Forget wind turbines and photovoltaics – this is the fuel that will replace gasoline and diesel…

“I believe that one day water will be used as fuel,” he said. The hydrogen and oxygen of which it is composed, alone or together, will provide an inexhaustible source of heat and light.
This was written by Jules Verne in 1875.
In this context, scientists have long sought to find cheap ways to produce hydrogen, but unfortunately success has been limited.
However, hydrogen in particular is amazingly useful.
As a fuel, it could theoretically power cars, buses, planes and ships.
They can be “burned” in power plants to produce electricity.
Because, unlike fossil fuels, they do not emit greenhouse gases, they can help reduce climate change (as long as they are consumed cleanly).
Governments support efforts to produce hydrogen fuel.
America's inflation control law provides huge subsidies for its clean production of fossil fuels, as well as carbon-free nuclear and renewable energy (which requires a large amount of energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis).
The main problem is that producing hydrogen by any of these methods is expensive and will likely remain so for years.
Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, but, as America's National Renewable Energy Laboratory says, it “does not exist freely” on Earth.
It is usually found bound to oxygen in the form of water, or to carbon in the form of hydrocarbons.
Releasing hydrogen can require a lot of energy, complex assembly and hassle…
So a diverse team of hydrogen researchers is looking for “natural” (or “geologic”) hydrogen, which they believe is more common than is widely acknowledged.
To those who reject the idea, we point out that the idea of ​​the presence of oil in the bowels of the earth in abundance was once rejected…
In the mid-nineteenth century, the world faced an energy crisis.
Whale oil was scarce.
Some thought oil might replace it…but efforts to harness it failed.
When Edwin Drake proposed drilling for oil in Pennsylvania, investors scoffed at the idea: “Oil coming out of the ground…? Nonsense! Are you crazy?”
Then, one day in 1859, Drake struck an oil field and the Oil Age began…

Could something similar happen with hydrogen?

In a small way, it has already happened.
In 1987 in Bourakibougou, in a remote corner of Mali in West Africa, locals searching for water dug 100 meters deep, and when the hole dried up, they gave up.
Then, to their surprise, a mysterious substance burst from that hole.
The well was soon covered over and forgotten about – until a local businessman arrived.
“I want to be the Hydrogen King!” shouted Aliou Diallo.
Diallo, the son of a Malian railway worker, made his fortune by investing in distressed debt.
Then he worked in industry and gold mining.
He got involved in politics despite the risks in a country prone to coups like Mali, and ran for president in 2018, and won an honorable third place.
But now he has abandoned politics to focus on hydrogen.
Coincidentally his hydrogen “mine” is located in Borakibogo which has been awarded to a company run by Mr. Diallo.
When the villagers saw flames coming out of the ground, they assumed the place was cursed.
Mr. Diallo, who is not superstitious, decided to investigate what was happening.
Tests confirmed that the “well” produced 98% of pure hydrogen.
Mr. Diallo brought equipment from Canada to conduct further drilling and testing.
The coup in 2012 terrified foreigners, but it moved forward…
Now these villagers have reliable light day and night, a rarity in rural Mali.
Diallo drilled more than twenty wells and, hoping to replicate his success elsewhere, founded a company called Hydroma in Canada.
“Hydrogen is a game-changer for humanity,” he says.
He is no longer the only one who has this opinion.
Hydrogen is found in France, America, Brazil, Australia, Colombia and Oman.
It is also believed that similar sources exist in Türkiye…
The gas is emitted from the Atlas Mountain Range and the African Rift Valley.
Mysterious formations known as “fairy circles” spotted in the Carolinas, Poland and Western Australia appear to seep in, too.
But why have these hydrogen sources not been observed before?
It may seem strange, but big oil companies have never looked for hydrogen.
Jeffrey Ellis of the US Geological Survey (USGS) adds that the gas is odorless and colorless, and is often ingested by microbes lurking beneath the surface.

Benefits of Soviet science

In 2020, Vyacheslav Zgonik, a Ukrainian-born chemist, published research that “showed” that “molecular hydrogen is more widespread in nature than previously thought.”
Dr. Zgonik, who is fluent in Russian, searched the digitized and untranslated archives of the old Soviet Union for clues.
After reviewing more than 500 studies, he made significant progress.
Much of the relevant field research in the last century was conducted in the Soviet Union and was largely unknown to Western researchers.
Soviet engineers had a different (and now debunked) theory about how oil was created.
They believed it was created from inorganic matter rather than crushed dinosaur bones.
According to this view, carbon in the Earth's mantle would react with hydrogen deep within the Earth to produce hydrocarbons, so it made sense to look for hydrogen as a clear sign of oil.
There are, by one estimate, more than a dozen ways hydrogen can exist in nature, but only a few appear to be likely to produce extractable deposits.
The most promising of these techniques, says Dr. Zagonek, is the serpentinization process: where iron-rich rocks beneath the Earth's surface react with very hot water to produce iron oxide and hydrogen gas.
This reaction has been well studied.
Dr. Zagonek's company, Natural Hydrogen Energy, has identified a potential site in Nebraska and opened the world's first hydrogen source, at a depth of about 3,400 metres.
There are other theories regarding hydrogen extraction…
What is true, however, is that since the publication of Dr. Zagonek's article, interest in hydrogen has begun to increase.
The Geological Society of London attracted more than 200 experts to a conference on the subject in July.
The US Department of Energy concluded that “large amounts of geological hydrogen [πιθανώς] It exists underground.”
The search for hydrogen is attracting millions of dollars in investment, says financial data company S&P Global.
Australian explorers such as HyTerra and Gold Hydrogen have raised millions through public offerings. Other efforts are funded by government grants or from giant oil companies.
Coloma, a secretive Denver-based startup, recently raised $91 million in funding from the venture arm of Breakthrough Energy, a climate innovation organization founded by Bill Gates.
Speaking to The Economist on the sidelines of the UN climate conference, Gates said of natural hydrogen: “It could be a giant project.”
The question now is whether it can be exploited.
There is still a lot of uncertainty about whether any of the hydrogen dreamers' dreams can be realized.
But it is possible that cheap, low-carbon fuels will become widely available at some point in the future.
Hydrogen has the highest energy density of all chemical fuels and is highly reactive, says Eric Tohn, chief technology officer at Breakthrough Energy.
This makes it strong.
It can be used to make basic but currently dirty things like liquid and solid fuels and ammonia. With enough hydrogen, Dr Toon believes it may be possible to produce starch without photosynthesis, which would revolutionize agriculture.
He says only nuclear fusion has similar potential, and he believes hydrogen is a less risky bet.
“If you have enough hydrogen and it's cheap enough, you can literally do anything,” he concludes. Jules Verne would certainly approve.

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