About natural hydrogen
Unlike all other types of hydrogen, natural hydrogen does not need to be produced. Instead it is created by nature in subsurface processes. In many places natural hydrogen accumulates close enough to surface to be drilled for and extracted using existing technology. This makes natural hydrogen the cheapest type of hydrogen (~5x cheaper than Green hydrogen) and importantly, it makes the price competitive (without subsidies) to fossil fuels. It is estimated that the earth holds enough natural hydrogen to meet burgeoning global demand for thousands of years. And most importantly, it can be extracted without emitting any CO2. The reason why we did not notice natural hydrogen until now is partly because there was not much demand for hydrogen and because we were looking in the wrong places with the wrong equipment.
Why natural hydrogen is not “too good to be true”
Until recently it was believed that natural hydrogen could not exist in a “free-state”, since it would quickly react with other molecules. Much recent science has debunked this view, however, it can still be found in old literature (or with scientists who have yet to find out). There are still things we do not know about natural hydrogen as well as the scale of potential commercialization, but there is more than enough evidence to argue that natural hydrogen deserves at least the amount of attention and investment as other potential “climate saving” technologies.
The map shows all the places where natural hydrogen has been found by accident. Typically when drilling for oil or water. Imagine how much we could find if we were actively looking for it!
The map is a remake of Viacheslav Zgonnik’s original map published in 2020.
Note: The high density of placemarks across Eastern Europe and Northern Asia is due to the fact that researchers from these regions were looking for hydrogen more frequently, and not because these regions are richer in natural hydrogen.
How natural hydrogen is created
Natural hydrogen is created subsurface in one or more of the following processes:
Serpentinization is a reaction between iron-rich rocks and water (H20). It is basically “rust”, in which the iron rusts by taking out the oxygen (O) of the water (H20) freeing the hydrogen (H2).
This is the favored theory with scientists believing this process to be the source of ~80% of all natural hydrogen.
Radioactive rocks like uranium or thorium splits water (H2O) and frees the hydrogen.
The earth's core, according to a theory, holds vast amounts of hydrogen. Different processes free the hydrogen and let it travel to the surface through the earth's mantle.
Stimulated production that, however, requires mankind to “help a bit”. It is thought to be possible to stimulate natural hydrogen production by pumping down water into sustainable rocks or even pumping microbes or air down in oilfields releasing the hydrogen and letting the CO2 stay down. The last one differs from what is generally meant when talking about natural hydrogen, but the potential result of very cheap and zero emission hydrogen are the same.
The first natural hydrogen well
For now, the only natural hydrogen producing well in existence is in Mali, West Africa.
It has been producing for more than 10 years and the gas stream from the well is ~96% hydrogen. It is a low producing well, discovered by accident when drilling for water, but because it is a shallow well it was very cheap to drill. Because of this, it has been calculated that the hydrogen from the well can be produced for $1/Kg (the price at which hydrogen is competitive with fossil fuels). Other companies in the natural hydrogen space believe they can produce at a price closer to $0.5/Kg.
Unfortunately, Mali is neither the most politically stable or accessible place, so only recently has the company owning the well been able to start further explorations in the area.
The science behind natural hydrogen
Science Magazine article covering natural hydrogen from February 2023
Key points
"There might be enough natural hydrogen to meet burgeoning global demand for thousands of years, according to a U.S.Geological Survey (USGS) model that was presented in October 2022 at a meeting of the Geological Society of America"
“The more that I read, the more I started to realize, wow, the science behind how hydrogen is produced is sound … I was kind of like, ‘Why is no one talking about this?’” says Emily Yedinak, a US materials scientist who devoted a fellowship at the Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E)
"At the moment, all commercial hydrogen has to be manufactured, either in a polluting way, by using fossil fuels, or in an expensive way, by using renewable electricity"
"Natural hydrogen, if it forms sizable reserves, might be there for the taking, giving the experienced drillers in the oil and gas industry a new, environmentally friendly mission"
“We have the concept, we have the tools, the geology.… We only need people able to invest.” says Eric Gaucher, a geochemist at the University of Bern
"He sees room for hydrogen to replace hydrocarbons in heavy-duty vehicles that are ill-suited to batteries: trucks, ships, and perhaps even planes, all of which can handle larger tanks and fewer fueling stations. Industries such as steel that require high-temperature combustion are another likely market" says Dharik Mallapragada, an energy systems researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"And today’s primary markets for hydrogen—it is needed to make ammonia fertilizers, for example will continue to grow from the current 90 million tons a year(Value $130B)"
Ian Munro, CEO of Helios Aragon, a startup pursuing hydrogen in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees, says his break-even costs might end up between 50 and 70 cents. “If it does work, it could revolutionize energy production,” he says
THE OIL AND GAS industry has punctured Earth with millions of wells. How could it have overlooked hydrogen for so long? ......“The bottom line—they weren’t really looking for hydrogen,” says Geoffrey Ellis, an organic geochemist at USGS. “We weren’t looking in the right places with the right tools.”
For geologist Alain Prinzhofer, the question of where natural hydrogen comes from is academic. “Maybe we are all completely wrong,” he says. “It doesn’t matter for the industry.” The oil industry sprang up long before it understood oil’s origins, he says"
The prospects are exciting. But the enthusiasm is all hypothetical at the moment. No one anywhere in the world will produce hydrogen commercially anytime soon—except, perhaps, in Mali." Note: We at Natural Hydrogen Ventures, respectfully disagree on the last point. While it can not be known for sure, enough companies are exploring right now to make it very likely that we will see commercial production before 2025 and announcements of numerous commercial discoveries before that.