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Finding hydrogen tanks in the earth’s crust can help speed up the energy transition away from fossil fuels. | Credit: Simon Dux via Alamy
The last breakthroughs suggest that the hydrogen tanks are Buried in countless regions of the world including At least 30 US statesS
Finding such tanks can help speed up the global energy transition, but so far geologists have only a partial understanding of how large hydrogen accumulations are formed – and where to find them.
“The game of the moment is to find where it was released, accumulated and reserved”, ” Chris BalentinProfessor and chairman of geochemistry at the University of Oxford and a leading author of a new article on the view of hydrogen production in the earth’s crust, Live Science told an email.
Ballentine’s new paper is beginning to answer these questions. According to the authors, the earth’s crust has produced enough hydrogen over the last 1 billion years to meet our current energy needs for 170,000 years. What is not yet clear is how much of this hydrogen can be accessible and profitable.
In the new review published on Tuesday (May 13) in the magazine Nature views the land and the environmentResearchers prepare a list of geological conditions that stimulate the creation and accumulation of natural hydrogen gas underground, which should facilitate hunting for reservoirs.
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“The specific conditions for the accumulation and production of hydrogen gas are what a number of research companies (eg Koloma funded by a consortium led by Bill Gates Breakthrough Energy Fund, HY-TERRA funded by Fortescue, and SNOWFOX, funded by BP [British Petroleum] and riotinto) look carefully and this will vary for different geological environments, “Balentin said.
Natural hydrogen tanks require three key elements to form: a source of hydrogen, tank rocks and natural seals that capture the gas underground. There are a dozen natural processes that can create hydrogen, the simplest being a chemical reaction that divides the water into hydrogen and oxygen – and every type of rock hosting at least one of these processes is a potential source of hydrogen, Balentine said.
“One place that attracts great interest is in Kansas, where a function called Mid Continental Rift, formed about 1 billion years ago, has created a huge accumulation of rocks (mainly basalt) that can react with water to form hydrogen,” he said. “The demand is here for geological structures that may have caught and accumulated the generated hydrogen.”
Based on the knowledge of how other gases are released from rocks underground, the authors of the review suggest that tectonic Stress and high heat flow can release hydrogen deep into the earth’s crust. “This helps to bring hydrogen to the nearby surface where it can accumulate and form a commercial resource,” Balentin said.
Within the crust, a wide range of common geological contexts may be a promising for study companies, the review, which is found ranging from offhiolite complexes to large magma provinces and Greenstone archaean straps.
Offhelite landscape in the Italian province of Sondrio. The rocks are rich in iron, which gives them a reddish-brown color. | Credit: Michele d’Amico Supersky77/Getty Images
The officeolites are pieces of the earth’s crust and the upper mantle that once sat under the ocean, but later were pushed on land. In 2024, researchers found a massive hydrogen tank Within the Offhiolite Complex in Albania. The magma rocks are those hardened by magma or lava, and the archaean straps of green stones are up to 4 billion annual formations, which are characterized by green minerals, such as chlorite and actinolite.
The conditions discussed in the review are the “first principles” for the study of hydrogen, co -author of the study John GlujasProfessor of Geo -Geoenergy, Capture and Carbon Storage at the University of Durham in the UK, says in a statementS The study outlines the key ingredients that companies should consider when developing their study strategies, including processes by which hydrogen can migrate or be destroyed underground.
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“We know, for example, that underground germs easily feast hydrogen,” co -author Barbara Sherwood LollarProfessor of Earth Science at the University of Toronto, said in the statement. So the environment in which bacteria can come in contact with hydrogen -producing rocks may not be great places to search for tanks, said Sherwood Lolar.
Hydrogen is used to make key industrial chemicals such as methanol and ammonia, which is a component in most fertilizers. Gas can also help the transition away from fossil fuels, as hydrogen can supply both cars and power plants.
But today, hydrogen is produced by hydrocarbons, which means that gas production comes with huge carbon emissions. The “clean” hydrogen from the underground tanks has a much smaller carbon footprint because it is natural.
The earth’s crust produces “lots of hydrogen,” Balentin said, and now it’s a matter of following the list of ingredients to find it.