Techno-Economic Analysis of Synthetic Fuel Production from Existing Nuclear Power Plants across the United States

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the technoeconomic potential of using existing U.S. nuclear power plants to produce synthetic fuels, highlighting economic benefits, key drivers, and policy impacts for decarbonizing transportation.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive technoeconomic analysis of coupling nuclear plants with synfuel production across the U.S., considering market and policy factors.

Findings

Coupling increases nuclear plant profitability significantly.

Hydrogen tax credits are crucial for profitability.

Transportation of carbon feedstock is the highest cost.

Abstract

Low carbon synfuel can displace transport fossil fuels such as diesel and jet fuel and help achieve the decarbonization of the transportation sector at a global scale, but large-scale cost-effective production facilities are needed. Meanwhile, nuclear power plants are closing due to economic difficulties: electricity prices are too low and variable to cover their operational costs. Using existing nuclear power plants to produce synfuels might prevent loss of these low-carbon assets while producing synfuels at scale, but no technoeconomic analysis of this Integrated Energy System exist. We quantify the technoeconomic potential of coupling a synthetic fuel production process with five example nuclear power plants across the U.S. to explore the influence of different electricity markets, access to carbon dioxide sources, and fuel markets. Coupling synfuel production increases nuclear plant profitability by up to 792 million USD(2020) in addition to a 10 percent rate of return on investment over a 20 year period. Our analysis identifies drivers for the economic profitability of the synfuel IES. The hydrogen production tax credit from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act is essential to its overall profitability representing on average three quarters of its revenues. The carbon feedstock transportation is the highest cost - more than a third on average - closely followed by the synfuel production process capital costs. Those results show the key role of incentive policies for the decarbonization of the transportation sector and the economic importance of the geographic location of Integrated Energy Systems.