Why a Clean Energy Association in UK Advocating for Nuclear Hydrogen?
The UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (UK HGCA) recently produced a position paper in which the trade organisation urged the government to take steps to encourage nuclear hydrogen to help accelerate the transition to net-zero energy.
When it comes to environmental friendliness, nuclear hydrogen may appear to be a contradiction in terms. This form of power, as safe as it has shown to be, has had its reputation tainted by near disasters or disasters every few years. Furthermore, the need to store its waste has proven to be a long-term challenge that has yet to be resolved.
However, it is also, to a large extent, a very safe source of electricity generation. It is widely available and well-established in several nations. Furthermore, and more importantly, in this particular struggle against climate change, it generates electricity without emitting carbon dioxide.
While green H2—that is, the form produced by electrolysis powered by renewable energy sources such as solar and wind—is thought to be the best option in terms of overall environmental impact, there are several barriers to implementing it at the scale required to power megacities, large cities, and countries as a whole.
Renewable energy just does not exist at the scale required to meet commercial needs. Nuclear energy is a viable option that is also friendly to decarbonisation goals. As the country transitions away from fossil fuels, it provides an existing, low-cost energy source that may be used to produce H2.
Renewable energy sources can be constructed incrementally over time to steadily enhance their capacity for powering green H2 production. However, to achieve the H2 production required to decarbonise the heating of millions of households or tens of thousands of buses, the UK HGCA is turning to nuclear hydrogen as a way to work with technology that is currently cleanly available.
Source: Hydrogen Fuel News
