1/7 Glad to see the topic of low-C heat (especially industrial heat) getting more attention. Thanks @virtualnomad for this piece.

A few quick additional thoughts: https://twitter.com/virtualnomad/status/1335574011250667520

2/7 Heat is harder than people realize, in part because of the amount of energy heat demand is. This case from the UK is common in many settings - the daily demand for heat is 3-5x the amount of energy demanded by electricity.

3/7 In industry, many operations require high quality, high temperature heat 24/7, making them hard to electrify. We discuss this in our @ColumbiaUEnergy report on low-carbon options for industrial heat

https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/report/low-carbon-heat-solutions-heavy-industry-sources-options-and-costs-today

4/7 We looked at a few nuclear cases. The high temperature SMRs could serve the some of the lower temperature industrial application, like ammonia synthesis (below). In a good price setting, nuclear heat could compete (although CCS & blue H2 appear better on cost & ease of use).

5/7 There are no existing or experimental reactors that deliver the high-T heat needed to supply steel, glass, or cement and no reactor designs that could use those sources. That’s why they are not represented on these charts (cement left; steel right).

6/7 There are MANY issues to adopting nuclear heat: @virtualnomad mentions them. Cost is the most difficult - our estimates for nuclear heat are pretty optimistic. However, costs can be reduced through innovation, investment and deployment. SMRs remain an important option.

7/7 Bonus reference: You can also learn more about low-C industrial heat from my colleagues @rogeraines @DrCMcCormick @ThoughtEnergy & David Sandalow in this study

https://www.icef-forum.org/pdf2019/roadmap/ICEF_Roadmap_201912.pdf