Published on Tuesday, February 1, 2005 by Financial Times (UK)
Bush, Iraq and the hydrogen economy
by John Dizard
The source the government, energy industry, and the automotive industry has in mind is nuclear power. We are talking about literally thousands of new nuclear facilities dedicated to the production of hydrogen through fission powered electrolysis (the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen gas).
The hydrogen economy is really a nuclear economy. Investors and the rest of corporate America may not realise how close the country is to making a gigantic bet on a nuclear future. The scientists and engineers at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory have been developing the advanced nuclear technologies that would power the hydrogen world.....
...Whatever your doubts about nuclear power, the hydrogen economy might at least be cheaper than occupying the Middle East indefinitely. Using a cost estimate of $1,200 per KW for the reactors, those 4,000 reactors would cost about $1,500bn.
The direct costs of the peacekeeping, if that's the term I'm looking for, in the Middle East, are about $100bn a year. Over 20 years, that's $2,000bn. Throw in the deferred military capital costs, not to mention the survivors' benefits, and nuclear powered hydrogen becomes quite competitive. The real hurdle with nukes is the capital cost. Maintenance, fuel and operation add up to less than 1 cent per kwh, and total energy content in a kilogramme of hydrogen or a gallon of gasoline is about 50 kwh, which would mean operating costs of about 50 cents a gallon....
....There would still be a couple of issues....
....Then we'd have to gather the helium that's used for heat transfer in the pebble bed reactors. There's a lot of helium in the universe; little of that is on our planet. The US produces a lot of helium, mostly in association with natural gas. The problem is helium reserves are running down and would be in decline by 2025. It might be necessary to go overseas to where new helium reserves have been discovered.
Where would some of those be? In Qatar, just across the Gulf from Iraq.