Government subsidies are keeping nuclear electric plants afloat while shortchanging renewables, which would otherwise take over a free market with far less cost to ratepayers.  Nuclear power itself is highly subsidized, and has a huge energy footprint if producing its fuel and isolating radioactive waste are considered. No Environmental Impact Statement is required on dangers of a hydrogen explosion next to a nuclear reactor. 

Hydrogen is not a source of energy. It is a means of energy storage. Large-scale hydrogen increases greenhouse gasses and wastes energy. This is a plan to create markets for nuclear power and natural gas. 

Making hydrogen using waste heat from dirty, unsustainable industries – like nuclear power – serves to prop them up when they should be phased out. There is also a big dollar as well as carbon cost for building and operating thermoelectric facilities needed to capture waste heat.  

Making hydrogen by electrolysis of water is another way the nuclear industry is subsidized and promoted. Electrolysis – using electricity to split water (H₂0) to get hydrogen – has limited applications. In most cases it is more efficient to use the electricity directly. Note that any form of power can be used to split water. 

Implying that nuclear power is “green” or useful because it can be used to create hydrogen for “clean power generation” defies logic on several levels:  

• Powering electrolysis with wind or solar is more efficient than using a nuclear reactor. The greenest way to make hydrogen is not in a process that creates deadly radioactive waste. 
• How green is a proposed specialized pipeline network needed to carry “nuclear hydrogen” around the nation? The dollar cost of large-scale piping to properly contain compressed hydrogen would be astronomical – not to mention the use of energy and materials in construction and maintenance. Hydrogen, the tiniest of all molecules, can escape through the most minuscule pipeline gaps. Leaks aren’t easily detected and constitute a fire hazard, while the loss of hydrogen will not be accounted for. 
• Building full-scale thermoelectric and/or electrolysis plants will have a high energy and dollar cost. Are taxpayers going to be asked to foot those bills, too? Major innovations in electrolysis technology are still needed to further reduce its costs and make it market-ready at industrial levels.
• The technology will never “be there” for the large-scale burning of hydrogen. This is because burning uses three times as much hydrogen as the ingenious fuel cell to produce the same amount of power. Hydrogen technology is green only for local production and use.  Period.
• The Department of Energy’s stated goal is hydrogen production for industrial uses. Hydrogen’s main industrial uses are in refining petroleum, making ammonia for fertilizer, and making cement. All these practices are unsustainable and should be reduced and eliminated. 
• By defining this as research, the Davis-Besse project doesn’t have to show any useful results or cost savings.                 

PORTSMOUTH: In May, 2022, a hydrogen plant was proposed for the Portsmouth Nuclear Site (PORTS) in Piketon, Ohio. The Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (SODI), working with Ohio University and Newpoint Gas, proposed producing hydrogen in the standard way, i.e., removing it from natural gas (CH4). Natural gas and nuclear power become clean through wordsmithing, while hydrogen (to be used for dirty industries) is still being obtained from natural gas. In September, 2022, J.W. Didado announced a partnership with Newpoint Gas et.al. to build pipelines at PORTS and “capture carbon” released from burning natural gas. These projects stalled when they failed to receive $1.5 billion requested from the $8 billion earmarked for hydrogen hubs in the Infrastructure Law. 

DAVIS-BESSE: March 2023: using $20 million in funding from DOE (taxpayers), Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station in Oswego, NY started producing hydrogen through electrolysis of water. DOE is also subsidizing electrolysis at nuclear stations Davis-Besse (OH) and Prairie Island (MN),which they say will generate hydrogen in 2024.  *It is unclear how much funding the Davis-Besse station received, stay tuned.  

   October 2023: The University of Toledo promoted Davis-Besse and hydrogen pipelines in the Hydrogen Hub competition. But Davis-Besse hydrogen gets no part of $8 billion DOE Hydrogen Hub funding. 

  December 2023: US unveils clean hydrogen plan, nuclear power role uncertain. Energy companies can access billions in tax credits when producing hydrogen. Nuclear can’t compete dollar-wise or time-wise, but the industry never gives up trying to figure out how to gain access to any kind of subsidy.                                                     

WORLDWIDE: In July 2022, 40 organizations representing industry, government, nonprofit, and academia formed the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative (NHI) to advance nuclear hydrogen. NHI claims that hydrogen from nuclear power is “green” and “clean” because nuclear energy is a “zero-carbon source of electricity and heat”.  Presto, nuclear hydrogen becomes green. The ONFN flier How Nuclear Power Worsens Climate Change outlines nuclear’s high carbon footprint. In May 2022 the first global definition of green hydrogen was drawn. Nuclear does not qualify as green and is listed as pink.

Global hydrogen initiatives are not about using solar or wind. They are about making hydrogen using natural gas or nuclear power and unabashedly labeling these dirty energies as clean, green, safe, or even emissions-free. The definition of green hydrogen is hydrogen made by electrolysis of water using solar or wind. These falsely-labeled green hydrogen industries are about: 

1. using nuclear power for the electrolysis of water;
2. using waste heat from dirty industries, including nuclear power, for the electrolysis of water; and 
3. maintaining that hydrogen obtained from natural gas is clean energy, as at the Portsmouth Nuclear Site.

Intimate connection between nuclear power and weapons: Funding, education, technology, infrastructure, labor force, and much more overlap. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has explained how nuclear weapons systems are funded by electricity customers outside of defense budgets and off the public books, threatening democracy. As civilian nuclear plants close, this military cash cow is threatened. In 2020 French President Macron wrote a long dissertation  on why civilian nuclear is necessary for military nuclear and vice versa. 

 The DOE’s hydrogen research projects are one of many ways that the military-industrial-nuclear complex is attempting to keep the dying nuclear power industry afloat. The vast majority of the DOE’s budget is for nuclear technology. Jobs are hyped, but the public will be paying for them, plus all the facilities they use.

Proposals for hydrogen and CO2 pipelines abound. Industries using or making hydrogen want both hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines, since CO2 is a byproduct when hydrogen is removed from methane. Attempts to sequester CO2 underground are false solutions. CO2 gas under pressure underground will eventually escape, while building pipelines creates more CO2, damages the earth, and is incredibly expensive.  Industries are now proposing and building pipelines to carry their CO2 pollution to fracking sites. Could fracking with carbon dioxide instead of water be greener? The answer is no. This is greenwashing, increasing gas production, and getting public subsidies. 

The most efficient use of hydrogen is in fuel cells. Fuel cells work by combining hydrogen with oxygen from the air to produce electricity, with water being the only “waste.” Fuel cells are clean, renewable, and useful for small on-site applications, such as a single home or a stand-alone fueling station for a bus or car. Nearly all parts of fuel cells are reusable or recyclable. Technology and costs continue to improve. The argument should not be “batteries vs. fuel cells.” It’s where fuel cells contribute uniquely to green infrastructure. It’s about finding the greenest and least costly energy. In 2012 Cleveland demonstrated a  hydrogen fueling station and a fuel cell bus.                              Contact Pat Marida patmarida@outlook.com 

     Watch: Halt the Hydrogen Hoax hosted by Buckeye Environmental Network (9-19-24) bit.ly/3XDIynP      

     Watch: Breaking Down the Hydrogen Hype: What Investors Need to Know (11-17-21)                    Contact Pat Marida patmarida@outlook.com or Linda Sekura lsekura@aol.com.   Updated 6-2024