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The reason nuclear-electric hydrogen appeared in past decarbonization plans was that electrolyzers were too expensive to only run at a 25% duty cycle and renewa
by philipkglass 5y ago
The reason nuclear-electric hydrogen appeared in past decarbonization plans was that electrolyzers were too expensive to only run at a 25% duty cycle and renewable electricity was more expensive even when the sun was shining. It currently appears that electrolyzer production is going to scale up and drop costs to meet renewables faster than nuclear projects can fix their cost/schedule problems.
Here's an industry-focused article that talks about growing manufacturing electrolyzer capacity and lists some recent projects for generating hydrogen with renewables:
https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2021/12/12/sunday-read-making-cheaper-h2/ https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2021/12/12/sunday-read...
- kragen 5y agoThank you very much! I feel like inherently hydrogen production via electrolysis is just not that complicated a process: it's a bottle of lyewater with some sheet metal or graphite in it connected to a DC power supply, the sort of thing you could plausibly rig up if stranded on a desert island if you happened across some metal. So I'd think that, although you can surely improve efficiency in lots of ways that increase the cost of the electrolyzer, there's some kind of electrolyzer you can make that has an optimal cost/efficiency tradeoff when you know you're going to run it at a 25% duty cycle. Maybe it isn't cost-competitive with more highly optimized always-on nuclear-powered electrolyzers, but (as the article points out) they aren't cost-competitive with steam methane reforming, either. It's wonderful to see RMI cited as "major industry analysts" next to BloombergNEF. Nobody deserves that title more.