Status and Planning of South Africa's Nuclear Hydrogen Production Program

In May 2007 the South African Cabinet approved a National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies R and D and Innovation Strategy. The Strategy will focus on research, development and innovation for (amongst others) by building on the existing knowledge in High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors (HTGR) and coal gasification Fischer-Tropsch technology, to develop local cost-competitive hydrogen production methods. As part of the roll-out strategy, the South African Department of Science and Technology (DST) created three Competence Centers (CC), including a Hydrogen Infrastructure Competence Centre hosted by the North-West University (NWU) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The Hydrogen Infrastructure CC is tasked with developing Hydrogen Production, Storage, Distribution as well as Codes and Standards programs within the framework of the DST strategic objectives. A 700kW Heliostat field is to be constructed at the CSIR. It is planned that the following processes will be investigated there: Steam Methane Reforming, High Temperature Steam Electrolysis, Metal-oxide redox process. At the NWU the main focus will be on the large scale, CO2 free, hydrogen production through thermo-chemical water splitting using nuclear heat from a suitable heat source such as a HTGR. The following will be investigated: Plasma-arc reforming of methane, Investigating the integration of a HTGR with a coal-to-liquid process, steel manufacture and ammonia production, The Hybrid-Sulphur process for the production of hydrogen