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The research, led by Geoffrey Ellis, a petroleum geochemist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), has been published in the journal Science Advances. It suggests that tapping into just a fraction of this hydrogen could have far-reaching implications for the world's energy future.
"Just 2% of the hydrogen stocks found in the study, equivalent to 124 billion tons of gas, would supply all the hydrogen we need to get to net-zero [carbon] for a couple hundred years," Ellis told LiveScience. This amount of hydrogen contains roughly twice the energy stored in all known natural gas reserves on Earth.
Hydrogen, a clean energy carrier, has diverse applications, ranging from fueling vehicles to powering industrial processes and generating electricity. As global efforts to combat climate change intensify, hydrogen is projected to play an increasingly significant role, potentially accounting for up to 30% of future energy supply in some sectors.
The study's findings challenge long-held beliefs about hydrogen's behavior underground. "The paradigm throughout my entire career was that hydrogen's out there, it occurs, but it's a very small molecule, so it easily escapes through small pores and cracks and rocks," Ellis said. However, recent discoveries of substantial hydrogen caches in West Africa and an Albanian chromium mine have shifted this perspective.
To estimate the global hydrogen reserves, Ellis and his colleague Sarah Gelman developed a model accounting for various factors, including hydrogen production rates underground, the amount likely trapped in reservoirs, and losses through processes such as atmospheric leakage. The model revealed a wide range of possible hydrogen quantities, from 1 billion to 10 trillion tons, with 6.2 trillion tons being the most probable estimate.
While these figures are promising, Ellis cautions that much of this hydrogen may be inaccessible due to depth or offshore locations. Additionally, some reserves might be too small for economically viable extraction. Nevertheless, the sheer scale of the estimated reserves suggests that even with these limitations, there could be ample hydrogen available for exploitation.
One of the key advantages of natural hydrogen over synthetically produced "green" or "blue" hydrogen is its ready availability. "We don't have to worry about storage, which is something that with the blue hydrogen or green hydrogen you do," Ellis said. "You want to make it when electricity is cheap and then you have to store it somewhere. With natural hydrogen, you could just open a valve and close it whenever you needed it."
However, the exact locations of these hydrogen reserves remain unknown, presenting the next challenge for researchers. Ellis and his team are working on narrowing down the geological criteria necessary for underground hydrogen accumulation, with results for the U.S. expected early next year.
While the potential of this discovery is enormous, some experts urge caution. Professor Bill McGuire from University College London told the BBC that extracting hydrogen on a scale large enough to impact emissions significantly would require "an enormous global initiative for which we simply don't have time." He also emphasized the need for extensive supporting infrastructure. McGuire questioned whether exploiting another finite resource is necessary, given the availability of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Journal Reference: Geoffrey S. Ellis and Sarah E. Gelman, Model predictions of global geologic hydrogen resources. Sci. Adv. 10, eado0955(2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ado0955
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Billy the Mountain on Friday January 03, @11:31PM
One of the largest produced and vital chemicals is ammonia for fertilizer. Using hydrogen as a feed stock would enable ammonia production without introducing CO2 into the atmosphere if the Hydrogen were used to also power the process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 04, @12:54AM (6 children)
But really though, we already have that. Natural gas and oil pipelines -- just run a short tap over to where the hydrogen is produced. Put another short tap on the other end to municiple natural gas pipelines, and we're done. You might need a new stove, or an adapter that can burn hydrogen (probably not); cars will need something different. It won't hook directly to the municiple natural gas infrastructure (with a valve), but the existing oil pipelines and natural gas pipelines go to refineries, power plants, industrial areas already. It's pretty quick and easy to substitute from oil, which we will need less of as hydrogen would offset a great deal of oil and natural gas production -- just reuse that infrastructure (especially natural gas).
Hell, for oil, you might even be able to run the two in the same pipeline.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 04, @01:55AM
Okay, hydrogen for home heating and cooking. Wow, the house explosions will probably knock down all the neighboring houses and shatter windows for blocks. Time to start selling Lexan windows.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday January 04, @02:29AM (1 child)
Short, eh?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 04, @03:11AM
Compared to a continental oil pipeline? We already have those.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 04, @06:09PM (1 child)
Hydrogen embrittlement, look it up, also consider the long term effects of the hydrogen diffusion responsible for it on the plastics currently in used in the natural gas distribution networks.
When people bring up the 'just use the existing infrastructure' argument the thing that they most often overlook regarding hydrogen embrittlement and diffusion is that it isn't just the pipelines you have to worry about, you also have to look at all the associated infrastructure components - compressors, decompressors, meters, gaskets, O rings etc.
You'd get away with using the existing natural gas infrastructure as a hack to deliver hydrogen for a while...probably...maybe...but not with any guarantees of doing so safely, especially in the long term.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 05, @01:41AM
Nah, the really big deal is that it will leak and build up in any enclosed space. It has a very wide explosive combustion range in air, and a static spark is enough to set it off.
If your ventilation fans go off for any reason, the most likely result when they start up again is a room shattering kaboom.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday January 05, @08:09PM
Hydrogen leaks worse than any other gas. Ask Boeing and NASA. At the very least, the pipes would all have to be lined with glass, or something else with zero porosity.
I doubt the same pipes could be used without most of the hydrogen escaping. The pipelines would need to be completely re-engineered.
A Russian operative has infiltrated the highest level of our government. Where's Joe McCarthy when we need him?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 04, @04:21AM (2 children)
A lone neutron decays into a proton and an electron with a half-life of 10.5 minutes. I wonder how much of this hydrogen comes from deep radioactive decay that produces neutrons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 05, @12:34AM (1 child)
You don't get many free neutrons. Decays don't generate neutrons: alpha decay produces helium nuclei, beta decay produces electrons, and gamma decay produces gamma rays. Fission can produce excess neutrons, but fission doesn't occur in significant amounts naturally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 05, @01:44AM
https://www.iflscience.com/the-only-known-natural-nuclear-reactor-on-earth-is-2-billion-years-old-76940 [iflscience.com]
That's the only known one because it is close to the surface. Want to bet whether there is any of that going on down deep ?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Saturday January 04, @10:11AM
Hydrogen, platinum, gold, diamonds, you name it. Problem is that it's so difficult to get out that of the four examples only the last three make sense to extract. Guess what all of them have in common?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 04, @01:45PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin [wikipedia.org]
So maybe some hydrocarbons are from this sort of stuff?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday January 05, @08:04PM
Hydrogen, a clean energy carrier, has diverse applications, ranging from fueling vehicles to powering industrial processes and generating electricity.
Ground vehicles shouldn't run on fuel! Mine doesn't. The EV is to a piston vehicle what a Model-T was to a horse and buggy.
The rest, YEA! Hydrogen could power jet airplanes. I don't want to heat my house with electricity, a stupid waste. Change natural gas into fire to run a turbine to make electricity to my house to turn it back to heat, when the natural gas can heat the home far more cheaply and efficiently than with all that energy conversion.
You and I cannot stop global warming! My EV is powered by coal. Federal law should force newly constructed factories and office buildings to have the roofs covered with solar panels and windmills. Gasoline tax should be quadrupled. The only cause of global warming is the greed of the rich and the cowardice of the governments who are at their beck and call.
A Russian operative has infiltrated the highest level of our government. Where's Joe McCarthy when we need him?