It could be a huge source of clean energy, buried deep underground
In the rocky soil of Lorraine, a former coal mining region near the French-German border, scientists recently guided a small probe through a borehole half a mile deep into the Earth’s crust.
The frothing in the water table below was an exciting find: bubbles the size of champagne that indicated a potentially huge supply of so-called white hydrogen, one of the cleanest-burning fuels in nature.
“Hydrogen is magical: when you burn it, it releases water, so there are no carbon emissions warming the planet,” said one of the scientists, Jacques Pironon, senior researcher and professor at the University of Lorraine. “We believe we have discovered one of the largest reserves of natural hydrogen in the world.”
The discovery by Mr Pironon and another scientist, Philippe de Donato, both members of France’s respected National Center for Scientific Research, caused a stir in France, where the government has pledged to become a European leader in clean hydrogen.
There are still many questions about the find, including exactly how big it is and how best to extract the gas. But it has added to a trail of clues elsewhere in the world that a holy grail of clean energy may be in the works for the taking.
Governments and companies around the world are betting on hydrogen as a cornerstone in the fight against climate change. A multibillion-dollar industry, backed by billions more in subsidies and private investment, has emerged to support the production of hydrogen, which in theory could replace fossil fuels to power factories, trucks, ships and planes, potentially saving about half of all hydrogen production would disappear. planet-warming emissions.
But making commercial hydrogen requires splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, an undertaking that takes energy. When fossil fuels are used, the process results in greenhouse gas emissions, and the result is called gray hydrogen. Tapping into renewable electricity from wind turbines and solar panels to produce so-called green hydrogen is cleaner but more expensive.
Natural hydrogen, also called white hydrogen because of its purity, could be a game changer, according to scientists, as it is a potential source of clean energy continuously generated by the Earth. Hydrogen reservoirs form when heated water meets iron-rich rocks. According to the US Geological Survey, this is only a small portion of these deposits could produce sufficient clean energy for hundreds of years.
“If they verify this discovery, it is very significant and would have a major impact on society,” Geoffrey Ellis, a geochemist at the US Geological Survey and a global expert on hydrogen, said of the French finding. “There are many other places in the world where similar discoveries could be made, and people are looking at it because it could really have an impact.”
In Lorraine, scientists said their tests suggested that 46 million to 260 million tons of natural hydrogen could be lurking beneath the coal mines, which were abandoned in the 1970s when France switched to nuclear power. For comparison, there are about 70 million tons of hydrogen produced sold commercially worldwide every year.
Natural hydrogen deposits have recently been discovered in parts of the United States, Australia, Africa, Russia and elsewhere in Europe. It is not unusual to find hydrogen when drilling for gas or oil, but in the past companies ignored such discoveries due to low demand.
Researchers didn’t give white hydrogen much credibility until they got the chance discovery in Bourakébougou, a small village in Mali, when a worker accidentally set fire to a well by lighting a cigarette over it in 1987. The well was found to contain natural hydrogen and is now used to power shops and homes after a local entrepreneur leased a petroleum well company to drain the gas.
“People had not been looking for natural hydrogen for years because everyone was focused on drilling for oil and gas,” said Julien Moulin, president of Française de l’Énergie, a clean energy company that is working with Mr. Pironon and Mr. de Donato to test and develop white hydrogen projects. “But it feels like we are at the beginning of a new dynamic,” he said.
Française De l’Énergie’s main activity is capturing methane gas from coal seams and converting it into clean energy for industries in the region. With the discovery of hydrogen, the company will intensify efforts to explore and extract it, Mr. Moulin said.
“You have the cake – now the question is: how do you eat it?” he said. “You have to create the tools to develop this resource, and that will be the work of the coming years.”
The efforts in Lorraine reflect a broader excitement about natural hydrogen in the clean fuel industry. The growing understanding that Earth is its own hydrogen factory has sparked a mini gold rush among researchers and energy start-ups eager to discover something.
In Australia, Golden hydrogen, an independent energy company, is digging for natural hydrogen near Adelaide after unearthing historical documents from two oil wells drilled in the 1930s showing vast quantities of high-purity hydrogen in the area. Bill Gates is one of the investors in the United States who provided financing Koloma, a Colorado company conducting hydrogen research in a vast geological chasm in the Midwest. In Europe, small energy companies from Spain, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries and beyond are all scouring the Earth’s crust.
Whether white hydrogen lives up to the hype remains to be seen. So far, the finds range from potentially large discoveries that could take years to verify, such as those in Lorraine, to small or extremely deep accumulations that may not be economically viable to explore, Mr. Ellis said. Questions linger about whether it is an unlimited source of clean fuel. Major oil companies, such as France’s TotalEnergies, have not stepped in to invest and appear to be waiting on the sidelines to see how things develop.
Then there are the costs. Although the United States and Europe have set aside billions to subsidize the development of green hydrogen using renewable energy, none of that money will go to boosting white hydrogen production.
And white hydrogen producers must keep an eye on the final price of their gas. Although green hydrogen costs about $5 per kilogram to produce – more than twice as much as gray hydrogen – the U.S. Department of Energy is sponsoring a program to bring the price of green hydrogen to $1 per kilogram within ten years.
A start-up called in Spain Helios Aragon is developing a natural hydrogen production project in the Pyrenees that it claims can match or beat that price.
“The No. 1 question is what the costs will be,” said Marco Alverà, CEO of Tree Energy Solutions, or TES, a company that plans to produce clean hydrogen and import it to Europe. For natural hydrogen to be competitive, “it depends on many factors, including the pressure the gas is at, the temperature and the type of rock you are drilling through,” he said.
If all goes according to plan in Lorraine, new drilling will begin next year with an advanced probe that will take gas samples as deep as 3 kilometers underground – deeper than the Golden Gate Bridge is long – to test the extent of the hydrogen treasure. , with the aim of extracting natural hydrogen in 2027 or 2028.
Mr Pironon and Mr de Donato have high expectations. When they started looking for methane gas left behind by the coal mines, they instead discovered hydrogen the deeper they went. Half a mile away, they found higher concentrations of hydrogen than reported anywhere else in the world, Mr. de Donato said.
“We may have a real hydrogen plant hidden under our feet,” he said. “It’s a cause for real excitement.”