US hydrogen initiative fuels plan for new nuclear reactor
03 September 2003
Author:
Provider: Environment & Energy Daily
(This story ran in yesterday's Greenwire.)
President Bush's push for a hydrogen economy may lead to the construction of the first new nuclear power plant in the United States since 1973, raising concerns among nuclear opponents who say the safety and economic risks of nuclear plants outweigh the benefits of emissions-free vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the House-Senate conference committee that will finalize national energy legislation this fall, has pledged to include nuclear provisions in the final conference report from this year's bill, which included more than $1 billion to build a nuclear reactor at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) that would produce both electricity and hydrogen.
The measure for the advanced hydrogen reactor co-generation project had been included in this year's Senate energy bill, but the language failed to move forward when the the chamber passed last year's Democrat-sponsored bill during a last-minute compromise before the August recess.
Regardless of whether funding for the new reactor ends up in the final energy conference report, the Energy Department plans to build a nuclear power plant that would produce power for hydrogen development by 2020, said DOE spokesman Tim Jackson. "DOE still intends to devote funds so INEEL will become a major contributor to developing next-generation nuclear reactors," Jackson said.
The design for the advanced nuclear reactor would be part of a new generation of high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs), which proponents say are safer, cheaper and create less radioactive waste than today's nuclear reactors.
Bush's hydrogen initiative has gained the attention of the nuclear industry because producing hydrogen is an extremely energy-intensive process. Most hydrogen today is made by reacting natural gas with high-temperature steam. That process releases carbon dioxide, which many scientists believe contributes to global climate change.
"The sheer scope of the amount of hydrogen we will need suggests we are going to need hydrogen from different sources," said Richard N. Smith, director of policy analysis at the industry-funded Nuclear Energy Institute. "Nuclear power has the advantage of creating hydrogen without creating associated emissions."
Over the long term, Smith said nuclear plants may produce hydrogen and deliver it to hydrogen fueling depots. Nuclear reactors may also create hydrogen and make it available to cities that use large fuel cells for backup power, Smith said. "We're working out what the possibilities are, but I think the statement going in is that we're going to need all kinds of hydrogen production, and nuclear is in a fuel price position and clean air position to be part of the solution."
Paul Grant, a science fellow at the Electric Power Research Institute, estimates that 230,000 tons of hydrogen would be required each day to meet U.S. surface transportation needs, based on the amount of petroleum currently consumed daily by the nation's cars and trucks. To generate hydrogen by "splitting" water with electricity, Grant said that about 400 gigawatts of continuously available electricity would have to be added to the grid -- nearly doubling the present U.S. average power capacity.
"When you make hydrogen, which is a secondary energy carrier, then you have to use more energy to make it," said said Ernest Moniz, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former undersecretary of energy for President Clinton. "If you want to displace a large fraction of our transportation fuel use, you're talking about a lot of energy."
Grant added that nuclear power is the best way to produce hydrogen "without tearing up the land." According to his estimates, adding enough electricity to accommodate a hydrogen economy would require about 800 natural gas-fired power plants, 500 coal-fired plants or about 200 nuclear plants. "If you're going to grow economically in the near-term, nuclear power has to play a strong part in that," Grant said.
Waste, cost obstacles But nuclear opponents both in Idaho and nationwide say that expanding nuclear power in order to meet the country's hydrogen needs will create more radioactive waste and consume billions in taxpayer dollars.
Jeremy Maxand, executive director of the INEEL watchdog group Snake River Alliance, said the Idaho lab has the second-largest nuclear facility in the country and sits on the second-largest aquifer in the country. "The Snake River aquifer has been pretty abused," he said. "Sixteen billion gallons of hazardous and radioactive waste have been pumped directly into the aquifer."
While some people living around INEEL, the state's largest employer, support the construction of a new reactor for economic reasons, Maxand said others are less supportive. "They don't want more activities out there that create more of a mess," he said.
On the national level, environmentalists say renewable energy -- not nuclear power -- should be used to manufacture hydrogen. "There is ample analysis to suggest there's an adequate amount of renewable sources to deliver hydrogen to transportation," said Jason Mark, director of clean vehicles at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"We don't want to see hydrogen power linked to nuclear," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's environment and energy program. "There's no solution to the waste problem."
But cost may be the ultimate factor in keeping the advanced hydrogen reactor co-generation project on the drawing board, said David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Today's reactors are operating at a capacity factor of 90 percent and are marginally competitive with non-nuclear ways of generating power," Lochbaum said. "The proposed reactor that will produce electricity part of the time and hydrogen during non-peak times means it won't be doing either of these purposes full out."
Lochbaum likened the nuclear industry's efforts to make itself part of the hydrogen economy to previous, unsuccessful efforts to sell nuclear power as the answer to air pollution and climate change. "If they could tie a nuclear reactor to an improved three-ring binder, they'd do it," Lochbaum said.
Nuclear advocates maintain that cost estimates for constructing new generation facilities are artificially inflated by those who oppose nuclear development. In May, NEI criticized a Congressional Budget Office cost estimate of nuclear energy loan guarantee provisions in the Senate energy bill, saying the CBO used faulty data in predicting a "very high" default risk for government loans.
"The CBO finding defies logic and assumes that a private company knows in advance that a new nuclear power plant is too costly ever to be economic," NEI President Joe Colvin wrote in a letter to Domenici. "If that were the case, no amount of federal loan guarantee would make it economic, and no company would go forward with such a project."
To see more of Environment and Energy Daily, or to subscribe online, please visit eenews.net.
fuelcelltoday.com |
