After gray, blue and green, it is another color of hydrogen that arouses curiosity and hopes for energy production without greenhouse gas emissions. Many countries, including Canada, have begun searching for accumulations of white hydrogen, hydrogen that exists in its pure state in the ground.
The world has woken up, notes Denis Brière, vice president of Calgary-based Chapman Hydrogen and Petroleum Engineering.
In 2012, the petrophysicist tested the first source of white hydrogen, also called golden, natural, native or geological. The gas was discovered by chance during drilling for water and is 98% pure in the soil of the village of Bourakébougou in Mali.
Everyone thought it was impossible to accumulate natural hydrogen because this element was too small.
Political instability in Mali has slowed the commercialization of this source of pure hydrogen. This gas was also not as popular as an energy source 10 years ago.
From Mali to global interest
However, the skepticism of the early days has disappeared, as Denis Brière observes. The eyes of every geologist and engineer around the world have been opened. There are now many countries researching this natural hydrogen.
Last year, a potential accumulation of 46 million tons of hydrogen was discovered in the soil of Lorraine, a region in northeastern France. A month ago, President Emmanuel Macron promised massive investments to extract this resource.
Operating licenses are also increasing in Australia. The United States is also working hard to find accumulations of pure hydrogen on Earth and begin exploiting them.
How can there be pure hydrogen?
Omid Haeri Ardakani, a researcher at the Geological Survey of Canada, says a process for forming pure hydrogen relies on the interaction of water with iron-rich rocks.
The breakdown of rocks into radioactive elements such as uranium also results in the decomposition of the water molecule into oxygen and hydrogen.
We therefore need a rock that favors these processes and a geology that allows this accumulation of hydrogen to be captured.
White hydrogen has become the star of the moment, said an amused Bruno Pollet, director of the Hydrogen Research Institute at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières. Everyone is looking at this.
In a world trying to reduce its emissions, hydrogen is attracting everyone's attention because its combustion produces no greenhouse gas emissions.
However, the production of pure hydrogen is a source of environmental pollution, especially when it comes from hydrocarbons, as is the case in most cases today. The more environmentally friendly process of electrolysis is expensive.
White hydrogen, produced naturally in the ground, would therefore have numerous advantages. There are fewer steps, it uses less energy than other systems and, above all, there is plenty of native hydrogen, explains Bruno Pollet.
The accumulation found in France accounts for more than half of the world's annual production of pure hydrogen. Scientists suspect that, unlike hydrocarbons, it is infinitely renewable.
The beginning of exploration in Canada
Slightly less advanced than other countries, Canada is also searching for pockets of pure hydrogen in its soil. Since November 2022, the Geological Survey of Canada has been attempting to map possible accumulations.
“We don't know where the hydrogen is captured, how it is captured and therefore where the reservoirs are located,” notes Omid Haeri Ardakani, a researcher at the Geological Survey of Canada.
Our experience in the oil, gas and mining industries has given us a good understanding of the Canadian subsoil, although natural hydrogen occurs under different conditions than hydrocarbons.
Canada has a lot of potential due to its size and type of rock. More than 50% of Canada is covered by potential sources.
Helium mining areas such as those in Saskatchewan and Alberta could be suitable, as could seismic zones in British Columbia. However, the greatest potential appears to lie in Ontario.
The Chapman company wants to start its exploration work here this year. A first drilling is planned to analyze the liquids and gases present at different depths and to determine the hydrogen concentration.
If we discover this natural hydrogen, others will have projects for this type of exploration, that's for sure, believes Denis Brière.
Challenges that need to be solved
Omid Haeri Ardakani does not hide the fact that there is still a long way to go before the commercialization of natural hydrogen.
We are at the same point we were more than 100 years ago when humans discovered oil coming to the surface. […] The difference is that we are much more technologically advanced and the pace of discovery is much faster, he explains.
Bruno Pollet also confirms that extraction is not that easy. Hydrogen must be separated from other gases such as helium. The storage of hydrogen in large quantities, its economical transport and its use are unresolved questions.
We believe hydrogen will be the magic wand for everything in our energy system, but it will only contribute part of the decarbonization, he emphasizes.