How vast untapped resources of hydrogen could change shipping

Hydrogen has long been claimed as one of several possible energy sources that might play a pivotal role in the energy transition, but the scarce element comes with a carbon footprint that does not justify the cost of producing it. Nearly all hydrogen is currently produced as grey using fossil fuels, which emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases, or delivered in its green form using prohibitively costly renewable power. However, a global rush is underway for one other previously neglected colour in the hydrogen rainbow that supporters believe might make a critical difference in the transition away from fossil fuels. Speaking at the inaugural Geneva Dry event about possible shifts in future coal trades earlier this month, Hamish Norton, president of bulker giant Star Bulk Carriers, entertained an idea of geologic hydrogen. Geologic hydrogen, often known as white, gold, or natural hydrogen, is a gas that originates naturally beneath the Earth's surface from high-temperature interactions between water and iron-rich minerals. It is currently poorly understood, but, according to Norwegian energy intelligence firm Rystad, it could be a potentially groundbreaking energy resource if scientific claims of multiple large deposits of possibly hundreds of years' worth of energy reserves worldwide can be tapped into. Preliminary research by the US Geological Survey (USGS) estimates up to 5trn tonnes of geologic hydrogen may exist in various rock formations but that they are too deeply buried, too far offshore, or in accumulations that are too small, making it highly unlikely they could ever be economically recovered. Nevertheless, Geoffrey Ellis, a petroleum geochemist with the Energy Resources Program of the USGS, said that even if just a few percent of that estimated volume could be recovered, it would likely be enough to supply all projected demand for hundreds of years. “The key,” he said, “is to understand if hydrogen exists in significant accumulations that can be economically accessed, and if so, how to find these resources.” Geological hydrogen extraction is in its infancy. But if it scales over time, including by utilising the oil and gas industry's infrastructure expertise, it could provide an additional source of zero-emissions fuel to power the next generation of heavy duty transport including shipping. Most hydrogen today, however, is manufactured using natural gas, requiring large amounts of energy and releasing carbon dioxide that is often left unabated. Current methods for reducing the carbon footprint of producing hydrogen include capturing and storing the carbon dioxide produced, and getting the so-called blue hydrogen in the process, which is more costly than traditional hydrogen manufacturing. Looking at the hype surrounding geologic hydrogen, the gas is on the verge of a scenario that resembles a new gold rush, promising it could potentially rewrite the world's energy map but also commodities shipping, such as coal, oil/products and other energy sources. “If China turns out to have a lot of that, and it may, we may see a more rapid reduction in coal consumption,” Star Bulk’s Norton pointed out at the dry bulk supply chain gathering in Geneva. Rystad Energy research showed that at the end of last year, 40 companies were searching for natural hydrogen deposits, up from just 10 in 2020. One of the most promising qualities of the potential fuel is its lower cost than other types of hydrogen due to its natural occurrence. Grey hydrogen, derived from fossil fuels, costs less than $2/kg of hydrogen on average, while its green counterpart is currently around three times pricier. Depending on the deposit's depth and purity, projects could cost between $0.5 and $1 per kg, solidifying white hydrogen’s price competitiveness, Rystad finds. In addition to the cost advantage, Rystad noted the gas can also have a low carbon intensity depending on its content of 85% and minimal methane contamination, but also that a lower percentage of hydrogen (75%) mixed with a higher percentage of methane was found to emit 1.5 kg CO2e/kg H2 – a level of emissions 50% higher than the Hydrogen Science Coalition’s clean hydrogen definition. The initial discovery of geologic hydrogen occurred in 1987 in a small village in Mali after a failed attempt to drill for water. Despite recent high-profile findings from France to Albania, it is still the world’s only documented hydrogen-producing well. It delivers almost pure hydrogen from a shallow reservoir layer at a very low rate of about 5 to 50 tonnes per year. However, not everyone is impressed. According to the Hydrogen Science Coalition (HSC), a group of academics, scientists and engineers seeking to bring an evidence-based view to hydrogen’s role in the energy transition, apart from Mali, no findings of geologic hydrogen to date have flow tests measuring the rate at which a well can extract hydrogen from underground and demonstrate evidence that hydrogen can be produced commercially. To put this into perspective, the Mali well production is equivalent to 0.3 to 3 barrels of oil per day – a power output less than a tenth of a single medium-sized wind turbine. A recent finding in Albania is said to have the highest flow of any geologic hydrogen source measured to date. At about 200 tonnes of hydrogen a year, the find’s estimated flow is just 1/350th of what a typical steel plant consuming 70,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year would require. “In a best-case scenario, this entire find in Albania is estimated to contain a modest 5,000 to 50,000 tonnes of hydrogen equaling just 1/2000th of one year’s global hydrogen consumption,” said HSC member and veteran geoscientist and energy consultant Dr Arnout Everts. Everts noted that hydrogen is more difficult to transport than oil or gas, requiring expensive infrastructure that caters to its technical and safety challenges. It is a difficult-to-contain molecule with high diffusivity, has a much lower energy density, and is intrinsically more dangerous when it comes to fires and explosions. “Transporting hydrogen over long distances via pipeline or ship is highly inefficient, involving uneconomic energy losses and emissions from leakage that could erase any potential climate benefits,” he said. For him, considering findings to date, what is known about geologic hydrogen systems, and the fact that favourable settings appear rare, the odds of finding the gas that can be extracted at the scale of large natural gas developments look relatively slim. HSC told Splash Extra that future finds of hydrogen in reservoirs suitable for continuous, commercial-scale collection of the gas would present a very welcome opportunity to decarbonise current-day hydrogen production, but that at present, the existence of such a resource is purely theoretical and that such finds would need to progress through many steps to reach commercial viability, similar to an oil and gas project. “No find of hydrogen to date has moved beyond the first step of this process,” said Everts. Pumping hydrogen out of the ground should be much cheaper, which is why proponents sometimes call it the new gold. The US Department of Energy (DOE) has earmarked $20m for 16 projects to accelerate the natural subsurface generation of the potential fuel, aiming for about $1/kg which should make it competitive with natural gas on an energy-price basis. All in all, it is still early days for natural hydrogen. Scientists don’t completely understand how it forms and migrates and—most important—whether it accumulates in a commercially exploitable way. "In geologic hydrogen, we don't know how we can accelerate the production of it because it's a chemical reaction, nor do we really understand how to engineer the subsurface so that we can safely extract it," said Douglas Wicks, program director at DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA‑E) which funds such "game-changing" energy technologies. Minh Khoi Le, global head of hydrogen at Rystad Energy, says the technology and maturity of geologic hydrogen in general are still very nascent and agrees with HSC that the industry has not gotten a project that has successfully gone through all stages of exploration to extraction yet. Le finds that similar to most technologies, geologic hydrogen exploration and extraction won't be improved unless there's actual effort into developing technologies and understanding. “There needs to be time, money and effort spent in the fields before we can really say it will work/play a big role or not,” he told Splash Extra. For Le, the challenge for hydrogen adoption could further add to the challenge, but he stressed that "we need to be aware" that in the future energy mix, hydrogen demand and its role won't replicate that of oil and gas, as a large part of the current demand will be electrified through renewable energy. "Hence, although large-scale geologic hydrogen will be important, it will not need to be at the scale of oil and gas," Le concluded.

How vast untapped resources of hydrogen could change shipping

Is geologic hydrogen an energy game-changer or just hot air?

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