Hydrogen Can Replace Fossil Fuels

Government researchers say there are trillions of tons of hydrogen gas to be tapped like natural gas -- even easier than fracking. American venture capitalists and entrepreneurs believe them.

Douglas Wicks explores geological hydrogen for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects. He has said, “The Earth has been producing hydrogen at large volumes for all of history,” adding, “We just chose to not to really pay attention.”

Scientists like Wicks have determined that a huge untapped source of energy can be mined from the Earth’s crust, easier than fracking for natural gas, in amounts that could power cars and industry for thousands of years. The supply of naturally occurring hydrogen surpasses all known natural gas sources – and it is constantly being replenished.

How does the Earth create hydrogen? It’s a process that takes place in our planet’s crust at a depth where temperatures and pressures are high. When water comes into contact with rocks containing magnesium and chromium alongside the usual iron and silicon, geological hydrogen is created. Geochemists call the natural process of creating geological hydrogen, “serpentinization.”

Chemistry of the geological hydrogen natural process is complicated, which is why venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are excited by the studies conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS researchers found that understanding the way geological hydrogen is created gave them the ability to estimate the quantity created each year, and how much might be trapped in reservoirs the way natural gas is trapped and then fracked. The researchers calculated that about 5.6 trillion tons are trapped in geological formations around the world and another 15-31 million tons emerge naturally, every year. The researchers testified to those numbers before Congress in February 2024.

Hydrogen In The United States

Researchers at USGS created a map showing areas of geological hydrogen in the mainland of the United States. The a map shows areas with hydrogen potential that stretches from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rockies, along with a strip along the West Coast. That map is accompanied by an explanatory paper detailing how the researchers created it.

The map and other data were obviously of great interest to investors and the financial community. Visitors overflowed the New York Climate Week conference in October 2024, and were the kind of people needed to start a new global industry. Besides those who still believe in global warming, there were funders there like venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, banks, and government grant officers. Scattered between those financial people there were researchers from academia, the federal government, and technically oriented executives from start-ups all the way up to multinational corporations.

Two months before the conference, mining giant Fortescue paid $21.9 million for a 40% stake in HyTerra, a start-up that’s developing two geological hydrogen sites in the Midwest. HyTerra estimates its main project, in northeast Kansas, could yield 250,000 trillion tons of hydrogen along with 2,200 trillion tons of helium that also accumulates underground under similar conditions. And Koloma, the largest geological hydrogen investor, raised $247 million in series B funding from investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Amazon. It was estimated that some fifty firms are gathering data, signing exploration rights, and are now drilling some 200 test wells around the globe.

Exploring For Hydrogen In The United States

At the Climate Change conference, Douglas Wicks divided the start-ups into two groups – those looking for pockets of existing hydrogen and those that are aiming to stimulate serpentinization by injecting water onto iron-rich strata. Wicks described them by saying, “There are wildcatters going around looking for these natural accumulations of hydrogen, coming in and saying, ‘Can we just poke a hole into it, put in a straw, and start sucking out hydrogen like it’s natural gas?’ Then he followed that description with a startling comment, “The other thing to keep in mind, though, is that hydrogen forms at a speed which is scaled to a human life time. Unlike natural gas that takes thousands of years to be produced, we can actually stimulate and accelerate the formation of hydrogen.”

The Director for technology and innovation for Halliburton, Zainub Noor, then said that geological hydrogen projects can use technologies well understood from decades of fracking for natural gas. Nevertheless, he cautioned that finding hydrogen gas and natural gas are not exactly the same. Methane and ethane in natural gas have infrared absorbance peaks that make them easy to detect spectroscopically. Hydrogen requires more complex sensors. Hydrogen also tends to accumulate in geological formations that are harder than those that contain natural gas, although not as deep.

So, new detection technologies for hydrogen may have to be developed, like fairy circles.

Carolina bays, sometimes called fairy circles, are natural surface phenomena with lots of mushroom activity and minimal plant life. Hydrogen gas can often be found escaping from fairy circles, and the relationship between fairy circles and finding deep geological hydrogen deposits has become an area of active scientific research.

Exploring For Hydrogen Across The Planet

Decades ago a water-well was dug in Bourakebougou, a small African village in Mali. The water-well diggers did not find water -- instead, they had dug a dry hole that gave off a slight wind. The engineers were disappointed and, before they could cap the well, a worker smoking a cigarette ignited the stream of geological hydrogen. The well burned for weeks before they could put out the plume of smokeless fire. The engineers were then able to cap the well hole.

Enter Aliou Diallo, a Malian businessman. He heard the stories about the burning well and purchased oil and gas rights for the land under the famous “flaming well,” hoping to find natural gas. Instead, the mobile lab he sent to the site found 98% pure geological hydrogen. Diallo then founded a business called “Hydroma” that first provided fuel for purpose-built cars, and then for suitable machinery.

Conclusion

Besides a deep Albanian chrome mine that produces 84% hydrogen, the mine in Mali’s Bourakebougou village is the world’s only source of geological hydrogen of any economic value. Then there are other things to consider, like the negative reaction of the natural gas majors.

Nevertheless, finding new mines like the one in Bourakebougou, plus injecting water into deep strata that exhibit a potential for geological hydrogen, can very easily rival fracking for natural gas.

And nature replenishes geological hydrogen. Forever.