The Business Line newspaper has made a pitch for a redux of the old, forgotten Indian High Temperature Reactor Program, for the production of green hydrogen.
This blog has covered that subject, in an earlier post.
Heating up water makes it easier to split it into hydrogen and oxygen; high temperature nuclear reactors can provide this heat cheaply. On the overall, there is a gain in terms of energy usage.
The newspaper quotes an unnamed official of the Department of Atomic Energy as saying that the high temperature reactor for hydrogen production program is very much alive and has not been shelved.
The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre had earlier proposed such a program, as long ago as in 2007. But back then, hydrogen was not the global buzzword that it is today.
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The BARC program for the high temperature reactors seems to have got behind in priorities, but it is expected that the Business Line article would push the IHTR-Hydrogen program back into the mainstream.
From a BARC presentation of 2007, it is clear that the entire design is ready and within the capacity of India to make. The presentation, linked above, is rich in technical content.
It is clear from the presentation that the program had two elements--one, the development of a technology demonstrator and the other a commercial-scale, 600MWth reactor.
This appears to be a sure-shot way of getting to '$1 per kg' target for hydrogen.
Why this program did not take off is a moot question, but such delays are typical of the Indian nuclear establishment.
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