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The role of analysis in NREL's hydrogen and fuel cell research is to ensure that federal R&D investments in hydrogen production, storage, distribution, and end-use technologies will provide the maximum value added to the national strategic goal of transitioning to a hydrogen economy. Integrated system analyses, technoeconomic analyses, life cycle assessments (LCAs), vehicle system analysis, and hybrid power systems analysis are essential to our research and development efforts. They provide an understanding of the economic, technical, and even global impacts of renewable technologies. These analyses also provide direction, focus, and support to the development and commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.
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Technoeconomic analyses (TEAs) are performed to determine the potential economic viability of a research process. Evaluating the costs of a given process compared to the current technology can assess the economic feasibility of a project. These analyses can be useful in determining which emerging technologies have the highest potential for near-, mid-, and long-term success. The results of a TEA are also useful in directing research toward areas in which improvements will result in the greatest cost reductions. As the economics of a process are evaluated throughout the life of the project, advancement toward the final goal of commercialization can be measured.
Representative publications from this work are available as Adobe Acrobat PDFs (Download Adobe Reader) including:
The Survey of the Economics of Hydrogen Technologies (PDF 1.1 MB) contains a survey of more than 100 publications about the economics of current and near-term hydrogen technologies, standardized to a consistent economic basis.
Production of Hydrogen from Peanut Shells (PDF 178 KB) is a short report on the production of renewable hydrogen from agricultural residues, in the near-term time frame and at a comparable cost to existing methane reforming technologies.
Hydrogen Storage Costs of Storing and Transporting Hydrogen (PDF 1.3 MB) is the analysis of capital and operating costs for various storage and transportation methods of hydrogen.
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Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is an analytic method for identifying, evaluating, and minimizing the environmental impacts of emissions and resource depletion associated with a specific process. When such an assessment is performed in conjunction with a technoeconomic feasibility study, the total economic and environmental benefits and drawbacks of a process can be quantified. Material and energy balances are used to quantify the emissions, resource depletion, and energy consumption of all processes, including raw material extraction, processing, and final disposal of products and by-products, required to make the process of interest operate. The results of this inventory are then used to evaluate the environmental impacts of the process so efforts can focus on mitigation. To date, LCA studies have been conducted on the natural gas-to-hydrogen production process and the wind/electrolysis hydrogen production system.
Representative publication from this work is available:
Life Cycle Assessment of Hydrogen Production via Natural Gas Steam Reforming summarizes the net emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as other major environmental consequences of producing hydrogen from natural gas. (PDF 634 KB) Download Adobe Reader
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Nate Blair
Walter Short
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