Hydrogen has long been envisioned as the ideal clean energy source for society. Used as a fuel, it releases only water as it is burned. Thus, it could be a direct replacement for fossil fuels in applications where it is difficult to find viable clean alternatives. In fuel cells, hydrogen can be used to generate electricity. But hydrogen faces a major problem: where to obtain it.
Most hydrogen the world uses is produced using natural gas through a process that creates lots of carbon emissions. So-called “green hydrogen” can be made from water but requires lots of energy and is hard to do economically.
There is believed to be large reservoirs of natural hydrogen existing deep underground, but so far these are proving to be elusive. But there are now companies that are trying to stimulate processes underground that actually generate hydrogen. This approach is known as geologic hydrogen.
A start-up company called Vema Hydrogen is drilling test wells in an area of Quebec Canada. They are injecting treated water into iron-rich rocks 1,000 feet deep. The goal is to trigger a special type of chemical reaction that could potentially produce large quantities of hydrogen.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and it gets made naturally in the Earth’s crust when certain iron-rich minerals react with water and rust. The process is known as serpentinization.
Vema Hydrogen has spent years perfecting what they call their “special sauce” to optimize the process. If they or other companies in the field are successful, there could be cheap and plentiful supplies of green hydrogen.
