Page 215 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

EXERGY ANALYSIS AND ITS CONNECTION TO LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT 201

splitting driven by clean energy sources has been proposed to have lower envi-
ronmental impacts than many other methods of hydrogen production. The case
study presented here of the environmental impacts of the Cu-Cl cycle using
LCA and ExLCA contributes to general investigations of hydrogen production.

8·5.1 System Description and Data Analysis
The system for nuclear-based hydrogen production via thermochemical water
splitting considered here, and its component subsystems, are described in this
section. The hydrogen production system has three main subsystems:

• Fuel (uranium) processing facility
• Nuclear plant
• Hydrogen plant

Figure 8.4 shows a simplified overview of the system examined with
LCA and ExLCA. The first stage of the system is fuel (uranium) processing,
which involves mining, milling, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication.
J
Fuel cycle

Uranium
V

Nuclear power plant
• Construction
• Utilization

Process/waste
heat
V

Hydrogen production plant
• Construction
• Utilization

Hydrogen

Figure 8.4 Simplified overview of the system used examined with LCA and ExLCA
(Ozbilen, 2010).