Nuclear Beyond Electricity Hydrogen

[Music]

today

in october 2020 most of the energy we

use in the world and most of the

electricity we consume

comes from fossil fuel and with fossil

fuel comes

gigatons of co2 emissions every year

pumped into the atmosphere causing

climate change

so the question is how do we fight

climate change and in the energy sector

this fight

relies on two pillars the first one is

the production of clean electricity we

need to decarbonize our electricity

and the second pillar is we need to find

substitutes

for the fossil fuels we use today every

day

in transport in heating in our

industrial sectors

and today i would like to talk to you

about hydrogen

as that possible substitute fuel for the

future energy

needs so hydrogen is the most abundant

element in the universe

and actually is around us in in many

forms

and in particular in water and in my

talk

i will explain how with clean

electricity you can split

water to produce clean hydrogen so a

little bit about hydrogen

hydrogen was discovered several

centuries ago by an english gentleman

called cavendish in 1766

one of the main components of a

synthetic fuel that was manufactured in

the 19th century

called town gas made from the

distillation of coal

and the wood and that town gas

was used to light our cities our streets

was also used for heating

it was gradually replaced by electricity

which was more convenient

and by natural gas later on for heating

purposes

but hydrogen is still used intensely and

has been used intensely in the last

decades

in the industry in the steel sector in

the

petrochemical industries and also in the

food industries

but it’s its use in the everyday life

in transportation for example has been

very limited

around 2005 2004 there was a

wave of interest in hydrogen um people

thought

this is the advent of the hydrogen

economy cells will be

powered by hydrogen in the future

there was great hope manufacturers car

manufacturers were designing cars

with fuel cells but somehow this

hydrogen revolution did not come and why

in part because progress in battery

technologies made electric vehicles

a more attractive option but this is not

the end of the story for

for a hydrogen actually when you look at

the fossil use today in heavy duty

transport

for example maritime transport or for

energy intensive processes like coal uh

coal steel making

as well as in everyday life heating

applications

we need a lot of fossil fuel so how do

we replace this fossil fuel

and could hydrogen be the substitute

fuel

well the solution and the answer to that

is uh

yes if we make hydrogen in a clean way

and unfortunately this is not the case

today most of the hydrogen produced in

the world comes from fossil fuel

also i explained in my introduction that

one

one aspect one way to make clean

hydrogen would be to split

water with clean electricity and go back

to electricity as the center as the main

the main ingredient to the transition to

future clean energy systems

unfortunately most of our electricity

comes from fossil fuel

of course there are there are clean

energy sources clean

clean electricity sources hydro power

for example

uh produces 18 of the world’s

electricity nuclear power about 10

and then you have wind solar and other

renewable sources

and these low carbon sources will be the

ones that

will need will be needed to decarbonize

our electricity production

and with the transformation of our

electricity system

comes a lot of challenges for example

we will need our future electricity

systems to be flexible

flexible to adapt to uh intermittent

generation like wind and solar we will

need

electricity systems that are stable

today we have a

grid stability that’s provided by large

thermal plants that have inertia and

bring a

bring the stability that we need the 50

hertz

quality of our electricity that we that

we require and that our

electrical equipment require we will

need

a lot of energy storage why we have we

will have intermittent

uh technologies like wind and solar so

we will need energy storage when the

wind doesn’t blow or

the light doesn’t shine and we will need

dispatchable generation what is

dispatchable generation

this is a low carbon generation that you

can

produce on demand like hydro or nuclear

so once we have addressed all those

challenges and have decarbonized our

electricity system

well that’s only one part of the of the

challenge to

to decarbonize energy because actually

the power sector among the all the

energy sectors

is only responsible for forty percent of

our emissions

sixty percent of the co2 emissions come

from the other sectors

transport industry uh building

heating and cooling for example so

having clean electricity can help

decarbonize by electrification of those

sectors

for those sectors that can be

electrified but we know that there are

sectors

applications that cannot be easily

electrified and for that we need

substitute fuels

so the question is hydrogen can it be

that fuel

the question is can we produce hydrogen

cleanly

and today most of the hydrogen produced

in the world

more than 95 comes from a process called

steam methane reforming

produces co2 based on natural gas

i mentioned electrolysis splitting of

water well that’s

that’s okay if your electricity is

decarbonized

but if it’s not we have what what is

called gray hydrogen

grey hydrogen is hydrogen produced by

electricity that’s generated by fossil

fuel

so that has a carbon footprint if you

capture the co2

in the process you have what is called

blue hydrogen

generated from fossil from electricity

produced with fossil fuel and carbon

capture

and sequestration which still has a

carbon footprint

so actually the future is to produce

hydrogen by splitting water

using low carbon electricity like

electricity from renewables

this is called green hydrogen or

electricity produced from

nuclear electricity and that’s called

pink hydrogen and there are actually

other processes that are in development

using other forms of splitting high

temperature steam electrolysis

or thermochemical cycles they all use

the idea of splitting water to produce

hydrogen using either low carbon

electricity or low carbon electricity

and heat

and some advanced reactors high

temperature reactors currently under

development will be able to produce that

hydrogen

massively and in a more efficient way

than today’s methods

but electrolysis is still the basis of

that transformation

so how does electricity and hydrogen

work to decarbonize our energy systems

so let me explain using this this graph

imagine we have a power system a low

carbon

power system with wind power solar power

and for those countries they use nuclear

energy nuclear energy

so this system produces low carbon

electricity and that low carbon

electricity can be used to electrify

transport heating and cooling in

buildings providing heating also to some

industrial processes

so this is direct use of electricity but

we know

and that there are some of those

processes that cannot be electrified

so we need a fuel electrolysis based on

low carbon electrolysis produces

hydrogen and that hydrogen is a clean

fuel

that can provide energy to this these

different sectors

including transport with fuel cells and

hydrogen can also be stored

this is important because it can be used

later or it can be transformed back into

electricity using fuel cells

so this is really the basis of the

coupling

between the power sector and the other

the other

energy sectors and and how the

transformation from today’s world

to a low carbon uh future energy system

and industries and utilities in

particular are looking at that and

looking at the role of hydrogen

so why are they looking at hydrogen well

first of all

i mentioned that the electricity systems

electricity markets right now

are not uh are not designed in the the

most

robust appropriate way we have we know

we have pairs where we have excess

electricity

and when you have excess electricity the

the prices go down they may even go

negative

and so utilities that produce

electricity have to pay to dispatch

electricity into the grid

that’s doesn’t make sense is and it’s

not sustainable in the long term

so really the idea is to make use of

that excess electricity when there is

excess electricity

and transform it into something that has

value for example hydrogen

and the idea is it’s very simple sell

hydro

sell electricity when electricity is

needed and has value

and sells something else like hydrogen

when

electricity doesn’t have as much value

as as hydrogen produced at that time

there’s also an important driver for

for industries and utilities to look at

hydrogen and that’s

the contribution to the energy

transition into climate change

this is not just a matter for

governments to make pledges and so on

the private sector is taking also an

important role

in in moving towards these low-carbon

systems

and i want to give you two examples the

first is a

company in the u.s arizona public

service company

this uh company operates um

the largest nuclear power plant in in

the us the palo verde

nuclear generating station which sits in

the middle of the arizona desert

they also have wind they also have solar

power and they have gas

and as a company aps has made

the the pledge to become carbon neutral

by 2050.

so they have assets that are carbon

carbon free like nuclear and solar and

wind but they also have gas why do they

have gas

well it’s very simple in the evening

when the sun sets

solar generation disappears yet the

utility has to provide electricity to

its customers

so that’s when it starts its gas turbine

to produce electricity

and to lower the emissions of the gas

turbine the idea is to produce hydrogen

blend it with the natural gas and then

use the the gas turbine to produce

electricity

with a lower level of emissions

and in the future those gas turbines

could be

designed to run on 100 hydrogen so then

you would have a completely carbon free

electricity

generation system the other example i

want to give you is the

the example of edf energy in the uk uh

edf energy

is contributing to the to the goal of

the the uk the uk has set

uh a target of being net zero by um

by 2050 as a country it’s in the law

and the company is investing in low low

carbon assets

and in particular has plans to build a

nuclear power plant in a site

called size well and size world is an

interesting location because

not far from that you have a large wind

farms

generating wind electricity and also you

have a large

gas network uh system that runs past the

site

so the idea is for the the site to

become a clean energy hub

with low carbon electricity produced

from nuclear and wind

and using nuclear power to produce

hydrogen

either use hydrogen as a fuel or inject

hydrogen into the gas

network and this is a feature of these

um

of this changes of our energy system the

fact that

the power and the gas systems are going

to be more integrated

more interconnected as hydrogen produced

from low carbon electricity

from electrolysis is pumped into the

into the gas network

so it’s the future of our energy needs

all about electricity and hydrogen and i

believe it is

and when i was preparing this talk i was

reminded of some

books and novels that i read as a kid

from a visionary science fiction writer

from the nineteenth century gorgeous

vein

now juventus wrote a lot about

electricity and in one of his books

twenty thousand leagues under the sea he

even imagined

a submarine powered by electricity by

batteries

but more more relevant to today’s talk

is the sequel to twenty thousand leagues

under the sea

and that book is called the mysterious

island and in that novel

a character identifies hydrogen

coming from the splitting of water as a

fuel that’s able that will be able in

the future to displace

uh the the fossil fuel that was used at

the time coal

so of course at that time there was no

consideration for climate change

but i find it amazing that 150 years ago

there was already a vision that the

future of our energy needs will be met

by electricity and by hydrogen

so to sum up my talk yes there is a

future

for clean energy systems it relies

simply on two

to two pillars two actions one is to

decarbonize our electricity system with

whatever

low carbon technologies countries want

to use

whether it’s wind solar or nuclear or a

combination of all of them

and the second is to produce hydrogen in

a clean way

splitting water and using that clean

electricity

thank you

you