Generation and Use of Thermal Energy in the Industrial Sector and Opportunities to Reduce its Carbon Emissions

Abstract

water desalination plant when the combination of nuclear and solar power generation exceeds grid demand.The joint analyses by INL and NREL found that nuclear plants can effectively modulate heat between power production and heat use by an industrial consumer. The analyses by NREL indicate the optimal financial per forma occurs when the nuclear reactor is mainly supplying heat to industry. The nuclear reactor may switch to power generation if capacity payments for power production are adequate. These outcomes demonstrate that nuclear and renewable energy can fulfill power generation and thermal duties of the grid and industrial heat users in a complementary manner, but hybridization will depend on the future cost of natural gas power production, and clean energy investment and production incentives. This report quantifies greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the industrial sector and identifies opportunities for non-GHG-emitting thermal energy sources to replace the most significant GHG-emitting U.S. industries based on targeted, process-level analysis of industrial heat requirements. The intent is to provide a basis for projecting opportunities for clean energy use. This provides a prospectus for small modular nuclear reactors (including N-R HES), solar industrial process heat, and geothermal energy.

A review of technology and policy deep decarbonization pathway options for making energy-intensive industry production consistent with the Paris Agreement

“…hydrogen based steel making) using R&D and pilot plants as first steps? If the existing process is kept then there is choice between using carbon capture and utilization and storage (Bataille et al, 2015;Leeson et al, 2017) with combusted coal, fossil methane, chemical looping, biomass, or solid oxide fossil methane fuel cells (McMillan et al, 2016), or to use an alternative GHG free heat source, for which development must again be done. For the latter, we describe three temperature classes (0-250°C for general steam and food processing needs, 250-1000°C for general purposes (e.g.…”

“…For the latter, we describe three temperature classes (0-250°C for general steam and food processing needs, 250-1000°C for general purposes (e.g. chemical processing), and 1000+°C for lime, cement and steel making (1200, 1400 and 1600°C (McMillan et al, 2016))) and zero GHG alternatives within those heat classes (heat pumps, facility level solar process heat (McMillan et al, 2016), concentrated solar thermal (McMillan et al, 2016), biomass (IRENA, 2014), hydrogen (Garmsiri et al, 2014), synthetic methane combustion (Garmsiri et al, 2014), and advanced electrothermal technologies (e.g. microwaves)).…”

“…All are at various stage of development, with biomass closest to commercial usability. While small modular nuclear reactors are also considered in the literature (McMillan et al, 2016), beyond the economic context there are substantial concerns with security, waste handling and proliferation, eliminating its consideration in many regions, especially if other options are available.…”

“…EAFs, however, can also be used to make raw steel by direct reduced iron (DRI) methods, which normally use fossil methane as the reductant and heat source. The first of two key routes besides recycling to decarbonizing steel production is to use renewable hydrogen in a DRI as the reductant (Åhman et al, 2012;Fischedick et al, 2014a;McMillan et al, 2016) with solid state iron ore, followed by melting and alloying in an EAF; SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall are working with the Swedish Energy Agency in a joint venture to pilot this system (Vattenfall AB, 2017). There is a side benefit that reduction is 10 times faster than the conventional CO method.…”

“…A primary requirement is making development of decarbonised heavy industry an explicit international, national, regional and sectoral priority. Once this is communicated as policy, each region needs a heavy industry decarbonization pathway/visioning/roadmapping effort (Åhman et al, 2012;Argyriou et al, 2016;Bataille et al, 2016aBataille et al, , 2016bBataille et al, , 2016cMcMillan et al, 2016;Neuhoff et al, 2014aNeuhoff et al, , 2014bWilliams et al, 2012; WSP Parson Brinkerhoff and DNV GL, 2015) focussed on its particular competitive (dis)advantages and potential markets (e.g. reflecting access to biomass, decarbonised electricity, and geological storage for carbon dioxide).…”