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Underground Hydrogen Could Supercharge Green Energy. First, Scientists
Have to Find It.
It has the potential to power electrical grids, run factories,
heat homes and propel vehicles when combined with a fuel cell
June
7,
2023
![](images/images_06_07_2023/download%20copy.png)
In Geneva, Neb., Natural Hydrogen Energy has drilled a 11,287-foot
test well in the middle of a cornfield and is preparing to extract
commercial supplies of hydrogen. NATURAL
HYDROGEN ENERGY
By Eric
Niiler
From Australia to the Pyrenees, geologists are hunting for underground
hydrogen and predict that a subterranean energy boom is only a few
years away.
Unlike industrial methods of producing hydrogen that require
electricity, so-called geologic hydrogen occurs by natural processes
deep underground, energy experts say. Underground hydrogen is the
product of a chemical reaction between iron-rich minerals in the
Earth’s crust and water percolating down from the surface.
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The resulting hydrogen gas can be extracted by traditional drilling
methods. Drilling firms and geologists say they have found underground
hydrogen coming from old gas wells, seeping from unusual circular
surface features known as “fairy circles” in Australia, North Carolina
and Brazil, or bubbling up from cracks in the Earth known as mid-ocean
ridges.
“The Earth does the production for you using pressure and
temperature,” said Michael Webber, professor of energy resources at
the University of Texas, Austin. Underground hydrogen “is a cheap,
clean, abundant resource that is a game changer for the global economy
and for climate change. So it is pretty exciting.”
Geologists and energy firms involved in prospecting for hydrogen
nevertheless say it is going to take some effort to find it in
sufficient quantities and then transport it somewhere it can be used
commercially. Hydrogen is a highly reactive element that corrodes
metal and can be more difficult to move in existing gas pipelines,
trucks or ships than other fuel sources, Webber said.
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Hydrogen is potentially valuable as a fuel because hydrogen combustion
produces only heat and water, unlike the burning of fossil fuels,
which produces greenhouse gases, according to the U.S. Department of
Energy.
Hydrogen has the potential to power electrical grids, run factories,
heat homes and propel vehicles when combined with a fuel cell. Today,
hydrogen is most commonly used in petroleum refining and fertilizer
production. The clean-burning gas is forecast to play a central role
in reducing the carbon footprint of heavy industries such as steel and
chemicals. However, most current hydrogen production requires the use
of fossil fuels. Methods of low-emission hydrogen production are
currently small compared with where analysts believe it will need to
be in the future.
How Geologic Hydrogen Is Formed
Geologists believe plentiful stores of underground hydrogen exist.
More challenging is getting it out of the ground and transporting it
to an industrial facility.
![](images/images_06_07_2023/pic.png)
Hydrogen percolates upwards and collects in traps or pockets in
sedimentary rocks. Surface drilling rigs penetrate these
pockets and release gas to the surface.
Hydrogen diffuses
through porous rocks to reach the surface in some areas.
Rainfall
Hydrogen rig
Hydrogen
rig
Hydrogen seep
Water
infiltration
Well
Salt layer
Hydrogen trap
Sedimentary
rock layers
Basement rocks
Water reacts with iron-rich rocks to form hydrogen gas.
Iron-rich mantle rock
Note: Not to scale
Source: U.S. Geological Survey
In order for society to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050,
low-emission hydrogen production will need to be around 180 million
metric tons by 2030, from just over 90 million tons today, says the International
Energy Agency.
Though there may be some obstacles, the U.S. government and energy
companies are optimistic, and there is a growing pot of both taxpayer
funds and private investment chasing hydrogen.
President Biden’s infrastructure bill allocated $9.5 billion funding
for hydrogen, including $8 billion for “hydrogen hubs” that will use
hydrogen to produce energy as well as run various industrial processes
around the country. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act subsidizes the
use of clean hydrogen with a new tax credit as well as increasing the
value of an existing tax credit for carbon sequestration, which is
used to make hydrogen.
![](images/images_06_07_2023/pic7.png)
French energy-services firm Engie has deployed a network of sensors
that can sniff gas emitted from the ground. PHOTO: ENGIE
In southwestern France, geologists from Engie, a French
energy-services firm, have deployed a network of small remotely
operated sensors that sniff the gas emitted from the ground around
favorable geological locations like fault zones to detect traces of
seeping hydrogen.
“There are many wells that were drilled for oil and gas or water and
they found hydrogen in there,” said Olivier Lhote, hydrogen specialist
at Engie.
After detecting hydrogen emissions from a geologic feature or having
confirmation of hydrogen from an old well, the next step is
getting mineral rights to the area, and then doing seismic testing to
determine how deep the hydrogen might exist below the surface.
Lhote wouldn’t say where exactly the promising site is located, just
somewhere in the far southwestern corner of France. “There is already
competition there,” Lhote said.
In fact, a Spanish firm, Helios Aragón, said it has located a
reservoir of 1.1 million metric tons of hydrogen in the Monzón region
of Spain and expects to begin drilling in 2024, according to Helios
CEO Ian Munro.
Rob Sterling is equally vague about where he’s hunting for hydrogen.
Sterling, senior vice president for geosciences at Confluence
Resources, a Denver-based oil-and-gas company, says his firm has found
a site in the Four Corners region that spans the junction of Colorado,
Utah, New Mexico and Arizona that might prove commercially viable.
“We’re not a public company, it isn’t on our website,” Sterling said.
“But yeah, we’re working on it.”
![](images/images_06_07_2023/pic8.png)
Confluence Resources, a Denver-based oil-and-gas company, has found a
site in the Southwest that might prove viable for commercial
hydrogen. PHOTO: ROBERT
STERLING/CONFLUENCE RESOURCES
Sterling says Confluence is looking for geologic supplies of hydrogen
that might exist in the same underground deposits alongside helium,
which has many commercial uses including in medicine, to clean rocket
fuel tanks and in the production of computer chips.
“We would use the hydrogen to generate electricity to a grid that is
nearby our project area,” Sterling says. “That way we’re utilizing the
hydrogen right there and turning it into a product that is much more
transportable.”
Similar to drilling for oil and natural gas, companies pursuing
underground hydrogen would have to lease drilling sites from
landowners and obtain mineral rights, which vary by state. Unlike oil
or natural gas, hydrogen doesn’t pollute waterways or the environment
with toxic chemicals. However it can be dangerous and is flammable.
In Geneva, Neb., Natural Hydrogen Energy has drilled a 11,287-foot
test well in the middle of a cornfield and is preparing to extract
commercial supplies of hydrogen, according to Viacheslav Zgonnik, the
Denver-based firm’s CEO.
![](images/images_06_07_2023/pic9.png)
A close-up of the well’s base in Geneva, Neb. conducted by Natural
Hydrogen Energy. PHOTO: NATURAL
HYDROGEN ENERGY
“Every single continent has potential hydrogen accumulations, and I
think we’re at the very beginning of the process,” Zgonnik says.
“There will be a lot more discoveries of hydrogen in the near future
simply because just no one was looking for it.”
In late-May, Natural Hydrogen’s Australian joint venture partner, HyTerra,
announced it was planning to raise an additional $1.6 million
[$2.5 million AUS] to explore for hydrogen and helium at the Nebraska
site as well as its own 7,500-acre lease holdings in northeast Kansas
where hydrogen has been observed in old oil and gas exploration wells.
Write to Eric Niiler at eric.niiler@wsj.com
Guy J Swanson.
Exactrix Global Systems.
Green Play Ammonia™, Yielder® NFuel Energy.
Spokane, Washington. 99212
www.exactrix.com
509 995 1879 cell, Pacific.
exactrix@exactrix.com
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