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Hydrogen fuel cells props up coal industry Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2004/04/24/news/regional/08610bcd1b4e6f9887256e7f006554c9.txthttp://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2004/04/24/news/regional/08610bcd1b4e6f9887256e7f006554c9.txt
Groups pan using reactors for clean hydrogen fuel
By DAN GALLAGHER
Associated Press writer
BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- The plan seems sensible enough for a country thirsty for energy and fuel alternatives: A shiny new nuclear reactor at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory would kick off research into creating hydrogen gas for the Bush administration's new fuel-cell transportation initiative.
It also would further secure INEEL's status as the nation's top nuclear research site while boosting the payroll of what is already eastern Idaho's largest employer.
Yet watchdog groups warn pollution-free hydrogen fuel should be made with power from renewables like wind or the sun, not in a nuclear reactor with a radioactive waste problem that remains unresolved nearly six decades after nuclear technology was born.
Snake River Alliance Executive Director Jeremy Maxand called the Bush proposal "alchemy at best. We've got to get serious about energy. What we want to see is a comprehensive energy policy that includes renewables."
In 2003, the president announced his hydrogen program in which fuel-cell cars would eventually fill auto showrooms, reduce the nation's need for oil and cut greenhouse emissions.
Hydrogen goes in. Energy to power the car and water vapor come out. It also could fuel industry and heat or cool homes.
The high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor envisioned for Idaho would create both hydrogen and electricity. The $1.1 billion project died in last year's energy bill, but it's part of the current legislation that is backed by Idaho lawmakers.
U.S. Sen. Michael Crapo said Americans have become so reliant on oil that the nation is overly dependent on other countries for supplies.
"Like a stock portfolio, we have to broaden our energy portfolio," Crapo said. "If we made the decision today, it still will be several decades before we have successfully ended our dependence."
Most hydrogen today is made by reacting natural gas with high-temperature steam. The nation needs plenty of hydrogen already to make products such as fertilizer and to refine crude oil, said Steve Herring, an engineer with the Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems at the INEEL.
"It's important to remember that we use 12 million tons of hydrogen a year," he said. "It's light, fluffy stuff, so that's a lot of hydrogen."
There currently are 103 reactors operating in the nation today. Providing enough hydrogen to meet all the fuel-cell transportation needs would mean tripling that number, he said.
The administration's FreedomCar program is working parallel to the hydrogen initiative. INEEL scientists are studying and developing some vehicles to run on the gas, and hybrids use combinations of gas and electricity.
The nation not only could use hydrogen for cars but for more electricity, too.
Nuclear energy currently provides about 20 percent of American demand for power and 16 percent worldwide. Department of Energy officials say the reason for the renewed interest in nuclear power is it generates electricity more inexpensively than plants fired by coal, natural gas or oil.
And running the "information highway" of electronic communication that the United States is increasingly relying on to manage its business requires significant amounts of power, said Mike Tracy, spokesman for U.S. Sen. Larry Craig.
Herring also counters Maxand's concern about radioactive waste, claiming the new process would go a long way toward reducing the amount of spent fuel left around the country.
"We wouldn't have zero waste," he said, but "we would reduce a lot of the waste."
Still, opponents reject the Energy Department's claim that nuclear reactors are safe for the environment.
Maxand points to the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor core meltdown in Pennsylvania and the troubled Davis Besse power plant in Ohio, which was shut down several times after boric acid nearly ate through the steel reactor cell.
But there are problems closer to home, critics say.
From the 1950s through the 1970s, Maxand said, plutonium-contaminated waste was buried in unlined pits at the INEEL, while billions of gallons of hazardous and radioactive waste were pumped into the ground above the Snake River aquifer, the source of drinking water for much of southern Idaho.
For the $87 billion recently appropriated to support continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Maxand said, more than 190,000 wind turbines could have been built in the United States, supplying 25 percent of the nation's electrical needs.
In suggesting the production of hydrogen from reactors and coal-fired or oil-fired power plants, the administration is propping up those polluting industries, said Michele Boyd, legislative representative of Public Citizen, the public interest group founded by Ralph Nader.
"It's a huge boondoggle," Boyd said. "Talking about a new $1.1 billion reactor, that's an obscene amount of money."
Boyd said Public Citizen is part of the Green Hydrogen Coalition of groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, which support "green hydrogen" production from wind turbines and solar panels, instead of "black hydrogen" from reactors or fossil fuels.
"What we're trying to do is develop reactor and hydrogen technologies that will mesh with renewables and other sources," Herring said. "It took 100 years to develop the internal combustion engine. We're not going to supplant fossil fuels in 10 years."
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