Scientists have revealed new evidence that natural hydrogen gas, located in the depths of the Earth’s crust, can provide a huge resource for clean energy equivalent to 170,000 years of current global oil consumption.
This discovery indicates that “natural hydrogen” may play an important role in the global transformation in the field of energy, if a way to find it and extract it at a low cost.
And explain the studyConducted by researchers from the University of Oxford, the University of Toronto and the University of Durham, and recently published in the journal “Nature Reviors Earth and Inferronment”, how to accumulate hydrogen in the continental crust of the land through normal operations that have been going on billions of years ago.
The study also shows that this natural hydrogen can be extracted with a slim carbon fingerprint, unlike the processed hydrogen, which is currently producing tens of millions of tons of carbon dioxide every year.
The fuel of the new world
Scientists believe that hydrogen is no longer just a choice for clean fuel, but rather a necessity, as it helps in feeding half of the world’s population by operating fertilizer production, and the essence of most plans aimed at achieving a carbon -free future.
However, most hydrogen today comes from hydrocarbons, which makes its production a source of about 2.4% of global carbon dioxide emissions. It is expected that the demand will increase significantly from 90 million metric tons in 2022 to about 540 million metric tons by 2050, so finding a way to produce hydrogen without adding more carbon dioxide is very important.
Interest in natural hydrogen capabilities has increased commercially after the discovery of the Burakibogo gas field in Mali in 2018, which produces hydrogen with a purity of more than 97%, although the production volume data is still limited.
How is hydrogen formed in the ground?
The new study identified two main mechanisms that motivate natural hydrogen in the continental crust. The first occurs when water interacts with iron -rich rocks, which leads to iron oxidation and the release of hydrogen molecules, and the rich groundwater discovered in the Samail area north of Amman is one of the examples of this type of interaction.
The second mechanism, known as radiological analysis, occurs when radioactive items such as uranium, thorium and potassium are exported, radiation that breaks the water molecules into their basic components, which are hydrogen and oxygen.
The researchers explain in the study that these reactions occur at very different periods of time, as water reactions in the rocks are very cracking from thousands to millions of years, while the radioactive analysis of hydrogen produces lasts for a period of a few tens of hundreds of millions of years.
According to an official press release from Oxford University participating in the study, these operations have produced huge amounts of hydrogen over the geological ages, and researchers estimate that the hydrogen stored in the Earth’s crust over a billion years ago can generate energy equivalent to approximately 170 thousand years of current global oil consumption.
Clean energy but not renewed
The researchers highlighted several distinctive characteristics of natural hydrogen, including its low carbon imprint that can be compared to the “green hydrogen” fingerprint produced through electrolysis with renewable energy, but it is not a renewed resource on human time domains.
This puts the natural hydrogen in a unique category, as it is a potential source of carbon low -carbon energy with a much larger backup base than fossil fuel, and a much lower environmental effect when extracting.
Authors estimate that natural hydrogen production can cost half a dollar and one dollar per kilogram, which is much lower than “green hydrogen”, which is the cost of one kilogram production between 2.5 and 6.5 dollars, and “blue hydrogen” derived from natural gas with carbon capture (between $ 1.5 and 4 dollars).
The researchers note that preserving hydrogen throughout the geological ages presents unique challenges, as it is characterized by its ease of movement and sensitivity to consumption by underground microbes, and this explains why only a small part of it can be extracted today, despite the huge quantities produced throughout the geological history.