Science Magazine Names Natural Hydrogen Exploration as a Runner-Up for Breakthrough of the Year.
In 1859, Edwin Drake sank 20 meters of cast-iron pipe into the earth beneath Titusville, Pennsylvania, and struck oil, collecting it in a bathtub. The well kicked off the U.S. oil rush and changed the world. This year saw the start of another energy rush, this one based on hydrogen produced naturally within the Earth. Unlike oil the gas could be a tonic, not a toxin, for the climate.
Historians might one day trace its birthplace to another unlikely town: Bourakebougou, Mali. In 2012, engineers unplugged a borehole there that had been cemented shut in 1987, after a careless cigarette sparked an explosion. The gases it spewed turned out to be 98% hydrogen. A generator was hooked up. Producing only water as exhaust, it supplied the village with its first electricity. Curiously, after a decade of withdrawals, gas pressures in the borehole have not decreased—a suggestion that a deep source is replenishing the hydrogen.
Inspired by the discovery, prospectors are now finding signs of significant hydrogen deposits on every continent save Antarctica. Venture capital is flowing to startups such as Koloma, which came out of stealth mode in July with $91 million in funding, including investments from Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures. In September, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) launched a research consortium with support from Chevron and BP, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy began a $20 million natural hydrogen R&D program.
That Earth holds any hydrogen at all defies conventional geological wisdom. Because hydrogen is energy rich and reactive, researchers thought that in Earth’s crust most of it would be eaten up by microbes or converted into other compounds. Its surprising existence in so many places has prompted speculation that it leaks up from Earth’s core or is created as radioactive elements in the crust split water. But many researchers believe it is generated when water reacts with iron-rich minerals at high temperatures and pressures.
An unpublished USGS study suggests Earth may hold 1 trillion tons of hydrogen—enough to satisfy growing demand for hydrogen as a fuel and fertilizer ingredient for thousands of years. Some prospectors say extracting it could prove far cheaper than manufacturing “green hydrogen” with renewable electricity, an approach supported by billions of dollars in government subsidies. But the big question is whether Earth’s hydrogen is concentrated in reservoirs that companies can tap economically. If it is, environmentalists may find themselves in the odd position of cheering the roughnecks on with cries of “drill, baby, drill!”
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