What is white hydrogen and why haven’t we heard more about it?

TL;DR

• White hydrogen was discovered in Mali, West Africa in 2012. This highly sought-after gas is naturally renewable, doesn’t emit any carbon dioxide and is ready to use. It is also relatively cost-effective compared to green hydrogen.

• While hydrogen deposits have been found in sites in Australia, Eastern Europe, France, Oman, Spain and the US, the only active location currently being used to power electricity for a local village is Bourakébougou in Mali.

• The development of new sites is being driven by start-ups, often emerging from, or working in collaboration with, the mining sector. These include NH2E in the US, Helios Aragon in northern Spain and Kaloma, which is backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

• There are limitations to white hydrogen. It is difficult to transport, prone to harmful leaks and can be costly to drill when located far below the surface. The biggest drawback is that white hydrogen is virtually undetectable above ground, and most deposits are likely to be found in unreachable offshore locations.

• There is cause for optimism though as new sites are being explored in Colombia and France in the Lorraine Basin. The site could contain 46 million tonnes of white hydrogen, a quantity equivalent to more than half the world’s current annual production of grey hydrogen.

The detail

Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical on Earth and has the potential to transform the way fossil fuel dependent industries operate.

However, until recently, our understanding of hydrogen and its potential as an energy source has been restricted to three colours: grey, blue and green. Green hydrogen has been championed by climate change activists as it uses sustainable electricity to power an electrolyser that splits the hydrogen from water molecules. This creates pure white hydrogen – also known as natural, golden, or geological hydrogen – with no harmful by-products.

Green hydrogen, while the most progressive form, is expensive, and uptake has been relatively slow despite the hype around it.

We need to look back to 2012, when a discovery was made that could prove to be game-changing. It was a happy accident – a borehole in Mali, West Africa, which had been drilled for a well decades earlier, was found to be emitting 98% pure natural white hydrogen.

Why was this discovery potentially so important? Before this, experts had no idea that significant quantities of pure hydrogen gas could be found in the earth. Not only does this form of hydrogen come with no harmful emissions, but it’s ready-made and doesn’t need to undergo costly conversion processes as is the case with green and blue hydrogen. Thought to form through water-mineral reactions beneath the earth’s surface, white hydrogen is also sustainable as it is continuously replenished.

While still in its infancy, white hydrogen could play a significant role in helping the world meet its target of 200 million tonnes of low-carbon hydrogen per annum to decarbonise by 2050. Geologists are experimenting with extracting white hydrogen, and it’s estimated that the supply could reach 17 million tonnes per annum by 2050.

An emerging industry

Currently, the only operational white hydrogen project is in the Bourakébougou field in Mali, the site where it was first discovered over a decade ago. Once the mysterious gas was reported, the site was prospected by Malian energy entrepreneur, Aliou Diallo, who teamed up with Chapman Petroleum to determine the type of gas being emitted. It now delivers electricity to a small village at the relatively cost-effective price of €0.50 per kilo, a cost twice to 10 times lower than the hydrogen produced from other sources. Since then, exploration company Hydroma has drilled 24 new wells within 10km of Bourakébougou and claims to have found multiple accumulations of white hydrogen.

Deposits have also been found in sites in Australia, Eastern Europe, France, Oman, Spain and the US, but this nascent industry is being driven by start-ups rather than large companies. These tend to be companies with experience in mining and drilling, which naturally lend themselves to prospecting. Levels of investment are also far lower than the billions of dollars being contributed to clean hydrogen production from electrolysis. Natural Hydrogen Energy – NH2E – is one example, founded 10 years ago by Viacheslav Zgonnik. This company has mineral leases for exploratory drilling across the US and was the first to drill for natural hydrogen in Nebraska. It also hopes to be the first to start extracting and producing white hydrogen in the US.

Established in 2018, Helios Aragon owns gas exploration permits in the north of Spain and covers a site of around 220,000 acres. It has received an investment of €12 million to fund its drilling project and estimates that 1.1 million tonnes of white hydrogen may be available beneath the surface. In Australia, the mining and hydrogen industries have joined forces with the global metal mining company, Fortescue, acquiring a 39.8% stake in HyTerra for $21.9 million. This investment has enabled an expansion in the hydrogen start-up’s operations now that is has the funds to explore six wells instead of just two.

Kaloma is an interesting case study as it has received over $350 million in investment from several sources including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The company plans to leverage its expertise in hydrocarbons to aid its search for white hydrogen deposits. As its CEO and co-founder Pete Johnson explains, these hydrogen start-ups can “use expertise and service providers that have traditionally served the oil, gas, and mining industries [as] leveraging and modifying what already exists will allow us to mature the industry faster”.

An unknown quantity

Even so, these start-up-led efforts demonstrate one of the biggest challenges facing the white hydrogen industry – accessibility. While a study in 2020 estimated that up to 23 million tonnes of hydrogen can be obtained geologically each year, the location of these reserves is still largely unknown.

It isn’t clear how white hydrogen deposits form and it’s likely that most of these deposits will be hidden away in unreachable offshore locations. On the surface, the reactive nature of hydrogen gas means there won’t be many – if any – physical signs that a hydrogen reservoir lies underneath. If it did pop up in existing oil and gas reserves, it would have already been converted into hydrocarbons.

When it is found in offshore locations or deep underground in substantial enough quantities to make extraction worthwhile, white hydrogen can involve high extraction costs. While these costs currently sit at around $1 per kilo, deeper drilling to achieve required purity levels could ramp up these costs and make them prohibitively expensive for commercial production, at least in the short term.

Hidden dangers

Hydrogen also has limitations when it comes to transportation. In its gas form, it takes up a lot of space and can only be cooled into liquid at temperatures below -253 degrees Celsius. This could make it too costly to transport at scale, and that’s without taking into account the safety concerns surrounding the fact that hydrogen is more explosive than natural gas.

Leaks are also a concern. There is also a worrying lack of data on the potential harm that hydrogen leaks can have on the atmosphere, as well as a lack of technology to monitor potential incidents. When it is leaked, hydrogen can reduce the concentration of molecules that destroy greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere, limiting its environmental impact.

That’s not to say the white hydrogen projects do not carry potential. It is still in its early stages and there are several prospective benefits, not least the fact it is essentially ‘clean energy’ due to not requiring any water or electrolysis in the production process.

Global prospecting

Exciting new sites are also emerging. In May, La Française d’Energie (again accidentally) discovered a large deposit of white hydrogen in the Lorraine region of France.

Described as Europe’s largest white hydrogen discovery to date, it is thought that the Lorraine Basin could contain 46 million tonnes of the gas, a quantity equivalent to more than half the world’s current annual production of grey hydrogen. Experts predict that, eventually, France could produce three million tonnes each year with new sites being studied in the Alps, New Caledonia and the Pyrenees.

Across the Atlantic, the Ecopetrol Group in Colombia has detected the first signs of white hydrogen. While still in its early stages, the country’s white hydrogen industry is one of the most promising resources in its low-emission hydrogen portfolio and could help Columbia fulfil its national hydrogen roadmap by 2050. Recent studies show positive indicators that concentrations of up to 40,000 parts per million have been found, values similar to those found in Mali.

Despite these green shoots, it is clear that the white hydrogen sector has a lot of development ahead of it.

There are many challenges and puzzles to solve, from safe transportation to potential leaks, but perhaps the most difficult roadblock the industry will need to navigate is the scarcity of new sites and the mystery surrounding their location.  And with start-ups driving the search, progress could be slow.

However, the existence of white hydrogen does prove that the renewable energy industry is still evolving, and new opportunities will arise. There is reason for hope, for hydrogen and beyond.

— Lew 👋

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