- transportation of the produced hydrogen is considered.
duction. This reactor is based on prismatic VHTR. It is rated at The estimated HEEP results with default financial param-
600 MWth with coolant outlet temperature of 950  C at 5.1 MPa. eters were found typically well within the range of the results
Using an intermediate heat exchanger, the heat is estimated using countries' based financial parameters, which reflects
to be delivered to the hydrogen plant at 900  C. This is that the default parameters in HEEP are set as good average
considering helical Helium-to-Helium counter-flow shell and basis for cost estimation of hydrogen generation.
tube heat exchanger as in the HTTR design. Electric power of In addition, the sensitivity of the estimated cost to the
300 MW is to be produced in standalone power generation variation of the economic parameters was tested through the
operation of the reactor, while 204 MW of electric power is CRP activities. Fig. 10 shows the band of estimated cost of each
produced when cogeneration of hydrogen is considered. of the four cases using the different sets of financial param-
eters of each participating Member State.
Assessment of case studies using HEEP

Based on the technical parameters and cost elements intro- Conclusion


duced in Table 1, each Member State participating to the CRP
applied its own economic parameters to run and estimate The activities of this IAEA CRP have addressed several key
country-specific hydrogen cost. The estimation presented in issues that are important to Member States, relating to the
this paper is based on utilizing the default economic param- development of nuclear hydrogen production. This CRP
eters incorporated in HEEP which are listed in Table 3. created an effective international platform for information
The results of the estimated levelized hydrogen generation exchange. It successfully assessed various technological and
cost (LHGC) and breakdown of the cost applying the HEEP economic aspects of potential nuclear hydrogen production
default financial parameter for each of the four cases are options. The estimated values for hydrogen cost of the cases

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i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y x x x ( 2 0 1 8 ) 1 e9 9

considered within this CRP ensures the competitiveness of production cycle at INET. Int J Energy Res 2016. https://
nuclear hydrogen production in comparison with conven- doi.org/10.1002/er.3535.
tional steam reforming, coal gasification, or renewable-based [7] Yan XL, Sato H, Ohashi H, Tachibana Y, Kunitomi K. Status
and future development for nuclear cogeneration system
water electrolysis. However, this strongly depends on the
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Please cite this article in press as: El-Emam RS, Khamis I, Advances in nuclear hydrogen production: Results from an IAEA international
collaborative research project, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2018.04.012

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