Nuclear, solar, hydrogen, wind, hydro, biofuel, ammonia, geothermal, tidal …
The world economy is grasping for new – and renewable – energy sources and the options seem both endless and simultaneously inadequate.
The ideal source of energy would be energy dense, cheap to produce, straightforward to transport, safe enough to keep in large quantities and, vitally, sustainable.
Enter from stage left: natural hydrogen.
In this article:
- What is natural hydrogen?
- Lighting the spark
- Why does it matter?
- What’s it going to take?
Natural hydrogen is just as it says on the tin: naturally occurring hydrogen produced by a wide variety of geological processes from oxidisation within the earth and at the bottom of the ocean to the natural radioactivity deep in the earth’s crust.
Hydrogen is the single most abundant molecule in existence. It’s the fuel the universe runs on, powering the sun and stars.
It’s energy dense, extremely reactive and absolutely tiny as the second smallest element, a miniscule molecule with a propensity to slip through the smallest of cracks and latch onto other elements to form new bonds.
We’ve been intimate with hydrogen since before its official discovery in 1766 but the molecule is so small, and so reactive, that for centuries we believed it only existed in concert with other molecules – oxygen to make up the water in our oceans or carbon to form the hydrocarbons of fossil fuels for example.
Large 'deposits' of the gas couldn’t exist, the logic went, as the hydrogen would simply leak or transform into something else.
Like many of humanity’s breakthroughs, discovering economical reservoirs of natural hydrogen was an accident, one that wouldn’t be recognised for the potentially game-changing discovery it was for decades.
Lighting the spark
The year is 1987. The location, the village of Bourakébougou in Mali, Western Africa.
A drilling company is drilling a series of 100-metre-deep water wells for the local village. One of the wells is unexpectedly dry and villagers are noticing some kind of gas coming from it.
They call the drillers back to fix the well. One driller lights a cigarette a little too close.
No one knows it yet, but the well is full of 98% pure hydrogen.
BOOM.
The well goes up in pale blue flames.
Without too much further thought, it’s plugged, isolated and forgotten.
Some 20 years later, Petroma Inc (now known as Hydroma Inc) acquires the exploration rights for massive swathes of land in the area and begins the hunt for exploitable oil and gas.
It doesn’t take long for the company to realise the Bourakébougou Well is full of high-purity hydrogen.
Petroma recognises an opportunity. The company installs combustion generators running straight off the hydrogen from the well.
For seven years, the pilot project supplies Bourakébougou with electricity, with zero pressure depletion; the hydrogen is being replenished continuously from within the well.
With that, natural hydrogen has its first proof-of-concept case study and industry begins to rapidly – but very quietly – take notice.
Why does it matter?
Electric batteries and renewable power like wind and solar will likely form the backbone of a decarbonised energy system but they’re not direct replacements for hydrocarbon fuels.
Long-distance transportation, high-octane fuels, metallurgical processes and pharmaceuticals are just some of the uses for hydrocarbons we’ve yet to find alternatives for, representing barriers to decarbonisation that batteries will struggle to surmount.
Hydrogen has been elevated to a somewhat ‘Swiss army knife’ status in this environment, quickly adopted by myriad governments, international corporations and non-government institutions as the answer to the fuel problem.
Unfortunately, hydrogen has its own issues.
Until the last decade or so, hydrogen was considered purely an ‘energy vector’, that is, manufactured energy that must be produced from other energy sources before it can be used.
The main form of production, accounting for a full 95% of hydrogen currently produced, is the steam methane reformation process (SMR).
Natural gas is superheated to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen as the molecules split, which then reacts with steam to produce carbon dioxide and additional hydrogen. This requires and produces large amounts of carbon emissions.
The obvious answer to this problem is green hydrogen or hydrogen produced from renewable energy sources.
That may seem like a simple solution, but electrolysis (a form of hydrogen production that uses electricity to split hydrogen atoms from water) has very high energy requirements, and large-scale production will require massive amounts of reliable renewables – infrastructure we haven’t yet developed at scale.
There are other ways of producing hydrogen – the colours run the gamut from pink for nuclear to black for coal but white/gold or simply natural hydrogen, as the industry has termed it, is unique.
Produced purely through natural processes within the earth’s crust, natural hydrogen is a tappable, potentially renewable resource that requires no extra energy inputs.
Like natural gas, we simply need to drill it, well it, capture it and move it.
Perhaps easier said than done.
What’s it going to take?
The truth is, no one really knows whether hydrogen – of any colour – is a viable replacement for hydrocarbons.
It does, however, have a lot of potential, as well as some factors that will need to be addressed.
“One of the biggest challenges with the green hydrogen supply chain is just how you're going to get this product from A to B," HyTerra chief operating officer Luke Velterop said in an interview with Proactive.
“Hydrogen is a very small molecule; its volumetric energy density is low and the way it behaves is different to natural gas. And so, the question of our ability to store it and move it over large distances needs to be resolved.”
HyTerra Ltd (ASX:HYT) has a solution: develop natural hydrogen wells close to markets and end users, with minimal transportation necessary.
HyTerra is preparing to begin an extended hydrogen flow test on its jointly-held exploration license in Nebraska, USA – Project Geneva.
Project Geneva is one of the world’s first wildcat hydrogen exploration efforts, pioneering the search for the elusive gas in untested areas of Nebraska and the greater United States.
HyTerra is already preparing for flow tests at its Hoarty NE3 well, the data from which will provide vital information outlining the well’s hydrogen content and flow potential.
“Aside from the encouraging results so far, one of the biggest selling points is the proximity to market,” Velterop explained.
“A prospect can look really exciting geologically, but if we don't think there's a way we can get this product onto a truck or into a pipeline and get it to the end user quickly and cheaply – we're not going after it, because it kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a natural hydrogen resource.”
The other major concern surrounding hydrogen is price.
Currently, the cost of producing green hydrogen in Australia has been estimated anywhere between $4-6 per kilogram, depending on the type of electrolyser used and energy source, although that price may soon drop as low as $2 in the near future, depending on who you ask.
“As it stands, people are going to have to pay a premium for hydrogen, and that's … that's not easy. If we're going to have price parity with fossil fuels, we need to get to that $1 to $2 per kilogram mark,” Velterop said.
Natural hydrogen wells – which take the vast majority of energy input costs out of the equation – could eliminate this price premium hurdle.
“With natural hydrogen, we think that's achievable and we’re working on demonstrating the resource exists in commercial quantities, and how much you can produce from a single well.”
This price potential is directly supported by the Bourakébougou well in Mali, where best-case-scenario conditions (close to end-user, high purity, less than 1,000 metres deep, etc) offered an estimated $0.70 (US $0.50) per kilogram cost.
So, to answer the question...
“Realistically, hydrogen is not a silver bullet for achieving net-zero. It’s another tool that can be used to complement the many, many ways in which we need to change our behaviour and energy sources,” Velterop explained.
Perhaps hydrogen isn’t a silver bullet to replace the entire oil and gas industry, but it will be a valuable arrow in the quiver of an international economy hustling to divest itself of carbon emissions and halt the effects of continued climate change.
“Exploration has risks and maturing natural hydrogen from a geological curiosity to an energy disruptor is in its early stages, but we’re very excited to be pioneering a new resource with such huge potential.”