One of the largest deposits of “white hydrogen” discovered: “Could save the world”

Research directors at the French National Center for Scientific Research, Jacques Pironon and Philippe De Donato, assessed the amount of methane in the depths of the Lorraine mountain basin, using the “world’s first” specialized probe capable of analyzing gases dissolved in rock water deep underground, CNN reports.

At a depth of a couple of hundred meters, the probe detected a low concentration of hydrogen. “It wasn’t a real surprise to us,” Pironon told CNN; usually small amounts are found near the borehole surface. But as the probe dived deeper, the concentration increased. At a depth of 1100 meters this figure was 14%, at an altitude of 1250 meters – 20%.

According to Pironon, it was surprising. This indicated the presence of a large reservoir of hydrogen underneath. Scientists carried out calculations and estimated that the deposit could contain from 6 to 250 million metric tons of hydrogen.

According to Pironon, these figures could make it one of the largest deposits of “white hydrogen” ever discovered. The discovery helped fuel the already feverish interest in gas.

Pironon and De Donato next plan to drill a well up to 3,000 meters deep to get a clearer picture of exactly how much white hydrogen is contained there.

There is a long way to go, but it would be ironic if this region – once one of Western Europe’s key coal producers – became the epicenter of a new white hydrogen industry.

White hydrogen—also called “natural,” “golden,” or “geological” hydrogen—occurs naturally or occurs in the Earth’s crust and has become something of a climate holy grail, CNN explains.

When burned, hydrogen produces only water, making it very attractive as a potential source of clean energy for industries such as aviation, shipping and steel, which require so much energy that it is virtually impossible to provide it from renewable sources such as solar and wind.

But although hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it usually exists in combination with other molecules. Currently, commercial hydrogen is produced in an energy-intensive manner that uses almost entirely fossil fuels.

The color rainbow is used as a shorthand for different types of hydrogen. “Grey” is produced from methane gas, and “brown” is produced from coal. “Blue” hydrogen is the same as gray hydrogen, but the pollution generated as the planet warms is captured before it enters the atmosphere, CNN says.

The most promising from a climate point of view is “green” hydrogen, produced using renewable energy sources to split water. However, production remains small-scale and expensive.

That’s why interest in white hydrogen, a potentially rich, untapped source of clean energy, has increased over the past few years.

“If you had asked me four years ago what I thought about natural hydrogen, I would have told you, ‘Oh, it doesn’t exist,'” admits Jeffrey Ellis, a geochemist with the US Geological Survey. “Hydrogen is out there somewhere, we we know it’s somewhere nearby,” he said, but scientists thought large accumulations were impossible.

Then he learned about Mali. It could be argued that the catalyst for the current interest in white hydrogen can be traced to this West African country. In 1987, in the village of Burakebugu, a driller suffered burns after a water well suddenly exploded while he was leaning over the edge while smoking a cigarette. The well was quickly plugged and abandoned until 2011, when an oil and gas company took it offline and reportedly discovered it was producing gas that was 98% hydrogen. Hydrogen was used for the village’s needs and is still being produced more than ten years later.

When the well study emerged in 2018, it attracted the attention of the scientific community, including Ellis. His initial reaction was that there must be something wrong with the study, “because we just know it can’t be.” Then the pandemic hit and he had some free time to start digging. The more he read, the more he realized: “We just weren’t looking for it, we were looking in the wrong places.”

The recent discoveries excite Ellis, who has been a petroleum geochemist since the 1980s. He witnessed the explosive growth of the US shale gas industry, which revolutionized the energy market. “Now,” he said, “we are in what I think is probably a second revolution.”

White hydrogen is “very promising,” agreed Isabelle Moretti, a researcher at the University of Pau et des Pays de l’Adour and the University of the Sorbonne and an expert on white hydrogen.

“Now it’s no longer a question of resources… but where to find greater economic reserves,” she told CNN.

Dozens of processes generate white hydrogen, but there is still some uncertainty about how large natural deposits are formed.

Geologists tend to focus on “serpentinization,” where water reacts with iron-rich rocks to produce hydrogen, and “radiolysis,” the destruction of water molecules by radiation.

Deposits of white hydrogen have been discovered throughout the world, including in the United States, Eastern Europe, Russia, Australia, Oman, as well as France and Mali.

Some were discovered by chance, others by searching for clues, such as landscape features sometimes called “magic circles,” shallow elliptical depressions from which hydrogen can leak.

Ellis estimates there could be tens of billions of tons of white hydrogen around the world. That would be significantly more than the 100 million tons of hydrogen per year currently produced and the 500 million tons projected to be produced annually by 2050, he said.

“Much of it will almost certainly be in very small accumulations or very far offshore, or simply too deep to be economically harvestable,” he said. But if just 1% can be found and produced, it will provide 500 million tons of hydrogen for 200 years, he added.

This is a tempting prospect for many startups.

Australian company Gold Hydrogen is currently drilling on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. She set her sights on the site after combing government records and discovering that several wells with very high concentrations of hydrogen had been drilled there back in the 1920s. Prospectors who were only interested in fossil fuels abandoned them.

More testing and drilling remains to be done, but the company could begin early production, possibly in late 2024, CNN reported.

Some startups are seeing eye-popping investments. Denver-based white hydrogen startup Koloma has raised $91 million from investors including Bill Gates-founded investment firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures, although the company remains tight-lipped about exactly where in the US it is drilling and when it plans to begin production. commercialization.

Another Denver company, Natural Hydrogen Energy, founded by geochemist Vyacheslav Zgonnik, completed a hydrogen exploration well in Nebraska in 2019 and is planning more wells. The world is “very close to the first commercial projects,” Zgonnik told CNN.

“Natural hydrogen is a solution that will allow us to accelerate our efforts to combat climate change,” he said.

The challenge for these businesses and scientists will be to turn hypothetical promises into commercial reality.

“There could be a period of decades where there will be a lot of trial and error and false starts,” Ellis said. But speed is vital. “If it takes us 200 years to develop this resource, then it won’t really do that much good.”

But many startups are optimistic. Some predict years, not decades, until commercialization. “We have all the necessary technology we need, with some minor changes,” Zgonnik said.

Problems remain. In some countries, regulations are an obstacle. Costs also need to be calculated. According to calculations based on a well in Mali, producing white hydrogen could cost about $1 per kilogram – compared to about $6 per kilogram for green hydrogen. But white hydrogen could quickly become more expensive if larger deposits require deeper drilling.