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The construction site for a plant for hydrogen production in Germany.
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A growing number of considerable companies, from mining giants to energy students, are Hugging exaggeration For natural hydrogen.
It comes as buzzing Continue building On the potential of a resource that defenders say that the global energy panorama could radically remodel.
Natural hydrogen, sometimes known as white, gold or geological hydrogen, refers to hydrogen gas found in its natural shape under the surface of the earth. The last resource, First discovered By accident in Mali almost 40 years ago, it does not contain carbon and only produces water when it burns.
The interest of investors in the nascent natural hydrogen sector has intensified in recent months, feeding optimism initially promoted by new research companies and junior exploration companies.
During the past year more or less, some of the established sponsors in the sector include mining giants Red River and FortescueRussian state energy Gazprom, the arm of the risk capital of the British oil giant BP and Bill Gates‘Clean Technology Investment Fund Breakhroughthrough Energy Ventures.
We can use it to make metals, make fuels, could even make food and all with much less emissions than conventional approaches.
Eric Tone
Director of Technology at Breakthrough Energy
Exploratory efforts are currently being made in several countries around the world, with Canada and the United States leading the way in terms of project counts during the last year, according to an investigation published by the consultant Rystad Energy.
Analysts expect that next year be fundamental, with the actors in the industry who expect their exploration campaigns to soon can locate the elusive gas.
However, not everyone is convinced about the potential of clean energy of natural hydrogen, with critics that mark environmental concerns and distribution challenges. For its part, the International Energy Agency has warned There is the possibility that the resource “is too dispersed to be captured in an economically viable way.”
A global fight for ‘Gold White’
Minh Khoi Le, head of hydrogen research at Rystad Energy, said it is difficult to predict whether natural hydrogen can fulfill its promise in 2025.
“I suppose that last year was the year when things became really interesting for the natural hydrogen space because it was when many companies began planning drilling campaigns, extraction tests and we began to see that some important players also got involved,” LE A CNBC told CNBC by video called.
“Since then, I would say that progress has been relatively slow. There are only a few companies that have really begun to drill,” he added.
Metters that are part of the electrolysis plant of the H2 hydrogen geological storage installation.
Alex Halada | AFP | Getty images
Le De Rystad, who characterized the global search for natural hydrogen as a “White gold fever“Last year, he said that although there was no great progress in the last 12 months, an increase in investors’ interest could help offer some significant results.
“Now, we are beginning to see that companies receive investment, so they have money to finance their drilling campaigns. So, if we want to get a response from whether this will work, we will reach that conclusion a little faster this year,” said Le.
Hydrogen has been for a long time invoiced As one of the many potential energy sources that could play a key role in the Energy transitionBut most of them occurs using fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, a process that generates important greenhouse gas emissions.
Green hydrogen, a process that involves dividing water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity, is an exception to Hydrogen color rainbow. However, its development has been stopped by very high costs and a challenging economic environment.
Clean energy and own harvest
Hyterra of Australia announced An investment of $ 21.9 million of Fortescue in August last year, noting that the income would be used to finance exploration projects.
A spokesman for Fortescue, one of the main green hydrogen developers, said that his impulse in the natural hydrogen sector was in line with his “strategic commitment to explore zero emission fuels.”
Recognizing that more work is required to completely evaluate the natural hydrogen emissions profile, Fortescue spokesman described technology as a “promising opportunity” to accelerate industrial decarbonization.
A hydrogen transport truck, on the right, in the Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. Christmas Creek mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, Australia, on Tuesday, October 17, 2023.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty images
In other places, BP Ventures, BP’s risk capital arm, led a round of funds from series A of the Startup of Natural Hydrogen Exploration based in the United Kingdom Snowfox Discovery earlier this year, while the new company based in France Mantle8 recently received 3.4 million euros ($ 3.9 million) in initial investor funds, including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate fund and technology founded by Bill Gates in 2015.
Eric Téone, director of technology at Breakthrough Energy, said the background had backed the tastes of Mantle8 and the head -based startup in the United States Koloma because the promise of natural hydrogen is such that “it could unlock a new era of clean energy and its own harvest.”
“Hydrogen is a pure reactive chemical energy. If we have enough hydrogen and it is cheap enough, we can do almost anything. We can use it to make metals, make fuels, it could even make food and all with much less emissions than conventional approaches,” Tumbc told CNBC by email.
“We know that it is out there and not only in isolated pockets. Early exploration has identified natural hydrogen on six continents. The challenge is now to discover how to extract it efficiently, move it safely and build the systems to work,” he added.
In search of the ‘Eureka’ moment
Aurian Durbuis, Chief of Cabinet of France8, said the impulse certainly seems to be building from a risk capital perspective.
“In fact, there is a growing interest, especially given the dynamics with green hydrogen at this time, unfortunately. People are blank eyes to other solutions, which is in our favor,” Durbuis told CNBC per video.
Taking the evolution of American shale gas as an analogy, even if great findings are made, it will probably have decades to achieve industrial production.
Arnout Everts
Member of the Hydrogen Sciences Coalition
Based on Grenoble, in the foothills of the French Alps, Mantle8 points to the discovery of 10 million tons of natural hydrogen by 2030 to complement the Objectives of the European Union.
“The question is Can we find producing deposits, in oil and gas terminology? That is really what we need to find as an industry,” Durbuis said.
“We believe that we can drill in 2028 and we hope that this is the moment of Eureka because if we can find something at that time, then it could obviously be a change of play. If we find highly concentrated hydrogen, with pressure, then this only changes everything,” he added.
What follows for natural hydrogen?
The Hydrogen Sciences Coalition, a group of academics, scientists and engineers who seek to provide a vision based on evidence to the role of hydrogen in the energy transition, said that the exploration for natural hydrogen is still in an “embryonic stage”, but still, the probability of locating large findings of almost pure hydrogen that can be extracted at a “relatively thin” scale.
The only hydrogen well produced by the world in Mali, for example, supplies “only a fraction of daily energy production of a single wind turbine,” Arnout Everts told CNBC, geo -scientific and member of the Hydrogen Sciences Coalition, by email.
The Geological Agency team of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) took samples of natural hydrogen gas found in a village by Putte Jaya, Regency Morowali, central province of Sulawesi, Indonesia, October 23, 2023.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty images
“Taking the evolution of American shale gas as an analogy, even if great findings are made, it will probably take decades to achieve industrial production,” Everts said.
Ultimately, the Hydrogen Sciences Coalition said that the search for natural hydrogen runs the risk of distracting the renewable hydrogen approach necessary to decarbonize the industries today.
