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In the Sao Francisco Basin, Brazil, natural hydrogen seeps at volumes exceeding a few hundred kg per day
Natural hydrogen: the new frontier lnkd.in
Based on the articles related to natural hydrogen extraction there is a lot of excitement today in this field. As mentioned months ago in my post on LinkedIn - which they erased - hydrogen is an infinite non-polluting energy carrier.
Geological hydrogen could revolutionize our low-carbon future. Philip J. Ball and Krystian Czado report on discussions of this little-understood resource during the first international summit on natural hydrogen exploration
Hydrogen shows promise as a low-carbon fuel. Current debate centers on whether green hydrogen, produced by splitting water via electrolysis, will compete with blue hydrogen, which is produced when natural gas is split into hydrogen and CO2, and the carbon is captured and stored, or grey hydrogen generated from natural gas, without carbon capture. However, one promising source – naturally occurring or geological hydrogen – has largely been overlooked because it was assumed rare or too difficult to extract.
The first worldwide natural hydrogen conference, H-Nat 2021, took place in June 2021. This virtual event attracted over 500 geoscientists, environmentalists and potential investors. Over two days, speakers elaborated on different aspects of geological hydrogen exploration, development, production (such as purification and separation), storage, transport and utilisation of hydrogen, as well as the legal ‘blue-sky’ elements related to hydrogen exploration and storage.
If natural hydrogen can be exploited economically, it would remove the need for clean water, which is used during green hydrogen electrolysis, and eliminate the need for expensive Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) associated with blue hydrogen. Yet, much is unknown about natural hydrogen, and discovery of this potentially renewable resource raises several questions, such as: Are there any known commercial accumulations? How can it be exploited? What are the legal implications of exploring for hydrogen? What are the costs of production? Can it decarbonise and compete with existing (grey and blue) hydrogen feedstock, or even green hydrogen? Can hydrogen be stored in the subsurface? The H-Nat conference set out to answer some of these questions.
Several presenters indicated that the costs of producing natural hydrogen were low, with estimates ranging from $1.0–0.5 per kg (Michael Levy, Aqius/Hynat, Switzerland & Alain Prinzhofer, HYNAT, Brazil; Viacheslav Zgonnik, Natural Hydrogen Energy LLC, USA). For comparison, Paul Lucchese, International Energy Agency, IEA, presented costs derived from the IEA’s 2019 report ‘The Future of Hydrogen’, which indicate that grey hydrogen costs ~$0.9-3.2 per kg, blue $1.5-2.9 per kg, and green $3.0-7.5 per kg, suggesting that natural hydrogen can compete. In light of natural gas price increases towards the end of 2021, the cost of hydrogen could swing dramatically, if global gas prices remain high.
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