2nd Vice Minister attends International Business Forum for Nuclear Clean Hydrogen

Trade, Industry, and Energy 2nd Vice Minister Kang Kyung-sung attended the International Business Forum for Nuclear Clean Hydrogen on May 25, which was hosted by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and organized by the Hydrogen Convergence Alliance (H2KOREA).

This forum, held as a special event of the World Climate Industry EXPO (WCE 2023), was themed as "Role and Challenges for Nuclear Hydrogen in Achieving Carbon Neutrality", and was attended by more than 150 industry and academic experts from Korea and abroad from the Nuclear Energy Agency under the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), and others.

Recently, the U.S., EU and other major countries have developed or are considering support measures that include hydrogen produced with nuclear power under clean hydrogen. As Korea is introducing a clean hydrogen certification system based on carbon emissions, it is expected that nuclear hydrogen will be included under the category of clean hydrogen.

Considering the limited availability of renewable energy resources in Korea, producing clean hydrogen linked to nuclear power is important. The Ministry plans to promote the demonstration and commercialization of nuclear hydrogen production based on KHNP's basic research on nuclear clean hydrogen production (April 2022-March 2024).

It is forecast that nuclear hydrogen can contribute to not only strengthening economic feasibility but also energy security, and its integration with nuclear power plant exports could also lead to exports of hydrogen production plants.