Establish and Analysis of an Optimized System for Hydrogen Production From Nuclear Energy in China

Abstract Addressing climate change poses a severe challenge to the energy development of countries around the world. In order to realize the Paris Agreement, energy transition has become an important task for China. Hydrogen and nuclear energy is important part of China’s new energy system in the future. Based on the dilemma of hydrogen energy development in China, an optimized hydrogen production system suitable for the coupling development with China’s nuclear energy is proposed. The result shows that the hydrogen production efficiency of this method is significantly higher than that of other hydrogen production methods coupled with PWR. The hydrogen production efficiency of this method can be higher than 42%, which is more than 50% higher than that before optimization. The comparison of the hydrogen production efficiency of this method with that of other renewable energy is analyzed. The result shows that the hydrogen production efficiency of this method is more than 20% higher than that of renewable energy. This work could improve the efficiency and energy utilization of PWR to hydrogen production in China, which could promote nuclear energy to help decarbonized and mitigate climate warming.