US nuclear firm says it could turn salty seawater into hydrogen fuel
An Oregon nuclear energy firm says it’s found a way to tackle two resource problems at once – producing clean drinking water at scale, and using the waste brine to make hydrogen without touching an electrolyser.
NuScale Power has unveiled research showing how its small modular reactor (SMR) technology could be coupled to a reverse osmosis desalination plant, with the leftover brine fed into a novel hydrogen production process developed with the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
Clean water – and spare electricity
NuScale says a single 77 MWe NuScale Power Module (NPM) paired with a modern reverse osmosis setup could deliver around 150 million gallons of fresh water a day without generating CO2.
Scale that up to a 12-module plant and you’d have enough to supply 2.3 million people – while still producing surplus electricity for 400,000 homes.
Waste brine becomes feedstock
Brine waste from desalination is usually an environmental headache, with high salt concentrations and residual chemicals to manage.
NuScale’s researchers, working with PNNL, have developed a way to extract an inert salt from that waste stream and use it as industrial feedstock for hydrogen production via hydro-thermal chemical decomposition.
The process skips water electrolysis entirely – cutting both energy and water consumption – and, if powered by the SMR’s heat and electricity, could be carbon-free.
Three problems, one system
NuScale says the approach addresses three long-standing challenges in a single integrated setup:
- Water scarcity – scalable clean water production without emissions.
- Brine disposal – turning a waste product into a fuel precursor.
- Hydrogen production – potentially cheaper and less resource-intensive than electrolysis.
The work was presented at the World Petrochemical Conference in spring 2025.
SMR-powered hydrogen at scale
Alongside the brine-to-hydrogen research, NuScale has built an Integrated Energy System simulator at its Corvallis headquarters to test hydrogen production methods, storage, and fuel cell power generation.
The platform can model commercial-scale systems producing over 200 tonnes of hydrogen per day and allows NuScale to compare configurations for different industrial uses.
“What we have found is a win-win-win aimed at addressing water scarcity, brine remediation, and hydrogen production,” said Dr José Reyes, NuScale’s co-founder and CTO. “We believe our breakthrough innovation can meet our global water challenges while providing clean, carbon-free energy.”
