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
 

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.

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. 

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.”

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.

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.