One of two French researchers searched for methane but found a huge reserve of hydrogen Photo: CNRS via BBC French researchers searched for methane but found a huge reserve of hydrogen Photo: CNRS via BBC
In early 2023, Professor Jacques Pironon was searching for methane in the Lorraine Basin in northeastern France when his team conducted a study unexpected discovery.
They found one at a depth of about 3,000 meters large hydrogen deposit.
“That’s what we call luck,” says Pironon, research director at France’s Center National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at the University of Lorraine.
Not long ago, such a discovery would have sparked only academic interest. Nowadays it causes excitement.
👉 This is because many people think that hydrogen will be a… vital fuel In the coming years. It is argued that this could be the key to getting the global economy to zero pollutant emissions, as hydrogen does not produce CO2 when used as a fuel or in industrial processes.
2 of 2 Less than 1% of global hydrogen production is emissionfree Photo: AIR LIQUIDE via BBC Less than 1% of global hydrogen production is emissionfree Photo: AIR LIQUIDE via BBC
However, the big disadvantage of hydrogen is that currently Most forms of production are not green at all.
➡️ According to the Carbon Trust, less than 1% of current global hydrogen production is emissionfree.
There is gray hydrogen created by the splitting of methane into carbon dioxide and hydrogen (H2). Blue hydrogen is produced in the same way, but the resulting CO2 is captured and stored.
Black hydrogen is created by partially burning coal.
➡️ Green hydrogen that rare 1% is created by the electrolysis of water into oxygen and hydrogen.
However, since green hydrogen is relatively expensive and scarce, any other provision of the emissionfree gas would be welcome.
Known as natural hydrogen, golden hydrogen or white hydrogenNatural deposits can be an important source.
They are produced in different ways, but the main process relies on the interaction of groundwater with ironrich minerals such as olivine. This splits the water into oxygen, which binds iron, and hydrogen.
The French discovery is not the first time natural hydrogen has been found there is already a small source in Bourakébougou in western Mali, and large deposits are also suspected in the United States, Australia, Russia and several European countries.
However, the discovery in France is believed to be the largest natural deposit of the gas ever found. Professor Pironon estimates that this could be the case 250 million tons of hydrogen, enough to meet current global demand for more than two years.
Many more hydrogen deposits remain to be discovered worldwide the US Geological Survey (USGS) estimates thousands or perhaps billions of megatons.
Not all of it will be easily exploitable, warns USGS research geologist Geoffrey Ellis, who has modeled the amount of geological hydrogen.
“That is the global model, and the vast majority will be inaccessible too deep or too far from shore or in clusters too small for access to ever be economical,” he says.
But the USGS estimates that there are probably about 100,000 megatons of accessible hydrogen — and that could represent hundreds of years' supply.
The extraction techniques, says Ellis, “should be similar to those for natural gas. The technology already exists.”
Although the Bourakébougou site in Mali is currently the only plant producing commercial white hydrogen it only collects about five tonnes per year there are moves to exploit the reserves more widely.
Earlier this year, Bill Gates' investment firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures invested US$91 million (R$450 million) at the North American startup Koloma, which wants to explore white hydrogen reserves in the USA.
The prospecting company Getech is looking for potential deposits in Morocco, Mozambique, South Africa and Togo.
One key area is South Australia, which in 2021 added hydrogen to the list of regulated substances permitted for exploration under the Petroleum and Geothermal Act 2000, paving the way for exploration.
“Since February 2021, six different companies have requested and received 18 gold hydrogen exploration licenses” says Suren Thurairajah, climate and sustainability partner at Deloitte Australia.
“The licensed area is 570,000 square kilometers, which is 32% of South Australia.”
Recently, a company called Gold Hydrogen announced the discovery of a large natural hydrogen field in the region that it hopes to bring into production in the next year or two.
⚡So far, the main investors in the energy sector remain cautious.
“I think the big oil companies are very interested, but they're taking a waitandsee approach at the moment. They leave it to the startups to take the risk at least at this point, this is a big risky venture,” he tells Ellis.
“Once we have more production data from some of these wells, we will certainly see the major oil and gas companies moving in that direction.”
One problem, he says, is that there is currently no market for hydrogen in the United States, which reduces the incentive for exploration.
According to the industry group Hydrogen Council, Europe is a world leader in proposals for hydrogen projects 35% of global investmentswith Latin America and North America each accounting for around 100% 15% of investments.
“So there's something of a chickenandegg problem: markets don't really develop until they see the supply, and the supply won't really develop until they see the market,” says Ellis.
But he adds: “I think it depends on how much effort we put in. If we really decide we need to resolve this quickly, I think it could happen.”
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