Nuclear Power and Hydrogen: Fueling the Energy Needs of the Future and Beyond!

How could this be? you ask. Here on Earth?

Well, yes, hydrogen can be easily produced by splitting dihydrogen monoxide into hydrogen and oxygen in a process known as electrolysis. Don’t be scared! You won’t get shocked (or plucked), and dihydrogen monoxide? That is just what doctors of science call “water.”

It all sounds so simple when it’s explained like that, but not all hydrogen is the same. 

Hydrogen production now comes in all colors of the rainbow. Gray hydrogen is produced using dirty fossil fuels and is as old fashioned as the horse and buggy. That process still uses, and makes, a lot of carbon that is bad for the planet. We don’t want that in the world of tomorrow.

Blue hydrogen isn’t much better. It’s simply gray hydrogen where factories struggle to capture the carbon and lock it away.

Rare white hydrogen comes from natural deposits, and green hydrogen is made using “alternative” energy, those crazy power sources you might have heard of from the ’70s, like solar power and windmills. Far out!

To provide the electrons for tomorrow’s industries—whether that be a rocketship to Alpha Centauri or a hoverbike to the local malt shop—we’ll need energy. And lots of it. And that means using pink hydrogen. Pink hydrogen … that seems cozy and appealing. That’s because it is! Pink hydrogen is made with nuclear power. Tomorrow’s power today. But what’s that you say? You’ve heard that nuclear power is dangerous? 

Oh, far from it, but let’s ask someone who really knows, the head of Ohio’s Nucleotron Industries, Asa Tope. “Nuclear energy is as safe as bathing in any of Ohio’s many, many pristine waterways,” says Tope. “The same water,” he adds, “that keeps our state’s prosperous chemical plants clean and provides the hydrodynamic cooling for Nucleotron’s post-modern fleet of power plants.”

“I’m glad you asked,” encouraged Tope. “We use only the finest made-in-the-good-ol’-U.S.A. uranium to produce Nucleotron’s power and plutonium—plutonium that could be used to fuel future spacecraft!” But until those rockets are ready, Tope says, that plutonium is kept at the ready onsite in casks that were manufactured in glimmering state-of-the-art steel factories right up the road. “Steel facilities that could be powered by … that’s right, hydrogen!”

For those still wondering about onsite storage, Tope assures us that the plutonium is completely safe for future use—and that, even today, plans are being made to transport it cross country via ultramagnetic levitation high-speed rail, after which the plutonium will be encased in gleaming, climate-controlled storage facilities far beneath our most pristine national parks.

“We’ve put one of the most trustworthy, responsible industrial icons of our era—Norfolk Southern—in charge of transporting and managing our plutonium,” said Tope. “I certainly sleep better at night knowing their diligent, detail-oriented staff is on the job.” 

With assurances like that, pink hydrogen is sure to have a bright future, one that will provide the undying energy necessary to keep America’s lights, and the world’s, on the … glow.