THE US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PLANS FOR THE USE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY FOR HYDROGEN PRODUCTION

摘要

The potential of hydrogen as a transportation fuel and for stationary power applications has generated significant interest in the United States. President George W. Bush has set the transition to a "hydrogen economy" as one of the Administration's highest priorities. A key element of an environmentally-conscious transition to hydrogen is the development of hydrogen production technologies that do not emit greenhouse gases or other air pollutants. The Administration is investing in the development of several technologies, including hydrogen production through the use of renewable fuels, fossil fuels with carbon sequestration, and nuclear energy. The US Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology initiated the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative to develop hydrogen production cycles that use nuclear energy. The Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative has completed a Nuclear Hydrogen R&D Plan to identify candidate technologies, assess their viability, and define the R&D required to enable the demonstration of nuclear hydrogen production by 2016. This paper gives a brief overview of the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative, describes the purposes of the Nuclear Hydrogen R&D Plan, explains the methodology followed to prepared the plan, presents the results, and discusses the path forward for the US programme to develop technologies which use nuclear energy to produce hydrogen.