For years, talk of being able to turn to hydrogen as an energy source has been seen as a holy grail. The main reason for having doubts about using natural hydrogen as a fuel came from the limits in finding hydrogen that occurs in nature in high purity. However, over time and after much research and discovery, that may have changed. The French National Center for Scientific Research, an event held in October 2019, was the first event of its kind. The main reason for the event was to give the attending audience some information about various new discoveries.
Now I’ve talked about nature hydrogen before including new discoveries in naturally occurring hydrogen gas. This information is an update to what I’ve spoken of before.
Some of the attendees of the event came from the French National Assembly, who are responsible for hydrogen-based energy programs being built. Since the first hydrogen well was built in 2012, its’ now capable of producing 98-percent pure hydrogen. However, while that amazing development took place there was also the discovery of various quantities of natural hydrogen in other locations.
Indeed, it was discovered that some parts of our planet are quite literally seeping with huge quantities of hydrogen. Research departments have begun taking closer looks at this over the last few years. And one of the major discoveries has been that previous estimates of natural hydrogen quantities were hugely conservative. Indeed, it was shown that there has been an industry-wide underestimation of just how much natural hydrogen there is.
With natural hydrogen not coming from a fossil source, instead created from inorganic reactions around the crust of the Earth and the mantle, excitement is growing. Natural hydrogen is not only free from carbon, but it’s entirely sustainable. As such, its has become a likely sustainable and renewable resource – especially when compared with geothermal energies.
At the moment, the most amazing thing about this discovery is how no energy is needed to make natural hydrogen. The only energy that is needed is the energy required to capture it. This kind of nature hydrogen capture speaks to the fact that the cost of produced H2 could become a much more affordable process in the future.
Indeed, with geologic hydrogen expected to become cheaper than the cheapest hydrogen today, this could be a huge boon. By being able to remove key steps from how hydrogen is produced, we can now extract hydrogen directly as opposed to having to extract it from gases such as methane or from water.
With exploration programs already in place across Africa and the United Sates, we should expect to hear a lot more about natural hydrogen in the near future. With our planet in an increasingly frantic rush for alternatives to energy, this could be a timely discovery.
Citation