(66f) Preliminary Cost Estimation of Nuclear Hydrogen Production

Abstract

Hydrogen is an environmentally attractive fuel that has the
potential to replace fossil fuels, but contemporary hydrogen production primarily
based on fossil fuels is not practically economical. To achieve the hydrogen
economy, it is very important to produce a massive
amount of hydrogen in a clean, safe and efficient way. Nuclear
hydrogen production would allow massive production of hydrogen at an economic
price while avoiding the release of carbon dioxide. Therefore, it could become
the enabling technology to achieve the hydrogen economy.

A Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) with an outlet coolant
temperature of 950 ° is considered as an efficient reactor to couple with the thermo-chemical
Sulfur Iodine (SI) cycle to achieve the hydrogen economy.

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) is developing thermo-chemical
hydrogen production process called SI cycle  utilizing  the heat from
the VHTR with outlet coolant temperature up to 950 °, which is considered as
an efficient reactor for the hydrogen production.

KAERI's research focuses on the development of the key technologies required
for the realization of a nuclear hydrogen production economy. The key
technologies comprise development of computational tools and methodologies to
analyze the nuclear reactor systems, development of materials and components, development
of TRISO coated particle fuel fabrication technology, and development of the SI
process.

A preliminary study of cost estimates on the VHTR with SI cycle
plant for the nuclear hydrogen production was performed from the perspective of
Levelized Unit Hydrogen Production Cost(LUHC). The VHTR
equipment costs and SI equipment costs were based on benchmarking GT-MHR and H2-MHR,
respectively.

G4-ECONS developed by EMWG of GIF was appropriately modified to
calculate the LUHC for the nuclear hydrogen production plant, assuming 36
months of plant construction time, 5 % of annual interest rate and 12.6 % of fixed
charge rate.

The result indicated estimated hydrogen production cost could be
competitive with current techniques of hydrogen production from fossil fuels if
CO2 capture and sequestration is required.

The parametric study was done with a modified G4-ECONS for the major
factors that would affect the hydrogen production cost. The result indicated
that the fixed charge rate and electricity costs have a more significant
influence on hydrogen production cost than the construction time.