Water Sourcing Reliability, Cost, and Circularity for Low Carbon Hydrogen Development

Abstract Clean hydrogen will require significant volumes of water given the high production targets in certain geographic locations, regardless of generation pathway, i.e., from an electrolyzer or natural gas-based process with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Therefore, reliable water sourcing related to the planned infrastructure's location is a critical input that needs to be considered in the early project planning stages. This paper will review the potential sources of water and costs associated with incorporating them within the hydrogen supply chain and will explore the respective attributes of alternatives. Water demand will vary between different hydrogen production methods, site locations, and project specific facility designs. Furthermore, the cost of water will vary as well depending on the source water's respective quality, facilities, water conveyance, treatment, and waste disposal requirements. For the energy industry, water for hydrogen production has become as important as natural gas for its processes and as important as crude oil has been for its refineries. Project viability depends on the long-term reliable access to the selected water source, forcing project siting to be a critical project consideration. Additionally, water treatment processes vary according to the source's base purity and contaminants. Subsequently, these processes create waste streams with concentrated impurities, which may have to be mitigated prior to disposal. We will provide the readers with awareness of the issues related to water sourcing options and considerations, conveyance, and rough order of magnitude (ROM) costs for water infrastructure, including treatment. The clarification of costs associated with different water sources used for hydrogen generation will allow project developers to make more informed decisions. Water sourcing should be a topic at the forefront of planning stages related to hydrogen production. The authors for this paper wish to provide a better understanding of costs related to different options. Additionally, the implementation of circularity will be analyzed by considering recycled wastewater as the water source for a hydrogen plant. This could reduce the regional disparity in clean energy production and lessen the burden on fresh water supplies.