| Summary: | It is assumed that the primary energy carrier in the modern industrial world is electricity;
consequently the product from nuclear power plant is electricity. However, this
assumption may not hold ground as the society progresses into the future. According to
governments and industries reports, hydrogen may be the primary energy carrier by 2050.
With nuclear energy playing an increasing part in the total world energy consumption
due to the greenhouse effect and the depletion of fossil fuels, the importance of efficient
and low cost hydrogen production from nuclear plants is mounting. Thus, hydrogen not
only serves as an economical fuel but also as a environmentally friendly fuel source.
Hydrogen can be produced centrally from a mixture of clean coal and fossil fuels,
nuclear power, and large-scale renewables. In this project we focus mainly on production
of hydrogen using nuclear technologies. Nuclear power can produce hydrogen in many
ways. With the evolution of nuclear energy’s role in hydrogen production, many methods
have been invented. Among these are electrolysis of water, use of nuclear heat in steam
reforming of natural gas, high-temperature electrolysis of steam using nuclear reactors
and high-temperature thermochemical production using nuclear heat. These nuclear
energy technologies used to produce hydrogen will be studied in detail. The
fundamentals of the nuclear energy technologies and specifically their efficiency in
production of hydrogen will be studied and explored in this Thesis.
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