A new gold rush for potential clean energy | Wilnesh News

There is a global gold rush underway for a long-neglected resource that supporters say could play an important role in the transition away from fossil fuels.

Geological hydrogen, sometimes called white hydrogen, gold hydrogen or natural hydrogen, refers to hydrogen gas that exists in its natural form beneath the Earth’s surface.This is idea Produced by high-temperature reactions between water and iron-rich minerals.

Hydrogen has long been considered one of many potential energy sources that could play a key role in the energy transition, but most of them are Produced using fossil fuels Such as coal and natural gas, this process produces large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.

Green hydrogen, a process that uses renewable electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, is an exception to so-called hydrogen energy. colorful rainbow. However, soaring costs and a challenging economic environment have hampered its growth.

It is against this backdrop that momentum around geological hydrogen continues to build. The United States, Canada, Australia, France, Spain, Colombia, South Korea and other countries are currently conducting exploratory work.

Research publish Rystad Energy reported earlier this month that as of the end of last year there were 40 companies actively searching for geological hydrogen deposits, up from just 10 companies in 2020.

The consultancy describes the pursuit of geological hydrogen as a “white gold rush” and says the hype stems from hopes that this untapped resource could be a “game changer” in the clean energy transition.

“I would say, in a way, this is something that is relatively old and yet new,” Minh Khoi Le, head of hydrogen research at Rystad Energy, told CNBC via video conference. “The first projects to discover hydrogen have already been It’s been around for a while, but it never started from there, right? There was never a serious attempt at exploration.”

this preliminary findings In 1987, geological hydrogen occurred in a small village about 60 kilometers (37.3 miles) from Mali’s capital Bamako. During a failed attempt by Canadian company Hydroma to drill for water, a large amount of odorless gas was inadvertently discovered to be highly flammable. The well was quickly plugged and forgotten.

Nearly two decades later, subsequent exploration of the site Discover geological reservoirs Contains nearly pure hydrogen. Today, this resource is being used to provide electricity to the village of Bourakébougou in Marly.

Last year, researchers established The Lorraine region in eastern France may contain the largest geological hydrogen deposit in the world to date. The unexpected discovery further fueled interest in its clean energy potential.

Geoffrey Ellis, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Energy Program, told CNBC that there may be large amounts of naturally occurring hydrogen buried in underground reservoirs around the world.

Ellis said that based on current understanding, there may be about 5 megatons of geological hydrogen in the Earth’s interior, although much of it is likely too deep or too far offshore to be economically recovered.

Still, Ellis said just a few percent of geological hydrogen recovery would be enough to meet all expected demand for 200 years.

“The potential is there, but we have to do the work,” Ellis told a video conference, adding that more investment was needed to accelerate early-stage research and development.

The U.S. Department of Energy last month declare $20 million to support 16 projects across the country to advance natural underground hydrogen production. The company said the energy could produce zero carbon emissions when burned or used in fuel cells.

“There’s a lot of excitement around natural hydrogen right now, but in terms of potential, I think it’s still a little bit uncertain because none of the projects have actually started producing or extracting hydrogen — except for the one in Mali,” Rystad Energy’s Le told CNBC. .

“There are still a lot of question marks over the whole natural hydrogen story,” Le said, but there appears to be “some substance” behind the hype.

“If some of the numbers from some agencies, like the U.S. Geological Survey, on the potential amounts that can be extracted come true, it could actually play a pretty important role,” he added.

Not everyone is convinced. Some are skeptical of natural hydrogen’s clean energy potential.

“Sometimes we want to run before we learn to walk,” Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, an energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told CNBC via video conference.

Jaller-Makarewicz said hydrogen’s immediate priority should be to find ways to replace so-called gray hydrogen with green hydrogen.

Gray hydrogen— Production using natural gas and the most common form of hydrogen production results in significant greenhouse gas emissions.In fact, the Carbon Trust has estimated Less than 1% of global hydrogen production is currently emission-free.

“Don’t confuse the idea that ‘we need to find a solution’ with reality,” Jalle-Makarevich said.

Additionally, the Hydrogen Science Alliance is a group of academics, scientists and engineers dedicated to providing evidence-based perspectives on the role of hydrogen in the energy transition, Said in a recent blog post The discovery of geological hydrogen currently provides the world with less daily energy than a single wind turbine.

Additionally, the alliance said there are environmental concerns with the extraction process, while transportation and distribution challenges mean geological hydrogen is unlikely to be found where it is most needed.

“Given the discoveries to date, our understanding of geological hydrogen systems and the fact that favorable environments appear to be rare, the likelihood of finding geological hydrogen that can be extracted at the scale of large-scale natural gas developments appears relatively remote,” the alliance said. March 14th.