There's Enough Hydrogen Underground to Power Earth for 170,000 Years

• Scientists estimate Earth already contains enough naturally occurring "geologic" hydrogen to meet global energy needs for 170,000 years, and the U.S. DOE says it could potentially be produced for under $1/kg -- a fraction of current green hydrogen costs.
• Canadian researchers published findings in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment showing vast deposits in the Canadian Shield could be economically viable, prompting startups like Vema Hydrogen to begin test drilling in Quebec.
• Significant technical hurdles remain -- identifying optimal deposits and perfecting extraction methods will require major investment and time -- but experts say the potential payoff justifies the effort.

Green hydrogen has been hyped as a silver bullet solution to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors like steelmaking and industrial shipping for decades now. It can be combusted at high heats like fossil fuels, but leaves behind nothing but water vapor when it burns, rather than world-heating greenhouse gas emissions. So why does green hydrogen still represent less than one percent of all hydrogen production in the United States? The simple answer is that producing green hydrogen is expensive, and usually an inefficient use of the clean energy resources needed to make it. 

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But there may be a way to extract hydrogen in a way that not only makes environmental sense, it also could be financially feasible. “Geologic hydrogen” is hydrogen that already naturally exists underground within rock formations, and could theoretically be mined directly for use rather than produced using energy resources, all at a competitive cost. And, scientists estimate that the world has already generated enough of it to meet all of humanity’s energy needs for the next 170,000 years. 

However, finding and extracting all that geologic hydrogen is another story. Scientists are just getting started on finding and understanding geologic hydrogen, but what we do know is extremely promising for a cleaner energy future. The United States Department of Energy has estimated that this form of hydrogen could potentially be produced for less than USD $1 per kilogram. That’s a fraction of the cost of current forms of green hydrogen, which come in at around $3.50–$6.00 per kilogram. Unlocking geologic hydrogen could make this clean energy alternative cost-competitive with fossil fuels, presenting a major opportunity to catalyze decarbonization pathways, especially in the context of heavy industry.

“There is a global race to increase hydrogen availability in order to decarbonize and reduce the costs of the existing hydrogen economy,” Barbara Sherwood Lollar, lead author of a new Canada-based geologic hydrogen study was recently quoted by Popular Mechanics. “We now have a better understanding of the economic viability of this resource that can be mapped to hydrogen deposits around the world that are both already known and yet to be discovered.” 

Canada is the home to vast amounts of geologic hydrogen across its territories and particularly in the Canadian Shield, a vast region of Precambrian rock that surrounds Hudson Bay. Researchers at the University of Oxford, Durham University and the University of Toronto published a study last year in the acclaimed scientific journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment that found Canada’s vast hydrogen deposits could feasibly be extracted for economic use if investors get on board and help to advance the science behind geologic hydrogen discovery and extraction.

Some startups are already working to make geologic hydrogen a reality in Canada. One such startup called Vema Hydrogen has already drilled two test wells in rural Quebec, digging 1,000 feet deep into the bedrock to begin experimenting with the extraction of the natural hydrogen stored there. The company will inject treated water into iron-rich rock deposits with the aim of creating a chemical reaction that would yield large amounts of clean-burning hydrogen.

“The potential is massive,” Pierre Levin, chief executive of Vema, told the New York Times earlier this month. “You can find rocks like this all over the world, enough to produce billions of tons of hydrogen.”

Of course, there’s a lot of scientific progress that needs to be made before that can happen. Nailing down the process to find the most optimal geologic hydrogen deposits and then finding the right methods and materials to kick off the desired chemical reaction to cost-effectively and safely extract it will likely require a lot of time and money. And there’s no guarantee that it’s actually feasible – but there is plenty of hope. 

“This could be transformational if we can figure it out,” Madeline Schomburg, a vice president at nonprofit research organization Energy Futures Initiative, recently told the New York Times. “Even if the likelihood of success is low, the potential rewards are so high that it’s worth exploring.”