Perhaps they could spend some of the money on generating a fuel that is easier to handle than H2, like butanol for instance - any fuel that can either be used to fuel a fuel cell or an ICE.
The purpose should be to make the energy from a nuclear reactor easily transportable, storeable and usable in vehicles - the actual fuel should be left to the reader as an exercise.
The alternative is to use batteries or supercaps and the grid in BEVs or PHEVs.
Just don't call them nuclear powered cars.

The first application of hydrogen from nuclear is most likely for producing ammonia, NH4. This concept is more than 25 years from being a commercially used.

When we start making artificial liquid fuel for vehicles on a large scale with nuclear energy we will certainly use atmospheric CO2, not coal, as one of the raw materials.

"use atmospheric CO2, not coal
Atmospheric CO2 doesn't have a Washington Lobby."

How about we come halfway, at least in the beginning, and use CO2 exhaust (from power, paper, chemical, etc. plants) for carbon feedstock. Later on, BTL operations could provide part (or most) of the supply.

Richard -

it would be very expensive to extract the CO2 out of the atmosphere. Rick's idea of using H2 + heat to turn CO2 from a coal- or gas-fired power plant into hydrocarbon fuels plus O2 is interesting, and may prove cheaper than other forms of CO2 sequestration, e.g. in brine aquifers. Use of such synthetic fuels would reduce the amount of crude oil required, i.e. keep more of what's already in the ground in situ.

I'm no fan of nuclear power, mostly because the issue of long-term storage remains unresolved (cp. Yucca Mountain) and, the proliferation risk of dual-fuel technologies (cp. Pakistan, North Korea, Iran).

However, coal is here to stay because a number of major countries (US, China, Germany, Australia, Russia, ...) have large domestic supplies of this cheap fossil fuel. Therefore, we need affordable damage limitation strategies wrt the CO2 footprint of coal. Personally, I would like to see an honest cost-benefit analysis including both economic and ecological aspects, comparing the floowing four scenarios:

- the nuclear-coal hybrid route to synthetic fuels described above
- a coal-algaculture hybrid route to biodiesel/fuel alcohol
- a PHEV/BEV approach without additional nuclear power, possibly including V2G
- a district heating/cooling or domestic heat pump approach without additional nuclear power, reducing CO2 emissions related to indoor climate control so those from transportation don't have to be (by as much)

Actauly the reason to go to type 4 no matter what is on the same amount of fuel it makes alot more power AND makes alot of h2 as well.

In short its better in every way from a type 3 reactor. It also cant meltdown.

As for transport of the h2 it wouldlikely either be colocated with a coal plant and covert co2 into methane or it would pipe the h2 via pipeline. Pr and I know this will blow your minds.. They might just cram all that h2 directly into plain old fuel cells and generate even more power then was used to make the h2 in the first place.

Or they might build a fuel refining station next to it and use the h2 to upgrade low grade fuels Or they might use it to clean up dirty fuels or they might make billions of exploding ballon animals and take over the world.

Rick & Rafael,
Regarding combining nuclear H2 and CO2 from coal-burning power plants...raises a question: Why using nuclear energy to produce H2 when you have to burn coal to produce more electricity? Surely, burning coal in the conventional way is very polluting! If you need more electricity from coal-fired plants, then why would you even bother with producing H2 in the nuclear plants when these nuclear plants could be producing more electricity?

On the other hand, gasification of coal or biomass can sequester nearly all of the pollution instead of releasing it in the air. Providing that the majority of your electricity is already produced by renewable or GHG-neutral energy such as wind and solar and nuclear, then one would use coal or biomass gasification to produce H2 and high-temp heat near the point of H2 demand, since it is uneconomical to ship H2...while, the CO2 is much easier to transport via either CO2 pipeline or tanker truck into the remotely-located nuclear facility to combine with the H2 there to turn into either methane or liquid fuel for consumption at long distances from the nuclear plant.

Rick -

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the risks inherent in nuclear waste, its transportation and its reprocessing. CO2 emissions are increasingly recognized as a very serious issue, but that does not mean nuclear has all of a sudden become squeaky-clean. Pick your poison.

I very much hope that renewable energy sources, especially solar/biofuels, will one day dominate our energy supply. Unfortunately, current technology does not permit covering a high proportion of demand at reasonable cost. It will take 30 years or more of continuous improvement and investment.

Btw: alternative fuels, whether produced biologically or synthetically, should of course be used exclusively in the transportation sector, not to produce electricity for the grid. There are far cheaper ways to achieve the latter.

Rafael -- I agree that nuke energy is not perfectly clean. I am reminded of the politician defending himself from his critics by saying, "Don't compare me with the Almighty, compare me with my opponent."
I also agree with the economics of reserving liquid fuels for transportation. My use of the term "base load" was about bio-fuel not being able to replace the billions of gallons currently being used for transportation even though there are technical analysts that show that it can be done. It would not be practical IMO. When I look ahead, I see more and more electric fuel and motors for transportation. The bottleneck is battery tech and FC tech.

Richard, I belive that there are other ways and better ways to deal with global warming besides being 100% carbon neutral.

I must disagree with the on-site storage of nuclear waste.

On-site is not so bad technically. But politically it gives nuclear opponents a strong weapon. As long as it is done they can and will stir public opinion about the immense danger to their community. Facts will have nothing to do with the matter.

Local storage also requires local guards, inspections, and facilities at hundreds of sites. How can these be as secure as specialized storage at a place like Yucca Mountain. And I don't see how it can be as cheap. But expense can be argued; hysteria about radioactivity cannot.

As soon as the determination to store centrally was made - over two decades ago - the antinuclear lobby began to insist that no site could ever be found and transportation there could never be safe and no effective containment was possible.

And they won. We poured billions into merely selecting and planning YM, billions more into partially building it, and nearly endless amounts into devising containers and transport. And each technical objection was demolished it made no difference. Politics stopped it.

And the same will happen to on-site. As soon as it, and not YM, becomes policy it will be opposed with lawsuits and the contention that central storage is best. The entire process and debate will reverse. The intent is to stop any nuclear program for any reason.

After almost seventy years the US still has no sensible storage for nuclear wastes. And we that is exactly how nuclear opponents want it.

If YM is put into operation then after a few years the matter will be moot. Storage and transportation will be seen to work. Further, once the material has been removed, it will be impossible to convince localities it should be returned and nearby.

Reprocessing, fast breeders, thorium fuel, and a strict international control regime are all in our future.

Possibly very far in the future. Seawater uranium extraction could allow us to delay all of these for thousands of years, even if most of the world's primary energy comes from fission.